Where Are The John Cohen's On This Team?

[Spiderman]

Been hanging back from posting but here goes.......

When I started at State Cohen was a Sr. so I'll mainly talk about the mid to late 80's.

I think everybody would agree that today's athletes are bigger stronger and faster than they were in the mid to late 80's. I read a book where it listed the sizes of the 85 Bears. The O-line averaged 280. You can't even play at 280 today. The D-Line averaged 270, and that was because of The Fridge.

Which brings me to my point. In the mid to late 80's I remember Clark, Palmerio, Thigpen, John Mitchell, Jody Hurst, Pete Young , John Cohen, Tracy Echols, Richie Graham, Barry Winford, etc. And that's just position players. Our pitchers by and large were big ole boys too.

Those guys were some pretty big dudes. They are monsters compared to the guys we have now. Athletes today are bigger stronger and faster right? So it stands to reason that players that size, or bigger, are still around today.

I don't care about your philosophy, you can play small ball with big boys. You can't score lots of runs, however, with singles hitters. At one point last night we had 8 hits and 3 runs. ULL had 3 hits and 3 runs. Power, not just homerun power, is what we need. Long, tall, rawbone ,gap hitting power. Yeah we got Rea and Holder but Rea is slow and Holder doesn't hit.

Those guys are out there to be recruited. And not just going in the first 10 rounds of the draft either, because I see them playing every week for other teams.

You can't tell me the pitcher's heart rate doesn't go up when somebody John Cohen's size comes to bat compared to somebody like Vickerson, Britton, Bradford, Henderson, Armstrong, etc. Against a Cohen the ball is in the gap or gone if you screw up. Against this team if you screw up, what's the worse than can happen? A single slapped into left field. They have to pitch you differently.


So if I ever sat down with John Cohen, my first question would be, " Hey Coach, where are the John Cohen's today , and why aren't they on your team?"

[Goat Holder]

Good Lord, this again?

We are just in a transition year, talent wise. Shit, Rea is 6'5". Collins, Detz and Britton are big boys too. Who cares what size Bradford, Heck and Pirtle are, they are ball-players no matter what. Have you ever stood up beside them? They aren't a bunch of scrawny wimps.

But back to your question, nobody really saw Frazier (another small guy) and Renfroe leaving after 3 years when we signed them. Maybe a couple of guys didn't make it to campus here or there.

Geez, I've about had enough of this dumbass ignorance today. What is wrong with our fans? Can you not see farther than the end of your nose?

[Political Hack]

Good Lord, this again?

We are just in a transition year, talent wise. Shit, Rea is 6'5". Collins, Detz and Britton are big boys too. Who cares what size Bradford, Heck and Pirtle are, they are ball-players no matter what. Have you ever stood up beside them? They aren't a bunch of scrawny wimps.

But back to your question, nobody really saw Frazier (another small guy) and Renfroe leaving after 3 years when we signed them. Maybe a couple of guys didn't make it to campus here or there.

Geez, I've about had enough of this dumbass ignorance today. What is wrong with our fans? Can you not see farther than the end of your nose?

don't jump man. it's ok.

We need more power in the lineup. that's undeniable. Peter Parker just went into a little more depth about that need.

[AlSwearengen]

we just aren't very talented right now. We have been over this time and again. There is better "talent" coming up and still in high school.

[MetEdDawg]

Good Lord, this again?

We are just in a transition year, talent wise. Shit, Rea is 6'5". Collins, Detz and Britton are big boys too. Who cares what size Bradford, Heck and Pirtle are, they are ball-players no matter what. Have you ever stood up beside them? They aren't a bunch of scrawny wimps.

But back to your question, nobody really saw Frazier (another small guy) and Renfroe leaving after 3 years when we signed them. Maybe a couple of guys didn't make it to campus here or there.

Geez, I've about had enough of this dumbass ignorance today. What is wrong with our fans? Can you not see farther than the end of your nose?

