MSU Baseball recruiting is very similar

[Drugdog]

To The Bears recruiting in Football. A lot of hype but generally disappointing results.

I know we played for the NC two years ago but we have had highly ranked classes that are not producing.

[MsStateBaseball]

The top guys are. Hump and Collins. Dakota still needs work. McCord has a world of potential and I would bet he does great when he pitches again. Swinarski will be good next year. If Hump would have had 100 AB's last summer he would be a lot better right now. But he was hurt.

I know folks are tired of this but these guys will be better in the future. It all comes down to repitition in baseball. All those batting practices, etc,

[Homedawg]

McCord has an arm injury. Or he did a couple of weeks ago.

[Todd4State]

The class I have been looking forward to the whole time has been the class that is about to come in. We can't live off of JUCO recruiting and expect to do well.

Really the biggest thing we lack right now is a good bullpen- we've lost seven games where we scored five runs or more. And that's the difference between being 25-10, 28-7 and being 21-14 right now.

[Todd4State]

McCord has an arm injury. Or he did a couple of weeks ago.

I'm expecting him to be shut down for now. Not sure what his future holds with us at this point- especially with what we are about to bring in from a talent standpoint.

[lfl]

The top guys are. Hump and Collins. Dakota still needs work. McCord has a world of potential and I would bet he does great when he pitches again. Swinarski will be good next year. If Hump would have had 100 AB's last summer he would be a lot better right now. But he was hurt.

I know folks are tired of this but these guys will be better in the future. It all comes down to repitition in baseball. All those batting practices, etc,

Daniel Garner and Brandon Woodruff we're both "can't miss" guys along with several more before them. This class is highly evaluated by PG and others, but until they step on the field, it's still a big unknown. Also, if you're relying on young guys to carry the team, that's a problem. I think things will get better, but I doubt it will be next year. Even Hunter Renfroe couldn't come in as a freshman and be a difference-maker.

[Todd4State]

The top guys are. Hump and Collins. Dakota still needs work. McCord has a world of potential and I would bet he does great when he pitches again. Swinarski will be good next year. If Hump would have had 100 AB's last summer he would be a lot better right now. But he was hurt.

I know folks are tired of this but these guys will be better in the future. It all comes down to repitition in baseball. All those batting practices, etc,

Sexton and Tatum were pretty highly thought of- and both have performed well. Robson has performed well also. Hudson looked pretty good against Memphis- he may be turning the corner a little bit.

I'm not sure about Swinarski. He's had some concussions that I'm not sure that he can completely come back from.

[Todd4State]

Daniel Garner and Brandon Woodruff we're both "can't miss" guys along with several more before them. This class is highly evaluated by PG and others, but until they step on the field, it's still a big unknown. Also, if you're relying on young guys to carry the team, that's a problem. I think things will get better, but I doubt it will be next year. Even Hunter Renfroe couldn't come in as a freshman and be a difference-maker.

Garner's defense always worried me. Woodruff did well when he was healthy as a freshman. Busts are a nature of the beast in any sport. You are also correct about having to wait on players to develop sometimes- Mississippi players are notorious for this.

I don't know that we will have to rely on a lot of those players as freshmen. We return our entire starting rotation minus Laster- and I wouldn't be surprised if Hudson, Tatum, and Sexton are able to move Preston to midweek. You're talking all juniors and a senior there. We also return Houston and Mintz- and Paul Young should be 100% back by this time next year as well. We'll have to find a couple of freshmen that can fill in some bullpen roles.

Collins will be back at catcher along with Lovelady. So, we should be fine there.

First base will be up for grabs- but I'm thinking Rooker will lead there and he can probably give us about what we are getting from Rea right now. In fact, I believe he has the same amount of home runs is a lot less time. The JUCO Lowe will factor in along with hopefully Cole Gordon. I believe Austin Riley will win the third base job from Spruill and Luke Reynolds. He may have some freshman growing pains- but he will also give us some more power.

We have Gridley and Holland returning for the MIF.

The OF will be some combination of Humphreys for his junior year, maybe Robson if he comes back, Michael Smith, and Cody Brown. So, a lot of veterans out there.

If by 10% chance Greg Pickett comes to school he will be our DH at worst- and he would figure into the OF equation as well.

So, I think we will be counting on 2-5 freshmen at the most next year. I'm not considering Cole Gordon a true freshman- but he's not one of the ones I'm counting on.

Now, that said while I don't think that we will have to rely on freshmen, I won't be surprised at all if we see some push some of the upper classmen- like Luke Alexander, Hunter Stovall, Elih Marrero and then pretty much all of our pitching recruits.