Signing Day is Wednesday !!

[MsStateBaseball]

I know some of you live for FB signing day well Wednesday is baseball signing day. I expect to at least sign the 9 we have commited now. We always sign more during the summer. I will tweet out updates on Wednesday.

[bully99]

Brackey tweeted to remind you that it's a dead period thru Thursday for sports with Wednesday signing day. Brackey is on the ball.

[MsStateBaseball]

This is why I have my own twitter account. Someone has to inform the public on baseball.

[Ronny]

..you will be providing.

Though I'm thoroughly disgusted with our football program, I am like a kid on Christmas morning when it comes to baseball news & updates.

[State82]

..you will be providing.

Though I'm thoroughly disgusted with our football program, I am like a kid on Christmas morning when it comes to baseball news & updates.

Seconded! My thoughts exactly. And thanks again MsStateBaseball for your efforts.

[MsStateBaseball]

For a listing of commits click only blog.

[Todd4State]

Brackey tweeted to remind you that it's a dead period thru Thursday for sports with Wednesday signing day. Brackey is on the ball.

I wish Bracky would go on a dead period.

[Todd4State]

For a listing of commits click only blog.

Keep up the awesome work!

We'll see if we get any late commits tomorrow- but I'm not looking for that to happen. I think we will add 3-4 in the spring.

[bully99]

To you recruiting gurus, is this a top 10 class?

[bully99]

Todd or msbaseball, looks like we lost out on a big recruit out of Georgia. Chris Cullen 2015 catcher committed to South Carolina. I think we were in on him.

[Todd4State]

To you recruiting gurus, is this a top 10 class?

I think it depends a lot of whether we get Vallot into school or not. If we get him, yes. Losing Swinarski out of this current class will hurt it's ranking to a degree- but it's a recruiting ranking and we are going to get to play Swinarski either way.

Jesse McCord, Dale Burdick, and Cole Gordon are legit draft prospects in addition to Vallot. Andrew Mahoney is a little bit of a gamble because he will miss his senior season to injury, but I think he is a very good gamble and will recover and get back to throwing in the low 90's again in no time. He had Tommy John surgery I believe and had he been healthy, he would have been another draft prospect.

Ryan Girdley is undersized at 5'8", but he is going to be a solid player. He can run and has surprising power for someone his size. He plays with a lot of energy and he can play CF or the MIF.

Paxton Stover, Aaron Dominguez, and Taylor Stafford are all going to be solid players for us as well. Stover is a lot like Ross Mitchell- and both have had similar high school careers in the same league. Dominguez reminds me a lot of Pollorena except for being right handed. He's one of the top recruiters in the class and you can tell he has a ton of energy. Stafford is going to be looked at as an outfielder first, but I think he might pitch for us as well. He's a lead off type hitter with good speed and he's left handed.

And as you know, it also is going to depend on what we get in the spring as well. If we didn't sign anyone else, I would say it's in the 10-15 range, but I anticipate getting a few more players in the spring.

[Todd4State]

Todd or msbaseball, looks like we lost out on a big recruit out of Georgia. Chris Cullen 2015 catcher committed to South Carolina. I think we were in on him.

We were. I had heard that we were going to get him back in the spring, but he never officially committed. He does catch in high school, but he is probably a corner infielder in college. He is a big time prospect and a great player. He played on the Team USA team with Luke Alexander.

He was a guy I REALLY wanted too- so that sucks.

[bully99]

Todd, I don't follow recruiting as well as you do, but it seems in the last couple of months we've had a number of swings and misses on recruits. Dylan Cease and Touki to Vanderbilt and now Cullen to South Carolina. I guess it goes to show you can't just pick and choose when you have so many good baseball programs you're competing against.

[MsStateBaseball]

Cullen had actually told another recruit he was going w us back in spring. Oh well. Best thing about baseball recruiting is there are lots of good players. And some develop later. And we don't know who we really are in on since no web site states all the players that are interested. We could sign a couple from west coast that we never heard of. But bet this, players will be good, coaches do a heck of a job. One pitcher from KY that visited is ranked 1# in his state for 2015 I think. Plus how many great JC players have we had? The coaches do great finding talent. Totally different way of doing than football. Like Todd said our summer recruiting has been great- Renfroe, Robson, Hann, Paul Young,so expect more next summer.

[engie]

Cullen is a pretty big loss -- but like Touki, I don't look for him to ever touch a college campus.

He's the #2 overall 2015 recruit in Georgia right now. Basically, if the draft was tomorrow, he would go in the top 20...

Seemed like a perfect personality fit for us though. This video of him as a 14 year old catching for TeamUSA got me fired up first time I saw it. Fast FWD to 1:45. THAT is how you protect your pitcher...


http://youtu.be/Gaep7e58s2c?t=1m49s

[Todd4State]

Todd, I don't follow recruiting as well as you do, but it seems in the last couple of months we've had a number of swings and misses on recruits. Dylan Cease and Touki to Vanderbilt and now Cullen to South Carolina. I guess it goes to show you can't just pick and choose when you have so many good baseball programs you're competing against.

The guys we're missing out on are on the high end of the prospect scale and are not likely to go to college for the most part. They're also out of state guys- two from Georgia and one from Florida in this case- and that means that there is a lot of competition for those players. The fact that we are on their radar is good. What we have to do to start getting those types of players is to keep going to Omaha every year or almost every year. We as MSU fans all know what Cohen is all about and what we are doing is good and is going to get even better. But much like some of our fans in 2011 who thought that going to that SR against Florida was maybe a fluke- we have to prove to recruits nationally that last season wasn't a fluke. The way to do that is to go to Omaha. Or do like Vandy and have a loophole where we can give players who have family members that make less than 75K a full ride. I'd rather be us and go to Omaha rather than produce a bunch of first round pick pitchers and choke every year.

The good news is we are getting the high end players in Mississippi- Austin Riley, Luke Alexander, Keegan James, Jake Mangum, Noah Hughes and etc. That's what we have to do in order for us to be successful because our tradition helps us to get a lot of those players into school since a lot of boys around the state dream of playing baseball at MSU. That's not to say that we should abandon going after high end out of state talent- just that it's easier to get high end in state talent and it's imperative that we do indeed get that talent.

The other thing I have talked about a lot in past years is getting the "right" players and not necessarily the best players- best meaning most talented. And right meaning guys like Alex Detz, Ross, Pollo, Pirtle, etc. If we continue to get that good mix of high end talent- like Stratton, Renfroe, Humphries, Dakota Hudson, etc.- and the right players that can balance the line up out behind a dominant pitching staff- we're going to be very good year in and year out.

As you know if you sign all high end talent- you run the risk of having what happened to Ole Miss a couple of years ago when they lost three recruits to the MLB draft and that gutted their class.

[Todd4State]

Cullen is a pretty big loss -- but like Touki, I don't look for him to ever touch a college campus.

He's the #2 overall 2015 recruit in Georgia right now. Basically, if the draft was tomorrow, he would go in the top 20...

Seemed like a perfect personality fit for us though. This video of him as a 14 year old catching for TeamUSA got me fired up first time I saw it. Fast FWD to 1:45. THAT is how you protect your pitcher...


http://youtu.be/Gaep7e58s2c?t=1m49s

That was a very nice tackle.

[bully99]

SC also has 2 national championships and a state of the art facility. Be interesting to find out why he changed his mind.