The practical position the baseball team is now in...

[Sandman14]

It's worse than I feared. We were hosting anyway, regardless. To the extent this win helps us host even more, I disagree but whatever.

And first off, I stayed up like everyone else rooting for us until the end (12:20 am or whatever).

But the reality is that now we have already pitched bracewell, girado, ross mitchell, and holder. And all for multiple innings or more. It is very probably that they all will throw again in the next two days. So after that they will be burned for the week. BUT since we probably won't be out of the tournament by that point, we are going to continue to use some/all of them and end up putting more pressure on the, physically, than we have all season. Our team is good, so we'll probably end up making the finals. If so, the team is going to totally burnt and Monday-Thursday to recover and get ready for the biggest game of the year on Friday.

I hope that none of this plays out as described above, but if not, it will mean we lost B2B or whatever, including a loss to USC, so that outcome sucks too.

It truly might have been better to just drop that game to Mizzou. It's not what I was rooting for, but it's just reality.

There is nothing we could have done about this situation. I agree you have to try as hard as possible to win every game. But it's still worth commentary on how bad the SEC tourney sucks now. The SEC should add another 3-game series while everyone else is playing conference tourneys.

[CadaverDawg]

Is this serious?

If so, I dont know where to begin.

[Esmerelda Villalobos]

hell with this. We are getting a 8 innings out of pollo and a complete game out of Gravemen. We are gunning for a national seed now. We take out SC and Vandy and we are in business for that 8th seed.

[Sandman14]

Well, you can either just altogether get out of the thread, or you can begin at the top and work downward. Left to right per line.

[Sandman14]

hell with this. We are getting a 8 innings out of pollo and a complete game out of Gravemen. We are gunning for a national seed now. We take out SC and Vandy and we are in business for that 8th seed.

There is a zero percent chance we will attain a national seed. Zero.

[Sandman14]

That chance flew out the window when we dropped 2 of 3 to Ole Miss and failed to sweep USC.

[Esmerelda Villalobos]

There is a zero percent chance we will attain a national seed. Zero.

you couldnt be more wrong.

[SaltyDawg]

You do realize we didn't throw ANY of our rotation guys. Also, damn near every pitcher who threw was around 30 pitches- meaning most will be able to go Thursday if need be.

[SaltyDawg]

It's worse than I feared. We were hosting anyway, regardless. To the extent this win helps us host even more, I disagree but whatever.

What in the hell does that statement mean?

[Spider-Man]

Just win the whole ****ing thing.

[Sandman14]

You do realize we didn't throw ANY of our rotation guys. Also, damn near every pitcher who threw was around 30 pitches- meaning most will be able to go Thursday if need be.

yeah that's great. I could be wrong about this, but has there been any instance all season where our bullpen guys threw on three different occasions within a 5-day period? I think I recall Holder pitching against Oral Roberts, and then the first two against USC. And he didn't have his stuff in that second USC game.

Not that worried about Ross since he is so crafty and does not throw hard.

Still, it's certainly going to be a ton of work for these guys. More than they are used to.

[Sandman14]

What in the hell does that statement mean?

it's a play on those who are adamant that the win over mizzou somehow helped us. it was sarcasm.

[Sandman14]

You do realize we didn't throw ANY of our rotation guys. Also, damn near every pitcher who threw was around 30 pitches- meaning most will be able to go Thursday if need be.

yes and believe me, our rotation guys will be pitched. so don't worry about that. on the days they pitch, so will our bullpen...again...and again....and again.

pollo hasn't gone more than 6 but maybe once in his career? he's a 4.1-5.2 inning guy. Lindgren is as well.

[SaltyDawg]

The odds of us getting a national seed if we win this thing aren't great in the first place. We're gonna throw E. Mitchell, CT, Norris, Shelly (if he made the trip- I'm not sure) along with our rotation guys (hopefully sparingly). We'll trot who is fresh out to the mound, play good D and try to give them run support. Cohen won't risk overthrowing anyone.

If the host spots were all seeded- like I wish they were- this would be a bigger issue. We'd be going balls out trying to get the 9 or 10 seed to get a more favorable super matchup, but that's not how it works so there is no issue.

[Sandman14]

you couldnt be more wrong.

Hope you are right, but the likelihood is that you are wrong.

Last season we couldn't even pull a host when we won the entire tournament.

In fact, they decide before the championship is even played.

[Coach34]

Hope you are right, but the likelihood is that you are wrong.

Last season we couldn't even pull a host when we won the entire tournament.

In fact, they decide before the championship is even played.

they talked before this season about how the committee would give conference tourney results a little more weight...and we are in a better position than we were last year going into the Tourney

[SaltyDawg]

I won't go as far as ZERO percent chance we can get a national seed, but let's be honest there is a slim chance. The top 8 seeds are pretty well locked in.

[hometowndawg]

Ross threw in all 3 games against S Carolina. Granted it was only 1 pitch in game 2 of the series

[Esmerelda Villalobos]

Hope you are right, but the likelihood is that you are wrong.

Last season we couldn't even pull a host when we won the entire tournament.

In fact, they decide before the championship is even played.

you go through mizzou, sc, vandy twice and lsu, you are a national seed. we would be 45-16 with a top 7 rpi and a top 5 SOS and have the most top 50 wins in the country.

