Baseball Recruiting

[TNDawg35]

So some of y?all that follow it closer than I do shoot a run down of what we have coming next year. Right now we are sitting at #7 per PG with LSU at 1, Vandy 2, Ole Miss at 4, and Ark at 5. Know I know the draft this and the draft that. But what is the feeling of kids coming. Usually they have an idea of what they want to do?

I also see for 2023 we are rank #6, with Ark at 1, Vandy 2, and LSU at 4. Ole miss is sitting at 14?

[Todd4State]

I feel good about getting most of our guys in.
There's about 4-5 I'd keep an eye on. Jett Williams sounds like a no. Then I'd say Dakota Jordan, the pitcher with both hands, Ross Highfill, and Colby Holcombe I'd say are the others.

I'd guess we get 2-3 out of that group in.

Our class reminds me a little of Mangum's 2014 class. Lots of good arms with upside and we filled basically every spot in the field.

[BrunswickDawg]

I feel good about getting most of our guys in.
There's about 4-5 I'd keep an eye on. Jett Williams sounds like a no. Then I'd say Dakota Jordan, the pitcher with both hands, Ross Highfill, and Colby Holcombe I'd say are the others.

I'd guess we get 2-3 out of that group in.

Our class reminds me a little of Mangum's 2014 class. Lots of good arms with upside and we filled basically every spot in the field.

Is he the only pitcher with both hands? Didn't know we signed a bunch of Jim Abbotts LOL

[Coach34]

Is he the only pitcher with both hands? Didn't know we signed a bunch of Jim Abbotts LOL

He means the ambiguous guy

[BrunswickDawg]

He means the ambiguous guy

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Itispat.jpg

[Todd4State]

He means the ambiguous guy


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Itispat.jpg

I should just call him Pat from now on.**

[Santiago]

Do you have to declare at the start of each batter, or each inning which arm you throw with?
I really want to see Lemonis walk out to the mound next season and take the ball from one hand and put it in the other.

[Pancho]

I'm not sure on that but in high school one can throw 120 pitches a week with either arm. I know of 2 young men up in north MS who throw with both arms in high school now.

[magrooder]

He means the ambiguous guy

Ambiguous/ambidextrous same difference almost.

[Mjoelner34]

He means the ambiguous guy

No no no. He's amphibious.
https://numeralpaint.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/baseball-frog-paint-by-number.jpg

[Tbonewannabe]

Do you have to declare at the start of each batter, or each inning which arm you throw with?
I really want to see Lemonis walk out to the mound next season and take the ball from one hand and put it in the other.

I believe you have to declare at the start of each batter. I am not sure if a switch hitter has to declare and stick with it for the at bat or if they can change sides between pitches.

[Coach34]

Ambiguous/ambidextrous same difference almost.

I'm just glad he's not a Pre-Madonna or Punching Judy hitter

[Homedawg]

So some of y?all that follow it closer than I do shoot a run down of what we have coming next year. Right now we are sitting at #7 per PG with LSU at 1, Vandy 2, Ole Miss at 4, and Ark at 5. Know I know the draft this and the draft that. But what is the feeling of kids coming. Usually they have an idea of what they want to do?

I also see for 2023 we are rank #6, with Ark at 1, Vandy 2, and LSU at 4. Ole miss is sitting at 14?

IMO this is the worst class we will sign. Obviously, the draft ultimately dictates how good the others are, but 23 and beyond all have more difference makers in them. And they all won't sign.

[OLJWales]

Do you have to declare at the start of each batter, or each inning which arm you throw with?
I really want to see Lemonis walk out to the mound next season and take the ball from one hand and put it in the other.

Lol. Somebody correct if wrong. The switch pitcher has advantage on hitters who bat from only one side of the plate. Shouldn't the pitcher have to commit to an arm for a switch hitter?

[Tbonewannabe]

Lol. Somebody correct if wrong. The switch pitcher has advantage on hitters who bat from only one side of the plate. Shouldn't the pitcher have to commit to an arm for a switch hitter?

I believe the pitcher has to declare first then the switch hitter has to decide which side he is hitting from. Not sure if the batter can change during the at bat but I saw a video which I think created the rule. Switch pitcher switched his glove hand then the batter switched sides of the plate. It literally went back and forth until the ump stepped in and told the pitcher to decide. I believe they made a rule right after that.

