Todd4State
07-08-2017, 01:01 AM
Just some thoughts on our current class and also what I hope to see in the future with Cann.
Really this was for the most part Cohen's last class that was mostly his recruits with a few of Cann's. I don't think it's going to be representative of what we will see out of Cann going forward much like Cohen's first class with mostly Polk recruits wasn't indicative of what his classes would be like during his tenure.
The good news is we didn't really lose anyone unexpected. I think that's what really hurts- is when you lose a Dale Burdick because more often than not the guys that you think will leave you can have a contingency plan of some kind in place. As odd as that may sound. Losing guys like Jack Kruger hurt too- you go from a guy saying he's coming back to getting over slot money. The only one that I thought we might get before the draft happened was Hutchinson- but when he got drafted by the Mets and then did his "I'm going to sign...oh nevermind I just screwed up my negotiating power" tweets it was pretty obvious to me what was going to happen.
At the end of the day the key to elite success in college baseball is "winning the draft"- which is what Florida did this year. They have two assistants that are former pro scouts and then O'Sullivan is a well respected pitching coach who also has some pro experience himself. The good news for us is that is a similar background to what Cann and now Gautreau have. I think going forward as Cann's staff evolves he needs to bring in his own guys even though I think Henderson is a very good pitching coach and I think Brown seemed to do a good job coaching third and whatnot. At the same time both are Cohen guys. I can't see Brown staying much longer because he has to know that with the hiring of Gautreau he has maxed out with us. When he does leave I would like to see us hire someone actually ironically kind of like a Will Coggin as the volunteer assistant guy- someone with a lot of Mississippi connections. Someone like Jarrod Parks or Chris Kirtland at Jones JC was be good candidates. Basically someone that has a lot of connections where a high school coach can say "hey we have this guy that you might want to look at" and then we can deploy Geautrau out to scout and evaluate the player. Someone that can run camps and things like that. Yes, we still need to recruit nationally but Mississippi still needs to be the backbone of our program. We saw what happened during the Polk II era once we started to neglect the state. Cohen did a good job of cleaning up the state like we should and he deserves a lot of credit for fixing that. Henderson has done a good job- heck to get us to a SR with that pitching staff is almost a miracle. We should be a lot better next year on the mound- and after a year or two of that I could see colleges taking a long look at him especially since he did pretty well at Kentucky which is maybe the toughest place to win at in the SEC and was fired wrongly IMO. And maybe even moreso if Mingione struggles some now that Henderson's guys are starting to leave. I'd like for Cann to get a pitching coach with MLB ties like Vanderbilt had with Derek Johnson to go along with Gautreau.
As many of you know- the thing that I didn't like about Cohen's recruiting was the over-emphasis on JUCO's. It was almost like he did everything to try to make it work- but no matter what he did it was either hit or miss and if it hit it was only short term- see Lowe and Kruger. Unlike JUCO football, Mississippi doesn't produce enough JUCO baseball talent to win like we expect to in the SEC. Now, yes there maybe is enough to win C-USA- but 50 win USM which had several JUCO guys only went 1-5 against the SEC- including 0-3 against Alabama and Ole Miss...two teams that didn't make the regionals. And then their one win was against us where they lit up a former Mississippi JUCO guy in Trey Jolley- and we still almost came back on them without Mangum. And then as we all know, we completely owned them in their own regional. La Tech went 2-1 against SEC teams- and one of those wins was where we had a lead and we were throwing a guy that ended up needing Tommy John surgery. So, we've had to use out of state JUCO's and Cohen tried several things to try to get it to work- recruiting guys like MacNamee after their freshman year in JUCO and also going out to get guys that transferred out of D-I programs like Lowe and Kruger and John Holland. And even as good as Lowe and Kruger were- they still had to adjust and struggled at times early with us- which could hurt us early in SEC play or cost us games against people like St. Joseph's. And then they left leaving holes that we hoped to use more JUCO guys to replace. I hope Cann changes this and it looks like the 2018 class will have significantly fewer JUCO guys.
As far as this class....I give it a B. Even if it finishes top 10 which it possibly could. Here's why:
Pitching- Even though we have some outstanding position players, this kills the class for me. We only signed two HS guys- one Chad Bryant got drafted and is a good prospect. Zane Stephens could be redshirted. The rest are JUCO guys. I like Jared Leibelt and I think he will have an impact next year. He used to pitch at Villanova so he has some D-I experience. Cole Marsh might be able to help us out a little bit probably in a relief role of midweek as a starter and I like him. The other two are JUCO guys that have had injuries- Cameron Voss and John Mason. As many Tommy John surgeries as we've had there is zero reason to take risks on injured pitchers taking up potential roster spots. Thankfully JP France will help this group out. What even makes this worse for me is when I see Patrick Crochet a LEFT handed pitcher which is a need for us from Ocean Springs getting drafted by the Brewers but we can't offer because we've needlessly taken risks on two hurt JUCO guys. That's Ron Polk II caliber recruiting right there Cohen.
