2017 baseball

[GTHOM]

Before everybody gives up on this team I think we should realize we're not getting blown out, we're not a bad team we're just finding ways to lose at this point. Lost a lot of close games and blown leads. I'm not ready to give up on them yet. I still think we make the post season. But it does need to be asked why cant we close games out? Can we really hit or can we just hit vs bad pitching?

[EngDawg]

Before everybody gives up on this team I think we should realize we're not getting blown out, we're not a bad team we're just finding ways to lose at this point. Lost a lot of close games and blown leads. I'm not ready to give up on them yet. I still think we make the post season. But it does need to be asked why cant we close games out? Can we really hit or can we just hit vs bad pitching?

Gene's page

[IMissJack]

Before everybody gives up on this team I think we should realize we're not getting blown out, we're not a bad team we're just finding ways to lose at this point. Lost a lot of close games and blown leads. I'm not ready to give up on them yet. I still think we make the post season. But it does need to be asked why cant we close games out? Can we really hit or can we just hit vs bad pitching?

When I hear this kind of talk (heard it all last football season) I realize you are what your record says you are. We are not good at all. Football, Basketball, and Baseball suck this academic year.

[GTHOM]

Haha I see everybody has already said the hell with it

[IMissJack]

Haha I see everybody has already said the hell with it

I'm not blaming the coach or anyone else, but you don't lose what we lost from last year's baseball team and remain a very good team.

[GTHOM]

I'm not blaming the coach or anyone else, but you don't lose what we lost from last year's baseball team and remain a very good team.

I think enough is there to be a competitive team. Maybe I'm just hunting a reason to keep going to the Dude haha

[Todd4State]

I know we've already had a "reasons why we are where we are thread last night"- so at the risk of being redundant:

We've lost too many guys to Tommy John. I thought we would be fine coming into the year as long as we didn't have any more injuries, but guess what? Blake Smith went down and Rigby has been hurt which has hurt us early so far. I don't think our pitching is quite as bad as the stats say because Smith and Breaux who are both injured gave up a ton of runs in their last outings outings and that's probably adding a good bit to out ERA currently- I expect that to even out as we play more games.

Yes we have an inexperienced coach, but I think the bigger issue is we have a coach with a staff he inherited and I think that may be causing some issues- especially with pitching decisions. Nothing against Henderson but I do think Cann needs to bring in his own guy that he trusts to run the pitching staff. I'm fine with Coggin and Brown staying- Coggin is more of a recruiter and we really need him to help with Mississippi especially in 2018-2019 when the baseball classes in state are much deeper than they are this year. Brown I'm fine with too.

We blew two midweek games where we threw two pitchers who were hurt or recovering- Smith against Morehead State and Rigby last night was overextended IMO more than he should have been and that got us in a high leverage situation in the ninth where the winning run came across.

My biggest concern with Cann right now is he seems slow to make lineup changes. I think the rotation should be Pilkington, Plumlee, and Self- and yet he seems adamant on pitching Self in relief even though we have Cyr, Price, Rigby- who is not quite 100% up to speed but should be soon, Barlow, and Barton pitching well for the most part. I think Ashcraft should be the closer. If Billingsley pitches like he did last night, he should absolutely be in the mix for the Sunday spot.

And on the offensive side- why hasn't Harrison Bragg played much the past two games? He has been hitting the ball better than some of the guys who have been starting over him. I don't recall him making any mistakes on defense this last weekend and even if he does, we certainly have room to DH him.

Lovelady should be the primary catcher from here on out. I'm not too worried about wearing him out because he's not a great hitter regardless. But I think he will be able to lead our pitchers better than Skelton and he will be less likely to hit a guy in the head on a throw down to first on a strike out. He's also hitting better than Skelton too anyway, so I don't really see the point in not starting him unless it's a SWAC team where we can rest him.

And as far as the hitting and the guys striking out excessively- I think a lot of that is inexperience based on the stats and who the main culprits are.

Apparently Cann was pissed last night and had a big team meeting after the game. We'll see if it does any good or if it's just a big fart in the clubhouse.

[Todd4State]

I think enough is there to be a competitive team. Maybe I'm just hunting a reason to keep going to the Dude haha

I agree with you. We manage Morehead State and Marist appropriately and we're 9-4 right now and everyone is probably mostly content. We need to win the next five games and not **** any of them up pitching guys to "see where they are" and overextending them in the process. It's especially frustrating when we lose a huge lead when everyone but the guys in the dugout can see that a pitcher has no command and is massively struggling- hurt or not-and yet they don't make a change until it's too late and then we lose to Marist because for some reason we think a guy that clearly should be a relief/closer guy at this moment should get a shot at starting and we allow him to get knocked around to the point where we get in a huge hole and can't come back and then lose a RPI killer by one.