[Commercecomet24]

Do you have to declare at the start of each batter, or each inning which arm you throw with?
I really want to see Lemonis walk out to the mound next season and take the ball from one hand and put it in the other.

A pitcher has to declare at the start of each hitter which side he will throw from and cannot switch sides until the next hitter, However a switch hitter can switch sides as often as he likes during an at bat.

[Todd4State]

Lol. Somebody correct if wrong. The switch pitcher has advantage on hitters who bat from only one side of the plate. Shouldn't the pitcher have to commit to an arm for a switch hitter?

Conventional thinking- yes.

But really depends on based on each individual hitter/pitcher analytics. Sometimes guys have reverses splits.

[CaptainObvious]

Konnor Griffin looks like a full grown man at 15. Can we go ahead and bring him in next year instead of waiting to 2025?

[Todd4State]

Konnor Griffin looks like a full grown man at 15. Can we go ahead and bring him in next year instead of waiting to 2025?
Wait? He's coming to college?

[CaptainObvious]

Wait? He's coming to college?

Doubtful. Just wishful thinking that he might wear an MSU uniform.

[Commercecomet24]

Wait? He's coming to college?

With the way mlb is going he might just have to if he wants to keep playing, lol.

[SilentSteel16]

Griffin is very pro MSU, but it is almost guaranteed he won’t make it to college after Prep. Eventually get a degree, but he will be going pro. To be perfectly honest and this is not a takeaway way from him, but I believe he is not the best athlete on that team in his grade.

[SilentSteel16]

There are about 8 D1 athletes on those Prep 10th grade teams for baseball and football each. Griffin is the headliner but I honestly believe the Gideon kid is the target for dual sports.

Football wise there are about 3 that are going to be massive on the offensive line/defensive line. Just going to be up to how mean they get.

[TheLostDawg]

Y'all don't NIL deals will help us pull some of these kids to college.
They can make big money, have experience of college, rise to the majors faster, don't have to be on a bus the majority of their year.

[Homedawg]

There are about 8 D1 athletes on those Prep 10th grade teams for baseball and football each. Griffin is the headliner but I honestly believe the Gideon kid is the target for dual sports.

Football wise there are about 3 that are going to be massive on the offensive line/defensive line. Just going to be up to how mean they get.

Griffin is a 9th grader? And I don't know if Gideon is the better "athlete" or not, but I know who the best baseball player is, and that's Griffin.

[SilentSteel16]

Yeah they are both in 9th grade. I am telling you though, Griffin is really good, but if you are talking about dual sports guys with a chance of them stepping foot on campus it is Gideon and not Griffin. I never said Griffin was bad but I really do believe that Gideon is a better all around athlete. I know he sure as hell plays harder than Griffin especially in football. Griffin I do believe is the top baseball player in the state, but 3 more years of people telling him how amazing he is, is a bad recipe.

[captaindog]

Yeah they are both in 9th grade. I am telling you though, Griffin is really good, but if you are talking about dual sports guys with a chance of them stepping foot on campus it is Gideon and not Griffin. I never said Griffin was bad but I really do believe that Gideon is a better all around athlete. I know he sure as hell plays harder than Griffin especially in football. Griffin I do believe is the top baseball player in the state, but 3 more years of people telling him how amazing he is, is a bad recipe.

I?m going respectfully disagree. I?ve watched both play at Prep the last two years and in various travel ball before that. Gideon plays hard but Griffin plays with just as much effort and just as hard, football or otherwise. Gideon is an outstanding athlete but he, like his brother, grew early and based on his parent?s size is probably done growing. I?d be very surprised if he was recruited at this level in any sport. Griffin?s best sport could be basketball. He is incredible on the court and can score on all three levels. He can elevate quickly and higher than I?ve seen in while. However he is likely not going to play now due to baseball. He has elite athleticism. He makes plays in football, basketball, and baseball other players simply can?t make. I do agree his family is going to have to be very careful with helping him navigate being the number one player in the nation and the accolades that come with it.

