A few baseball questions and observations

[AlSwearengen]

1. Was Self throwing harder earlier in the year? I thought he was hitting around 94mph at one time. If he could work on a fastball with arm side run and a curve or slider in the 82 mph range, he would be really tough. As it stands now, he is a one pitch pitcher. He is good against mediocre teams, but the top tier teams can get to him.

2. In our lineup, we have five good SEC players. Vansau shows signs, but he is usually overmatched by the good SEC pitchers. Is our scholarship situation causing this? I know lsu is lsu, but they have talent all over the place.

3. Can Cannazaro bring in enough talent consistently to keep us from having big holes in our lineup?

[I seen it dawg]

Yes.
See number 3
And yes.

[basedog]

Cann has been in Starkville since November, things will improve quickly.

Self is a freshman, he like our team has overachieved, he probably has hit the wall.

[CadaverDawg]

Unfortunately, Self's jog from the bullpen shows that he's peaked.**

[bulldogcountry1]

I admit I questioned why Self didn't come in earlier, but the question was answered when he came in. He just doesn't have his best stuff. He's spent. Plumlee, on the other hand, was hitting 92. I don't recall him getting over about 90 earlier in the season.

This team is the perfect example that you don't need 30 SEC-worthy guys on your team every year. You can win it all with half of that. That's where we need to be, and what is really our reality. We just can't complete with LSU, as far as aid money, but we don't need to. They are always going to have talented guys riding the bench and screaming "f*** you" to opponents. When post-season starts, all teams are going to be relying on a core group of their best, and it really neutralizes depth a good bit.

LSU is always going to win conference titles and earn more national seeds because of their depth, but we can still host on a regular basis with half of what they get.

[Percho]

Unfortunately, Self's jog from the bullpen shows that he's peaked.**

We need to golf cart them to the mound so we don't have to look at that.**** :)

[BB30]

Early in the season self was throwing a 4 seam and a cutter. For whatever reason they have canned the 4 seam and he is strictly throwing a cutter. His cutter is a plus pitch even at the next leve but he has to develop another pitch. The reason your not going to see him throw a slider is because it will mess with how good his cutter is. If he can develop as others have stated a two seam he can work in on righties he will be fine. Right now hitters know they are just going to see the cutter and righties can get out over the plate and don't have to worry about being busted in.

[diamonddawg17]

I have watched Self some over the years and know some of his family. In high school he threw multiple pitches. He didn't start throwing the cutter until he got to MSU. He can only throw what the pitching coach calls. And yes I am sure he is tired. He has more appearances than anybody on the team. A player can only do what his body will allow at this point.

[Todd4State]

1. It's obvious that it is what it is. Self has had some arm problems too and Cann is trying to be conservative with him.

2. No our scholarship situation isn't causing that. It's a recruiting issue- we have to do a better job of identifying players that want to come to school rather than "let's roll the dice on Greg Pickett and if he doesn't show up we'll go get some JUCO guy- it will work out just as well." That's why LSU was able to get a lot of their recruits and players under Cann and why they sucked under Smoke Laval.

3. Yes Cann will help with that immensely.

[confucius say]

We have several supposed big time arms on the shelf. If we could have went to mid 90s guys small and ashcraft last night and closed with Padgett, we'd be fine. And Keegan would be starting today. It's not like Lsu is the 27 Yankees and our talent is the 2010 cubs.