Catcher- Taking a JUCO catcher in Marshall Gilbert was a must after losing Lovelady and Marrero. Gilbert is having a good summer and could start. That said we really need another catcher- a grad transfer would be ideal since we have two elite catchers in the 2018 class and I don't want to block Skelton in any way shape or form.
Pissed off? It gets better- here's why it gets a B.
Infield- A- from this group for me. Owen Lovell can potentially play first base or the OF and should be a solid SEC player by the time he leaves. Tanner Allen can play second or third and was drafted by the Cubs and is the guy Manieri was upset about. Jordan Westburg can play 3B or possibly SS and will also be a very good player for us and will probably be drafted as a junior. Rowdey Jordan can play MIF and is hitting over .300 in a wood bat summer league. I don't care for Alex Pener- a JUCO first baseman as a player. He's had injuries and is playing in the same summer league as Tanner Poole and has for a lot of the summer had worse numbers. Justin Foscue could get redshirted but may develop into a solid player.
Outfield- A+ Jordan Anderson is a former Under Armour All-American and was drafted and he could take over CF after Mangum goes pro. Josh Hatcher hasn't been talked about as much because of who we return next year but he's a very good player in his own right and was drafted by the Angels. He could also potentially play first base and could be a darkhorse candidate in the OF next year. Allen and Lovell can also potentially play the OF if we need them to.
One of the reasons why we don't have a National Championship IMO is because we never seem to be able to "put it all together". Even our best teams- the 85 team had pitching depth issues after Brantley, Morgan, and Thigpen- which was why we used an OF as a closer and why we were screwed after Morgan got hit on his foot. And the 2013 CWS finals team had a cobbled together pitching staff. In 2016 when we won the SEC we were deep pretty much everywhere- except for the bullpen and that killed us. Put Girodo/Lindgren/Holder as a pen on that team and we may have won it all. I think that happens because of recruiting- last year we had a strong pitching group and got a catcher who was drafted....but lacked on the position player group and also oversigned JUCO's. That's going to hurt us potentially in two years- because right now we're essentially banking on LA and Stovall coming back for their senior year and I don't think we can reasonably expect Mangum back unless he just wants to go for a championship and that the good class of position players is pretty good by their sophomore year- when most guys don't get it until their junior year. We need to start having more balance in our classes and recruit higher end high school talent to go along with the best players in Mississippi- similar to what LSU's model is. The good news is I think we have a coach that has the kind of connections we need to start to land those types of elite players so that we can be up there with the Florida's, LSU's, and Vanderbilt's of the world.
Really this was for the most part Cohen's last class that was mostly his recruits with a few of Cann's. I don't think it's going to be representative of what we will see out of Cann going forward much like Cohen's first class with mostly Polk recruits wasn't indicative of what his classes would be like during his tenure.
The good news is we didn't really lose anyone unexpected. I think that's what really hurts- is when you lose a Dale Burdick because more often than not the guys that you think will leave you can have a contingency plan of some kind in place. As odd as that may sound. Losing guys like Jack Kruger hurt too- you go from a guy saying he's coming back to getting over slot money. The only one that I thought we might get before the draft happened was Hutchinson- but when he got drafted by the Mets and then did his "I'm going to sign...oh nevermind I just screwed up my negotiating power" tweets it was pretty obvious to me what was going to happen.
At the end of the day the key to elite success in college baseball is "winning the draft"- which is what Florida did this year. They have two assistants that are former pro scouts and then O'Sullivan is a well respected pitching coach who also has some pro experience himself. The good news for us is that is a similar background to what Cann and now Gautreau have. I think going forward as Cann's staff evolves he needs to bring in his own guys even though I think Henderson is a very good pitching coach and I think Brown seemed to do a good job coaching third and whatnot. At the same time both are Cohen guys. I can't see Brown staying much longer because he has to know that with the hiring of Gautreau he has maxed out with us. When he does leave I would like to see us hire someone actually ironically kind of like a Will Coggin as the volunteer assistant guy- someone with a lot of Mississippi connections. Someone like Jarrod Parks or Chris Kirtland at Jones JC was be good candidates. Basically someone that has a lot of connections where a high school coach can say "hey we have this guy that you might want to look at" and then we can deploy Geautrau out to scout and evaluate the player. Someone that can run camps and things like that. Yes, we still need to recruit nationally but Mississippi still needs to be the backbone of our program. We saw what happened during the Polk II era once we started to neglect the state. Cohen did a good job of cleaning up the state like we should and he deserves a lot of credit for fixing that. Henderson has done a good job- heck to get us to a SR with that pitching staff is almost a miracle. We should be a lot better next year on the mound- and after a year or two of that I could see colleges taking a long look at him especially since he did pretty well at Kentucky which is maybe the toughest place to win at in the SEC and was fired wrongly IMO. And maybe even moreso if Mingione struggles some now that Henderson's guys are starting to leave. I'd like for Cann to get a pitching coach with MLB ties like Vanderbilt had with Derek Johnson to go along with Gautreau.
