How is the freshmen pitching from last year doing in the summer leagues?

[Tbonewannabe]

We know our soon to be junior pitchers are kicking ass but how are the guys we will have for the next 2 years? I don't want to have another peak season and turn around with another deep valley if we can help it. Who is going to get experience in mid week and out of the pen? Will some of these freshmen coming in or do we have some sophomore guys step up? Our track record for getting something out of freshmen isn't very good. We might have all the Cape Cod guys go pretty high if they do in the season what they are doing now.

[MsStateBaseball]

Jesse McCord is your future 1st rounder and he is lightly throwing right now. He had surgery in March. He will be rotation guy in 2017. Parker Ford and Jared Padgett are just two others that will develop into big pitchers.

[5 Star]

We will have real talent ready to take over after what I'm predicting to be mass casualties due to the draft next year. If we have a valley, the depth of it will be in a regional at minimum.

[RBritt]

It looks like Gordon and Rooker are doing well. How is Lowe doing? I saw the other thread where our pitchers in the Cape are doing great. I believe Hudson Brown Houston and Tatum are doing great. Need a midweek guy, long relief man, and a set up guy and we'll be set.

[state66]

Glad to hear Jesse McCord is starting to do some light throwing. I hope he can make it back from the labrum injury.

[messageboardsuperhero]

It looks like Gordon and Rooker are doing well. How is Lowe doing? I saw the other thread where our pitchers in the Cape are doing great. I believe Hudson Brown Houston and Tatum are doing great. Need a midweek guy, long relief man, and a set up guy and we'll be set.

Really well. 2nd in the Cal Ripken league in batting average and 3rd in home runs behind a couple of guys who have significantly more ABs than him. Lowe has also walked more than he's struck out, which is shocking to me. We may have the top power bats in the Cal Ripken league, Great States league, and New England league... And Humphreys is tied for 6th in HRs in the Cape Cod league.

If we aren't significantly better next year, I'll be shocked and pissed off. I can't remember a summer that's ever statistically been this good for our team as a whole- and we haven't even gotten to see what arguably our best hitter can do coming off his injury.

[missouridawg]

What makes these guys perform sub-par between February and May, but do well in June/July?

[messageboardsuperhero]

What makes these guys perform sub-par between February and May, but do well in June/July?

This is the first real chance a lot of these guys have had to actually play summer baseball and get consistent time against college competition. There are only so many ABs and innings to go around in SEC play- and unfortunately instead of getting these guys experience and developing them in the 2nd half of conference play, our coaches decided to continue trotting out Ross Mitchell and co... Who all did nice things for us during their careers, but clearly needed to replaced by the younger players at the end of last year.

[War Machine Dawg]

What makes these guys perform sub-par between February and May, but do well in June/July?

You aren't supposed to ask such obvious questions with obvious answers.

[maroonmania]

Jesse McCord is your future 1st rounder and he is lightly throwing right now. He had surgery in March. He will be rotation guy in 2017. Parker Ford and Jared Padgett are just two others that will develop into big pitchers.

We will have to wait and see on that for sure. Its a long road back from a torn labrum to being a 1st round draft pick.

[engie]

You aren't supposed to ask such obvious questions with obvious answers.

If it's so obvious -- surely you can provide a laundry list of summer league all stars that came back to MSU and were "sub-par"...

[MsStateBaseball]

Because they have gotten experience and reps, those will make you better if you are talented and work hard.

[War Machine Dawg]

If it's so obvious -- surely you can provide a laundry list of summer league all stars that came back to MSU and were "sub-par"...

Why don't you answer why they need to go somewhere else in the summers to be turned into monsters? Why aren't they being turned into monsters on campus?

[engie]

Why don't you answer why they need to go somewhere else in the summers to be turned into monsters? Why aren't they being turned into monsters on campus?

So you can't answer it? Just menstruating on another potentially good baseball thread for no reason huh?

If you don't know the actual answer to this question -- you don't know college baseball -- have never walked in those shoes -- and I do not have the time nor energy to explain it to you.

By all means -- continue bitching about tinkering -- and then bitch about adjustments that aren't being made in season. Damn if you do and damn if you don't.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Why don't you answer why they need to go somewhere else in the summers to be turned into monsters? Why aren't they being turned into monsters on campus?

Maybe because the players aren't getting consistent ABs or innings during the season. But we can't just throw them out there to get experience and allow them to struggle because we have to win first and foremost (plus we'll have people like you bitching about Cohen playing the wrong people)... Hence my comment above about wanting to put these younger players in over Ross and company at the end of the season.

The reality is that over 90% of adjustments and experience against live pitching/hitters comes in the offseason for college players- ie, summer ball, fall scrimmages, winter practice/scrimmage, etc. That is why they "turn into monsters" over the summer instead of while they're on campus.

By your logic Dave Van Horn must be an awful coach because Andrew Benintendi had to go play summer ball to become a good player.
2014: .276 BA, .333 Slg%, 1 HR
2015: .376 BA, .717 Slg%, 20 HR

[War Machine Dawg]

Maybe because the players aren't getting consistent ABs or innings during the season. But we can't just throw them out there to get experience and allow them to struggle because we have to win first and foremost (plus we'll have people like you bitching about Cohen playing the wrong people)... Hence my comment above about wanting to put these younger players in over Ross and company at the end of the season.