[raymond21]

The question that needs to be answered is where is our JR class, not JUCO transfers. Did we not recruit anyone 3 years ago?

[Todd4State]

The question that needs to be answered is where is our JR class, not JUCO transfers. Did we not recruit anyone 3 years ago?

You raise a good point. That class is a hole. Gridley came out of it- but McCord and Paxton Stover didn't pan out for us. It was also a very JUCO heavy class if I remember correctly- but for the most part it was a group of busts besides Gridley. Easily Cohen's worst class.

[GTHOM]

I agree with you. We manage Morehead State and Marist appropriately and we're 9-4 right now and everyone is probably mostly content. We need to win the next five games and not **** any of them up pitching guys to "see where they are" and overextending them in the process. It's especially frustrating when we lose a huge lead when everyone but the guys in the dugout can see that a pitcher has no command and is massively struggling- hurt or not-and yet they don't make a change until it's too late and then we lose to Marist because for some reason we think a guy that clearly should be a relief/closer guy at this moment should get a shot at starting and we allow him to get knocked around to the point where we get in a huge hole and can't come back and then lose a RPI killer by one.

Its amazing how many games we have just flat out screwed the pooch and found a way to lose. Its also amazing how many guys we have lost to injury and the MLB. All that said I think a clean sweep this weekend and beating UAPB (I think thats who we play midweek) is the only way to bring back a lot of folks on this board and geared up for the UPig series

[I seen it dawg]

Come on...bring back folks? You might get them back for an inning or 3 but as soon as a pitcher gives up a lead or we don't score an inning and strike out twice it's right back to fire everyone and get a whole new team of players in here.

[bulldogcountry1]

The question that needs to be answered is where is our JR class, not JUCO transfers. Did we not recruit anyone 3 years ago?

This is really what concerns me the most, as far as big picture. We just don't have a good distribution of experience, and we don't have any freshmen showing potential on the offensive side. We talk about all these TJ surgeries, but what are we going to do if Rooker, Mangum, and Gridley all go to MLB? Who would be left to fill in all these gaps?

[I seen it dawg]

Juco juco juco unfortuantely

[HoopsDawg]

Skelton played an excellent defensive game tuesday night until the last throw. And that wasn't an easy play from the backstop. He threw out a runner stealing and blocked a ton of balls. I think his hitting upside is higher than anyone else at C. He would be my starting, everyday catcher. It was a good lineup the other day. Just might should have let Bragg pinch hit at some point.

On the weekend, if we go Pilk, Plum, Self. With Cyr and Barton long relief. Ashcraft, Barlow, Price short relief. We should be able to wins some series.

[HSVDawg]

This is really what concerns me the most, as far as big picture. We just don't have a good distribution of experience, and we don't have any freshmen showing potential on the offensive side. We talk about all these TJ surgeries, but what are we going to do if Rooker, Mangum, and Gridley all go to MLB? Who would be left to fill in all these gaps?

ETA: sorry, this was intended as a response to raymond21

You kind of answered your own question, but to further elaborate, below is a list of our 2014 class. Long story short, it may have been the worst signing class in MSU baseball history in terms of guys that actually made it to campus.

Here is the list:

Chase Vallot - drafted, never showed up
Jesse McCord - injured, now at JUCO and not coming back
Dale Budick - major WTF draft loss. Never showed up
Andrew Mahoney - 9.00 ERA in only 2 appearances this year. Basically a bust.
Ryan Gridley - Solid 3 year contributor
Pearson McMahan - ended up at North Florida
Aaron Dominguez - bust, no longer here
Cole Gordon - partial contributor, still having big time struggles at the plate
Trey Jolly - 16.2 ERA in only 3 appearances. Bust.
Paxton Stover - went to JUCO and heading to Vandy (maybe already there)
Taylor Stafford - Transferred out to EMCC and now at West Alabama.
Colin Holderman - Drafted, never showed up.

Twelve players and a total of ONE guy who has been a consistent contributor over 3 years. Depressing, huh? A lot of that played into us signing all those JUCO's in the 2015 class like Kruger, Lowe, etc. Unfortunately that stop gap only lasted a year instead of two years as Cohen originally planned.