[Sandman14]

Yeah and don't get me wrong. I'm not going to cry over all this stuff. I'm very excited that I'll be doing one of my favorite things to do (listen to MSU baseball) for the next several days. And I would love to be wrong on the national seed issue, so I'll hope for that too. But just because you are a fan, that doesn't mean you have to ignore the practical realities which also often include negative issues. And these negative issues are certainly worth commentary.

It's just a bad system to have. We are all talking about unbalanced SEC schedules. Why not throw in another 3-game set to balance things. The alternative ideas I've heard are pretty awful. There's really no way to fix the imbalance in the schedules, which is a major problem.

Here's Aaron Fitt on national seeds:


SECURE TEAMS: Vanderbilt, Louisiana State, Oregon State, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida State, Cal State Fullerton

ON THE BUBBLE (IN): Louisville

ON THE BUBBLE (OUT): Indiana, Oregon, UCLA, North Carolina State, South Carolina

[Sandman14]

So, I could see us being equal to South Carolina...maybe...but anyway, he did not rank the bubble teams in alphabetical order. he ranked them in order of chances. so even if you add MSU behind USC, we are the 7th in line as far as bubble teams....

I'll alter my percentage chance from zero to 4%.

[Esmerelda Villalobos]

So, I could see us being equal to South Carolina...maybe...but anyway, he did not rank the bubble teams in alphabetical order. he ranked them in order of chances. so even if you add MSU behind USC, we are the 7th in line as far as bubble teams....

I'll alter my percentage chance from zero to 4%.

what Ive learned over the past 2 weeks is none of these "experts" know wtf they are talking about. They are like weather men.

[Sandman14]

Yeah I won't go so far as to say that I have a framing complex so bad that I actually believe I know more than Fitt, but I certainly think Kendall Rodgers is completely full of BS and just grabs stuff he reads and regurgitates it. The only time he has any original thought is when he spews something ridiculous.

I had a coversation with a friend just the other day about how college baseball is growing (espn is really helping, finally) and there is a huge market for this because very few competent folks are out there. There is money to be made as a college baseball pundit.

But common sense tells you that if there is anyway the SEC will be screwed, they will be. The last thing the ncaa wants is 4 SEC teams at omaha. 5 would ruing everything. 3 is bad enough. That's why they always line them up where they meet in the supers. they also line them up where there is the least possible chance it will be an all SEC title game in omaha, even though it still happens bc the SEC is so good.

That said, Vandy and LSU are locks for national seeds. I don't see them putting anyone else as a national seed, even if us or USC deserved it. I also don't think we deserve it because of how many series losses we've had. If we had beaten ole miss, then yea I'd be with you.

4%.

[Coach34]

our resume' is better than SC's

[Sandman14]

Coach I personally agree, and I think our odds are as good as USC's, and I think each of us have a 4% chance of getting the last national sees spot.

so much would have to happen. a lot of teams would have to look bad in their tourneys, and we'd have to beat the Vandy's and LSU's multiple times. it's just a very, very low likelihood.

but from my original viewpoint in the thread, I admit that this 4% chance is a sliver lining. It's more of a lottery ticket than an actual likelihood though.

[engie]

- Tuesday is typical bullpen day. That's when ALL our pitchers throw in the average week. 30-40 pitches for relievers is common. We simply did it in the actual game this time. They were ALL on strict pitch counts and are in no way "burned" or "extended" right now.

- Bradford, Norris, Evan Mitchell, and the 3 starters still owe Cohen their sessions -- and will be used exclusively today(Pollo, Bradford, Norris,and Evan I mean). Again, we are not playing these games with the "win at all costs" mentality that we employed in the regular season. We will almost assuredly see Evan Mitchell today unless Pollo just has a tremendous outing with a very low pitch count.

- Throwing 48 hours later is COMMON for our relievers in every Fri, Sat, Sun series. Again, 30-40 pitches also happens every Tuesday -- for guys that had just thrown on Fri/Sun, Sat/Sun, etc...Thus why 3 appearances in a 5 day window is the common practice for us and practically everyone else out there.

- Our bullpen was the sharpest it's been all year collectively last night. After playing today(and with our usual weekend rotation throwing), it's highly, highly unlikely that we have to go back nearly as deep into the pen in games 2, 3, or 4. We wouldn't have had to go deep in this one had Cohen not put Fitts(and everyone else) on hard pitch counts. Worst case scenarios IMO: Game 2 = Pollo, E. Mitchell, Bradford, Norris. Game 3 = Graveman, R. Mitchell, Bracewell(if he's ok). Game 4 = Lindgren, Cox, Girodo, Holder. I think this is most likely when we go home. If not, game 5 = Fitts, E. Mitchell, Bradford, Norris, R. Mitchell, Bracewell available. We'll worry about winning the thing and game 6(only being applicable if we lose one) when we get there. Again, these are practically worst case scenarios.

- We are CERTAINLY better off right now than we would have been by bowing out last night and having all our starters going on 17 days rust in the regionals. Now, we are almost 100% sure to get all our starting pitchers live game action -- and all of our bullpen typical weekend game action -- and still get them a couple of extra days rest leading into the first Starkville regional since 2003.