The reality is that over 90% of adjustments and experience against live pitching/hitters comes in the offseason for college players- ie, summer ball, fall scrimmages, winter practice/scrimmage, etc. That is why they "turn into monsters" over the summer instead of while they're on campus.

By your logic Dave Van Horn must be an awful coach because Andrew Benintendi had to go play summer ball to become a good player.
2014: .276 BA, .333 Slg%, 1 HR
2015: .376 BA, .717 Slg%, 20 HR

Now we're getting somewhere and can have a discussion. This has long been a complaint of mine with Cohen. Sure, the mid-year SEC slump is annoying, but it's expected at this point. No, I'm much more concerned about what is, or maybe more accurately isn't, happening in the fall and winter. I don't know what the hell we're doing during that time of year, but it clearly isn't figuring out who our best 10 or 11 players are or teaching guys anything productive that results in them becoming better players. February to June is more about making tweaks, but the time when we're supposed to be doing serious teaching and/or overhauling seems to be wasted every year. I, for one, am more than fed up with that bullshit. Either start improving these players during the fall and winter or get someone who can.

[engie]

Since you have no examples of the first thing you made up -- How about specific examples of coaches that "make drastic improvement to their players in the fall and winter"?

Like I already said -- this "time we're supposed to be doing serious tweaking and overhauling" is actually only one month long -- 4 months prior to the season -- when it's easy as heck to lose tweaks in 4 months, including a month there that you literally can not practice. The coaches are limited to 4-on-1 sessions for barely any time per week the rest of the year. But I guess 1-2 hours/week should be enough to complete overhauls in the cage and put it all together on the field -- according to you...

The reason the big improvements happen in the summer is because players have unlimited time with coaches to tweak and work on stuff -- and are playing away from everyone and everything they know -- with zero distractions. Which is consistent across college baseball even though you just want to apply it to bash our coaches. I already know I'm wasting my time trying to explain it -- but there it is.

[Todd4State]

It's not our hitters having bad seasons as sophomores that is the issue as much as it is the pitchers not performing as sophomores. One thing Cohen has said before that he is right about- experience wins in the SEC.

What engie said about summer ball is right- but the other thing I would add is you CAN NOT simulate actual game experience in scrimmages. It doesn't even happen at the MLB level- which is why spring training is the way it is where they only have a few intrasquad team scrimmages and then 25-30 exhibition games against other live opponents. It's just a totally different intensity. And you don't get to play against walk-ons in the SEC.

You really don't know what you have until you actually get the team out there against an actual opponent- which is why Cohen tinkers so much in pre-SEC ball. You don't really "know" until you put players in live fire situations.

[Coach34]

We will have to wait and see on that for sure. Its a long road back from a torn labrum to being a 1st round draft pick.

Hopefully they used knotless anchors to fix it and had a quality guy do it. He will need a full year to be ready

[KB21]

Why don't you answer why they need to go somewhere else in the summers to be turned into monsters? Why aren't they being turned into monsters on campus?

Probably because this is what every player that develops in college baseball does.

[DistrictDawg92]

More than 50% of baseball posts consist of 3 or 4 people trying to have a big dick contest.

During summer ball a player is guaranteed reps, allowing them to become comfortable and get in a groove. Cohen changes the lineup up so often that it's almost impossible to feel comfortable and get in a groove. While competition within the team is good, a coach should have a good idea who should be starting by the beginning of the Spring season. These guys literally play year round, it's not like football where a player only plays 15 games a year max. Put the players that belong in the lineup and keep them there.

Cohen is a weird guy though. Rooker showed flashes of what he was capable of all year, but the minute he hits a few doubles he sees the bench for multiple games straight. Then there is Luke Reynolds who started like 7-50, but continued to get reps after looking like a high school player trying to hit Matt Harvey, but to tie in my first point, after starting close to .100 in his first 50 AB's, he got a few hits and got on a little roll and then became the hottest hitter in the SEC at one point near the end of the season. Cohen kept hitting Reynolds because he knew what he was capable of, yet didn't do the same for Rooker, even though he showed potential when he got chances at an AB. Why is this? You can't blame this on one being a better defender, because they both hit DH. If Cohen's only true reason is because there are more right handed pitchers and Reynolds bats from the left side, he needs to reavaluate the way he creates his lineups. There's a point where smart coaching becomes obsessively smart coaching and Cohen has reached that point. There's a difference in humans and computers, a computer is by the book and only by the book, with no ability to think for themselves. Humans on the other hand, can assess a situation and go with their gut feeling, a decision that may not be by the book, but almost obviously better for the situation. Cohen tends to coach like a computer, and while this can be affective, every coach should also follow their gut just as much as the books. Cohen needs to recognize the best talent, and give them multiple opportunities to succeed, period.

[dawgs]

Jesse McCord is your future 1st rounder and he is lightly throwing right now. He had surgery in March. He will be rotation guy in 2017. Parker Ford and Jared Padgett are just two others that will develop into big pitchers.

it wouldn't be msu baseball if we didn't only get 1 good year out of a guy before he gets drafted and leaves to get paid