I said this bolded part two months ago and most everyone on here agreed. I said this baseball season would look a lot like the football season. We would be better than our record, but between injuries, youth, and seniors that aren't the most impactful and talented, we weren't going to do as well as we hoped. Swinarski, Rooker, Garner, Hump, and Brown all probably could have played more. But we had seniors with experience. Our potential seniors next year are Fitts, Rea, Vickerson, Ross Mitchell, Woody, Laster, Holder, Heck. That's a more talented group of seniors than what we have this year in Bracewell, Armstrong, Henderson, Bradford, Detz, and Pirtle (although obviously Pirtle, Bradford, and Bracewell had solid years).

We talk about Cohen's guys and his recruiting, but don't forget this senior class was a transition class after year 1. Look at some of the current juniors, sophomores, and freshmen on the roster: Rea, Britton, Rooker, Hump, Swinarski, Garner, Ingram. All of these guys are over 6 feet tall and have power potential except Britton. Collins is 5'11" but has power potential as well. It's taken time to lay the foundation for what we wanted our team to look like. Cohen doesn't want 6 starters under 6 feet. But it's what we had at the time. Look at the freshmen class and you see what the future looks like. We've got bigger guys coming up that have more pop and that is what our recruiting will continue to look like in the future.

[maroonmania]

Good Lord, this again?

We are just in a transition year, talent wise. Shit, Rea is 6'5". Collins, Detz and Britton are big boys too. Who cares what size Bradford, Heck and Pirtle are, they are ball-players no matter what. Have you ever stood up beside them? They aren't a bunch of scrawny wimps.

But back to your question, nobody really saw Frazier (another small guy) and Renfroe leaving after 3 years when we signed them. Maybe a couple of guys didn't make it to campus here or there.

Geez, I've about had enough of this dumbass ignorance today. What is wrong with our fans? Can you not see farther than the end of your nose?

You should NEVER anticipate having a baseball player for more than 3 years unless he just doesn't have the physical tools to play MLB but can do pretty well at the college level. Baseball programs that keep most of their juniors aren't normally high level programs. So its either be ready to lose them after their JR year or live with a bunch of mediocre players that got to play all 4 years. I wouldn't blame any issue we have today on not expecting to lose Frazier and Renfroe early.

[smootness]

To begin with, Cohen was about 6'1" 190 when he played, roughly the same size as Britton. Palmeiro was 6'0" and under 200 when he played at State; Will Clark was 6'2" but pretty thin. These guys weren't as big as I think you believe they were.

So we do have some guys that are the size you're talking about - Rea, who you mentioned, is likely the biggest baseball player in our history; most of our pitchers have good size, and Britton, Collins, Humphreys, and Garner are all big guys.

Second, we are currently changing our recruiting philosophy to match the change in the baseball that will change the way the college game is played again. We focused on a philosophy that targeted a lot of smaller, quicker players that could play small ball and run the bases, though we still recruited some bigger guys as well, some of whom never made it to campus (Corey Dickerson, for example).

We are now clearly beginning to recruit bigger guys who have more pop:
Gavin Collins - 5'11" 200
Reid Humphreys - 6'1" 200
Joey Swinarski - 6'1" 190
Brent Rooker - 6'3" 200
Dylan Ingram - 6'2" 210
Chase Vallot - 6'0" 205
Cole Gordon - 6'5" 230
Austin Riley - 6'2" 215

And our pitchers are already big enough and we're continuing to recruit guys with size:
Ben Bracewell - 6'0" 195
Jonathan Holder - 6'2" 240
Paul Young - 6'2" 200
Jacob Lindgren - 6'0" 200
Brandon Woodruff - 6'2" 230
Dakota Hudson - 6'5" 210
Vance Tatum - 6'4" 200
Will Cox - 6'4" 230
Levi Mintz - 6'2" 210
Zac Houston - 6'5" 235
Ben Hudspeth - 5'11" 225
Jesse McCord - 6'2" 180
Andrew Mahoney - 6'2" 210
Keegan James - 6'2" 190
Jared Padgett - 6'4" 200


In short, you're both underestimating the size of our current pitchers and some of our current players and overestimating the size of past players; and you also don't apparently see what we're now recruiting.