As many of you know- the thing that I didn't like about Cohen's recruiting was the over-emphasis on JUCO's. It was almost like he did everything to try to make it work- but no matter what he did it was either hit or miss and if it hit it was only short term- see Lowe and Kruger. Unlike JUCO football, Mississippi doesn't produce enough JUCO baseball talent to win like we expect to in the SEC. Now, yes there maybe is enough to win C-USA- but 50 win USM which had several JUCO guys only went 1-5 against the SEC- including 0-3 against Alabama and Ole Miss...two teams that didn't make the regionals. And then their one win was against us where they lit up a former Mississippi JUCO guy in Trey Jolley- and we still almost came back on them without Mangum. And then as we all know, we completely owned them in their own regional. La Tech went 2-1 against SEC teams- and one of those wins was where we had a lead and we were throwing a guy that ended up needing Tommy John surgery. So, we've had to use out of state JUCO's and Cohen tried several things to try to get it to work- recruiting guys like MacNamee after their freshman year in JUCO and also going out to get guys that transferred out of D-I programs like Lowe and Kruger and John Holland. And even as good as Lowe and Kruger were- they still had to adjust and struggled at times early with us- which could hurt us early in SEC play or cost us games against people like St. Joseph's. And then they left leaving holes that we hoped to use more JUCO guys to replace. I hope Cann changes this and it looks like the 2018 class will have significantly fewer JUCO guys.
As far as this class....I give it a B. Even if it finishes top 10 which it possibly could. Here's why:
Pitching- Even though we have some outstanding position players, this kills the class for me. We only signed two HS guys- one Chad Bryant got drafted and is a good prospect. Zane Stephens could be redshirted. The rest are JUCO guys. I like Jared Leibelt and I think he will have an impact next year. He used to pitch at Villanova so he has some D-I experience. Cole Marsh might be able to help us out a little bit probably in a relief role of midweek as a starter and I like him. The other two are JUCO guys that have had injuries- Cameron Voss and John Mason. As many Tommy John surgeries as we've had there is zero reason to take risks on injured pitchers taking up potential roster spots. Thankfully JP France will help this group out. What even makes this worse for me is when I see Patrick Crochet a LEFT handed pitcher which is a need for us from Ocean Springs getting drafted by the Brewers but we can't offer because we've needlessly taken risks on two hurt JUCO guys. That's Ron Polk II caliber recruiting right there Cohen.
Catcher- Taking a JUCO catcher in Marshall Gilbert was a must after losing Lovelady and Marrero. Gilbert is having a good summer and could start. That said we really need another catcher- a grad transfer would be ideal since we have two elite catchers in the 2018 class and I don't want to block Skelton in any way shape or form.
Pissed off? It gets better- here's why it gets a B.
Infield- A- from this group for me. Owen Lovell can potentially play first base or the OF and should be a solid SEC player by the time he leaves. Tanner Allen can play second or third and was drafted by the Cubs and is the guy Manieri was upset about. Jordan Westburg can play 3B or possibly SS and will also be a very good player for us and will probably be drafted as a junior. Rowdey Jordan can play MIF and is hitting over .300 in a wood bat summer league. I don't care for Alex Pener- a JUCO first baseman as a player. He's had injuries and is playing in the same summer league as Tanner Poole and has for a lot of the summer had worse numbers. Justin Foscue could get redshirted but may develop into a solid player.
Outfield- A+ Jordan Anderson is a former Under Armour All-American and was drafted and he could take over CF after Mangum goes pro. Josh Hatcher hasn't been talked about as much because of who we return next year but he's a very good player in his own right and was drafted by the Angels. He could also potentially play first base and could be a darkhorse candidate in the OF next year. Allen and Lovell can also potentially play the OF if we need them to.
One of the reasons why we don't have a National Championship IMO is because we never seem to be able to "put it all together". Even our best teams- the 85 team had pitching depth issues after Brantley, Morgan, and Thigpen- which was why we used an OF as a closer and why we were screwed after Morgan got hit on his foot. And the 2013 CWS finals team had a cobbled together pitching staff. In 2016 when we won the SEC we were deep pretty much everywhere- except for the bullpen and that killed us. Put Girodo/Lindgren/Holder as a pen on that team and we may have won it all. I think that happens because of recruiting- last year we had a strong pitching group and got a catcher who was drafted....but lacked on the position player group and also oversigned JUCO's. That's going to hurt us potentially in two years- because right now we're essentially banking on LA and Stovall coming back for their senior year and I don't think we can reasonably expect Mangum back unless he just wants to go for a championship and that the good class of position players is pretty good by their sophomore year- when most guys don't get it until their junior year. We need to start having more balance in our classes and recruit higher end high school talent to go along with the best players in Mississippi- similar to what LSU's model is. The good news is I think we have a coach that has the kind of connections we need to start to land those types of elite players so that we can be up there with the Florida's, LSU's, and Vanderbilt's of the world.