MSU baseball feature on Perfect Game

[messageboardsuperhero]

I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but Kendall Rogers wrote a pretty big article about us and released it today on Perfect Game. It's supposed to be about how we plan to handle expectations and deal with success this year.

Honestly, with Cohen's attitude and the personalities he's brought into the program, I really don't see us getting complacent this year. John Cohen is on a damn mission.

Can someone who has a PG subscription give us a rundown of what was said?

[MsStateBaseball]

I got it. Expect more stealing bases. Expect starting pitchers to go longer. Robson starter in left, Henderson starter in right. This is all from Cohen. Click on the vandy guy asking me if I read this article on twitter right now, you can read the article.

[engie]

It only shows the first couple of paragraphs -- no details. It is cut off right in the middle of the interview with Rea.

I'm almost tempted to join... Would if I thought Rogers would be bringing something to the table that I'm not already getting elsewhere...

[messageboardsuperhero]

That's good to hear that we are planning on stealing some bases this year- I was really hoping for that.

I expect to see us rotate a lot of outfielders this year. Obviously Henderson, Robson, and Bradford are good, but I expect a lot out of Vickerson. Armstrong will be a good role player, and Swinarski should see time as well.

ETA: And yeah, you can't read the whole article unless you are a PG subscriber.

[DudyDawg]

Would love to see us use the hit and run with the speed and contact on this years team

[Will James]

Lets leave the stealing to those who can do it 70% of the time successfully.

[BLC]

Base stealing may not be as cut and dried as the sabermetrician's numbers would imply. It's a lot like every other phase of the game - if you can do it better than your opponent, then it can be a net positive. There are so many factors that go into stealing bases, that without knowing all those factors and how they're being accounted for by the players and coaches, it's hard to make a determination if it's a positive or negative. What I do know is that pressuring defenses absolutely works (it works more in high school than college, more in college than MiLB and more in MiLB than in MLB). Whether that's through steal attempts, hit and runs, bunts, aggressive hitting, etc. is all debatable. At the end of the day, college kids make mistakes and pressure will facilitate more mistakes. Bottom line, I'd love to see MSU pressure defenses.

[smootness]

Doing it better than your opponent doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. If your opponent steals successfully on 50% of their attempts and keeps attempting it, then they're dumb. Just because you are successful at a 60% clip doesn't mean you should keep doing it because you're more successful than they are.

You're still running yourself into outs, and the extra bases you are getting are not outweighing the outs. So while you may steal better than they do, you are still more likely to score more runs without stealing than by stealing if you do so at a 60% rate.

You are stealing against their defense and trying to score runs against their defense. Their own steal rate doesn't really matter to you.

[CadaverDawg]

I'm with WJ on this. Not only have we never been good at it, we also don't seem to have the best base running coaches IMO. And That's ok that we don't...I just prefer not see Henderson and Detz getting hung up between 2nd and 3rd with no outs again this year.

[bully99]

Joe Morgan always had an 80% rule on base stealing.

[messageboardsuperhero]

I'm not saying Wes Rea should try to steal 20 bags this year- but when Jacob Robson, Jake Vickerson, etc. have an opportunity to steal a base, they should have the freedom be aggressive. We have some speed guys that can put pressure on a defense this year, and we should utilize that.

[BLC]

In reference to smootness, agree with most of your points, that why I stated "in can be a net positive". I was speaking to the type of game you need to play on the day you play. You can't play the same each day against each opponent. Depends on who's pitching, their defensive ability, etc. All else being equal, I want to pressure the defense more than they pressure ours. And in reference to CadaverDawg's statement about base coaches, this is one of my biggest issues with stealing bases in general. Players steal bases. Good base stealers can read the game, read keys on pitchers, peak in, do all sorts of things to make themselves more successful. Great base stealers steal without reference to base coaches. One thing I hate is watching a youth game where the base coach is yelling, "back" all the time. If you're waiting for someone to tell you what to do, you're already out.

[Todd4State]

We were 59 out 79 on SB attempts last year. If my math is right, that's 74%.