[CadaverDawg]

Been hanging back from posting but here goes.......

When I started at State Cohen was a Sr. so I'll mainly talk about the mid to late 80's.

I think everybody would agree that today's athletes are bigger stronger and faster than they were in the mid to late 80's. I read a book where it listed the sizes of the 85 Bears. The O-line averaged 280. You can't even play at 280 today. The D-Line averaged 270, and that was because of The Fridge.

Which brings me to my point. In the mid to late 80's I remember Clark, Palmerio, Thigpen, John Mitchell, Jody Hurst, Pete Young , John Cohen, Tracy Echols, Richie Graham, Barry Winford, etc. And that's just position players. Our pitchers by and large were big ole boys too.

Those guys were some pretty big dudes. They are monsters compared to the guys we have now. Athletes today are bigger stronger and faster right? So it stands to reason that players that size, or bigger, are still around today.

I don't care about your philosophy, you can play small ball with big boys. You can't score lots of runs, however, with singles hitters. At one point last night we had 8 hits and 3 runs. ULL had 3 hits and 3 runs. Power, not just homerun power, is what we need. Long, tall, rawbone ,gap hitting power. Yeah we got Rea and Holder but Rea is slow and Holder doesn't hit.

Those guys are out there to be recruited. And not just going in the first 10 rounds of the draft either, because I see them playing every week for other teams.

You can't tell me the pitcher's heart rate doesn't go up when somebody John Cohen's size comes to bat compared to somebody like Vickerson, Britton, Bradford, Henderson, Armstrong, etc. Against a Cohen the ball is in the gap or gone if you screw up. Against this team if you screw up, what's the worse than can happen? A single slapped into left field. They have to pitch you differently.


So if I ever sat down with John Cohen, my first question would be, " Hey Coach, where are the John Cohen's today , and why aren't they on your team?"

I agree. Hopefully we have some Cohen's waiting in the wings. I see guys like Hump, Collins, Garner, hell even Seth Heck has some pop although not that big. Then we have bigger pitchers like Hudson, Tatum, Sexton, etc coming through. Good points, and hopefully we are about to enter that era of player in the next year or two. Pretty awesome that we are doing what we are without that type of player now though. So it makes me even more excited for the future

[Todd4State]

A few things about recruiting.

1. We all want guys that have more power. That includes Cohen. And that isn't just limited to home runs- it includes doubles and triples too.

2. When Cohen took over, our scholarship numbers were bad out of whack. It caused us to have big class followed by a small class. It can take years to fix that- and the only way to do it is to have good attrition. We've recruited JUCO guys to help give oursleves good attrition and to straighten things out. We used to have to recruit JUCO's to fill in holes in the starting nine. Now we are starting to use them to fill roles for the most part.

3. This is Cohen's sixth year. The seniors on our team committed to us after we had had 2-3 losing seasons in a row. Good luck convincing Under Armour All-Americans to come play for you with that. Now that we have had consistent success four years in a row, you are going to start to see the recruiting pick up- and already have with guys like Chase Vallot, Austin Riley, Jared Padgett- those guys are like five star guys.

4. How tall a player is doesn't mean that they can't play. MSU fans seem obsessed with having the biggest team out there for some reason. Just one of those weird things about MSU fans I guess.

5. Whatever happens today- win or lose- our program is on the rise. We're going to be bringing in more and more talent and we should see results that are better and hopefully we won't have starters that can only go 3-4 innings and an offense where it seems like a minor miracle if they score a run. We're going to be bigger too without losing a lot of athleticism as well.