Humphries and Collins

[AlSwearengen]

We have all been wanting to see more of Humphries and it would be nice if we can get him some at bats just for experience sake, but with our anemic offense, that probably won't happen very often. Anyway, in his at bat against Laxer, I think we saw why he hasn't been playing and that is that he just isn't ready for SEC top level pitching. Laxer made him look completely lost. I don't know what Humphries did as far as summer ball during his h.s. days, but I do know that he had tommy john surgery and he played football, so he has missed a good bit of development time I imagine.

Collins on the other hand, looks like he has seen a lot of good pitching while he was in h.s. and playing summer ball and he has made the transition pretty easily up to this point.

I hate to say this, but olemiss' position players are much more advanced and talented than ours are, at least at the plate. It is easy to see and it shows in their stats. Bianco gets quite a few kids from out of state that play on the upper level travel team circuit and it shows with their young players. They come in more prepared. That is not to say that Humphries won't be the second coming of Will Clark in two years, but you can see the difference b/t being raw and ready to play.

[engie]

And how many ab's has Collins gotten in comparison to Hump? Collins looked lost early on at the plate too. Let's not pretend he's been hitting since day 1. But he's settled in now. Hump hasn't seen consistent enough abs to do the same yet. But he just might from here on out. We'll see...

[I seen it dawg]

I agree with both points. Need to get hump more abs. And Collins is by far our most dangerous hitter.

[Esmerelda Villalobos]

I seen collins yesterday and I agree with what you seen too

[Coach34]

Humphries can handle LH'ed pitching- RH'ers are going to eat him alive right now...he'll be ok after he goes off for the summer and gets consistent AB's

[Todd4State]

Don't look at Collins and Humphreys and assume that is always going to be the case. Ole Miss "looks" more advanced because they have several guys that have been around for 3, 4, and 5 years- Allen, Anderson, Overbey, Orvis. Last year, these same players were not a good hitting team. They are going to take some big losses this off season.

The biggest mistake that our program made under Polk II was going more towards recruiting mostly big state players and away from recruiting Mississippi. And that's also what allowed Ole Miss, and then later USM to pass us. Ole Miss became good when they got Seth Smith, Head, Pettway, Brae Wright, Will Kline, etc. When Ole Miss went away from it, and we didn't go back to recruiting Mississippi then USM passed us. MSU's last two first round picks were Mississippians that didn't blossom until their junior year- Stratton and Renfroe. You look at the four MSU alumni in MLB right now- and 2 and a half of them are from Mississippi- I say that because Maholm is from Memphis and played some in both Mississippi and Tennessee, and then you have Tyler Moore and Mitch Moreland.

Now, we do need to recruit National type players like Collins, and we are doing that. Simply because Mississippi doesn't produce enough talent to stock a team on Mississippi talent alone and then you have to factor in that a couple are probably Ole Miss or USM fans and are going to go there. But the Mississippi kids are the ones that keep our tradition going and teach the out of state guys what MSU baseball is all about. Sometimes when a player is getting to fulfil his dream by playing for the team that they have always wanted to play for, I think they sometimes elevate their game and ability level. And that pushes the guys like Collins (not that he needs any, but you get my point) to elevate their game as well.

For example- the man who started the rally yesterday was a freshman from Mississippi- Cody Brown- who was a walk-on.

And FYI- Collins also had an injury riddled senior year last year. He was a potential draft risk, and his injuries kept that from happening. Reid did have Tommy John, but he was cleared to hit as a senior and if I'm not mistaken, by the playoffs he was playing some in the field for them.

[shoeless joe]

I only saw humphries in one game last year, but based on seeing him that day I was not aw struck by his at bats. Not that one game tells the whole story but he didn't look like a guy that would come in and be a big time SEC freshman. I do think he has the ability to develop into that guy but I believe that is why he hasn't seen the field as much as some expected.