Like other sports, in baseball you have to do what your players can do and take advantage of any strengths that they have. Rea is the only proven power hitter right now. Yes, Humphries, Garner, and Britton all have the potential to hit for power this year, but it's not a given.

Robson is going to play more. Demarcus and CT are veterans and I expect them to improve on base running. The speed is there. Pirtle and Britton have good speed, and if Heck beats out Britton- he is more of a base running threat. Humphries may or may not hit a ton of home runs, but he can steal bases.

[Todd4State]

Base stealing may not be as cut and dried as the sabermetrician's numbers would imply. It's a lot like every other phase of the game - if you can do it better than your opponent, then it can be a net positive. There are so many factors that go into stealing bases, that without knowing all those factors and how they're being accounted for by the players and coaches, it's hard to make a determination if it's a positive or negative. What I do know is that pressuring defenses absolutely works (it works more in high school than college, more in college than MiLB and more in MiLB than in MLB). Whether that's through steal attempts, hit and runs, bunts, aggressive hitting, etc. is all debatable. At the end of the day, college kids make mistakes and pressure will facilitate more mistakes. Bottom line, I'd love to see MSU pressure defenses.

Good post, and I agree.

It's hard to get anything past MLB guys. They've seen and done it all, plus they know how to handle things. And then you have people like Yadier Molina with something like a 1.8 pop time with accuracy who can throw from her knees. Baseball players in the SEC- not so much.
Good post and I agree.

[Todd4State]

In reference to smootness, agree with most of your points, that why I stated "in can be a net positive". I was speaking to the type of game you need to play on the day you play. You can't play the same each day against each opponent. Depends on who's pitching, their defensive ability, etc. All else being equal, I want to pressure the defense more than they pressure ours. And in reference to CadaverDawg's statement about base coaches, this is one of my biggest issues with stealing bases in general. Players steal bases. Good base stealers can read the game, read keys on pitchers, peak in, do all sorts of things to make themselves more successful. Great base stealers steal without reference to base coaches. One thing I hate is watching a youth game where the base coach is yelling, "back" all the time. If you're waiting for someone to tell you what to do, you're already out.

Another good post.

[messageboardsuperhero]

In reference to smootness, agree with most of your points, that why I stated "in can be a net positive". I was speaking to the type of game you need to play on the day you play. You can't play the same each day against each opponent. Depends on who's pitching, their defensive ability, etc. All else being equal, I want to pressure the defense more than they pressure ours. And in reference to CadaverDawg's statement about base coaches, this is one of my biggest issues with stealing bases in general. Players steal bases. Good base stealers can read the game, read keys on pitchers, peak in, do all sorts of things to make themselves more successful. Great base stealers steal without reference to base coaches. One thing I hate is watching a youth game where the base coach is yelling, "back" all the time. If you're waiting for someone to tell you what to do, you're already out.

That's what makes our offensive potential so exciting this year- we have so much depth and every player has his own strengths.

If we play a team that struggles throwing guys out, let the fast guys steal bases, hit and run, etc. If we need to play station-to-station, we can do that too. Our personnel gives us almost unlimited ways to score, and that will help us stay out of scoring slumps as well.

[smootness]

In reference to smootness, agree with most of your points, that why I stated "in can be a net positive". I was speaking to the type of game you need to play on the day you play. You can't play the same each day against each opponent. Depends on who's pitching, their defensive ability, etc. All else being equal, I want to pressure the defense more than they pressure ours. And in reference to CadaverDawg's statement about base coaches, this is one of my biggest issues with stealing bases in general. Players steal bases. Good base stealers can read the game, read keys on pitchers, peak in, do all sorts of things to make themselves more successful. Great base stealers steal without reference to base coaches. One thing I hate is watching a youth game where the base coach is yelling, "back" all the time. If you're waiting for someone to tell you what to do, you're already out.

Ok, I read your post wrong. Yes, on any given day, if you play the right opponent, it can make sense even if you don't do it well generally speaking.