[SilentSteel16]

Captain everyone has their opinion, and I am not saying you are incorrect. However, I do not know Gideons brother or parents, I just know the effort on the football field is much higher than Griffin. Is it just easy for him, quite possibly. BUT if I were fielding a team I would want those hard nosed all out players over someone who seems to be taking plays off. Griffin maybe a better athlete, I guess it comes down to what you want to see out of a player and how they push themselves.


Again, I don’t really care one way or the other, but Griffin is going to be a baseball player or bust. He will be a high draft pick. I will say this though, 3 years is along time to wear the crown. Perfect game only evaluates the players that come to them. Look how off they were about Ealy.

[Cooterpoot]

Yeah they are both in 9th grade. I am telling you though, Griffin is really good, but if you are talking about dual sports guys with a chance of them stepping foot on campus it is Gideon and not Griffin. I never said Griffin was bad but I really do believe that Gideon is a better all around athlete. I know he sure as hell plays harder than Griffin especially in football. Griffin I do believe is the top baseball player in the state, but 3 more years of people telling him how amazing he is, is a bad recipe.

You're crazy. Griffin isn't the top player in MS. He's the top player in the country in his class. He could be better in both football and basketball if they were his chosen sport but that's baseball.

[SilentSteel16]

Very important correction right here: He is the top player in the country that Perfect Game has evaluated. I will take a ban bet from anyone that he is NOT the top player in his senior year once more kids are evaluated.

With all that being said, I did say in my opinion… and you are crazy if you think he is top in basketball and football. Baseball is his sport, and he will make a lot of money playing it. I wish him the best, I really do. My observation was that he didn’t play as hard as others mainly in football and that may have been simply because he made it look effortless. Which may be the case. I am not attacking the kid and never will.

[SilentSteel16]

Again, I am not attacking the kid. I just think it is absolutely crazy that a company can make these claims of best player in a sport when they only evaluate 30-40 percent of the actual players. I have long been against travel ball for kids and kids specializing at 10-12 years old. By specializing I mean focusing on one sport and saying I am a SS or I am a CF.

Griffin may turn out to be the best player to ever come out of MS. I really hope he does he certainly has the talent to do it, hopefully injuries stay away and allow him to live his dream. BUT some people not just on this board but in public need to chill out with these rankings companies and their claims on 12-15 year old athletes. That is my problem, it has nothing to do with Griffin but with these evaluators that make these grand statements about kids and making money off of them by simply lying.

Can you tell I have a problem with Perfect Game and what they do to Middle school kids. If they stick to ranking 10th through 12th graders that is valid but ranking before that is just gaslighting kids and parents are dumb enough to buy into it.

[SilentSteel16]

And Commerce I know you are a travel ball coach, but baseball is not a year round sport, especially for pitchers. There needs to be at least a few months off for pitchers a year. I can’t tell you how many kids I saw that I had to work with that had tendon issues or TOS that admitted they have been doing mound work at least 2 a week year round since they were 14 years old. And we wonder why arms and joints are falling off.

Hitters are fine for year round work, but not pitching. I also believe that it takes the fun out of it and makes it a job which also detracts from the sport.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Y'all don't NIL deals will help us pull some of these kids to college.
They can make big money, have experience of college, rise to the majors faster, don't have to be on a bus the majority of their year.

No. Not even comparable. On one side you can take a guaranteed 3-4 million at the least to play baseball and only play baseball. On the other side you can 50K and a car from a car dealership, but have to do promotional events, commercials, etc. And on top of that you have to go to class.

[Commercecomet24]

And Commerce I know you are a travel ball coach, but baseball is not a year round sport, especially for pitchers. There needs to be at least a few months off for pitchers a year. I can’t tell you how many kids I saw that I had to work with that had tendon issues or TOS that admitted they have been doing mound work at least 2 a week year round since they were 14 years old. And we wonder why arms and joints are falling off.

Hitters are fine for year round work, but not pitching. I also believe that it takes the fun out of it and makes it a job which also detracts from the sport.

Yes, I did it for a long time. Gave it up a few years ago, had a group try to talk me into coming back last year, but I'm just having fun watching my oldest coach and my youngest play juco right now. Yeah when I did it we started practice in February and played March to July and then shut it down so my players could play football, basketball or whatever. And we played every other week not every week like some. As I started coaching HS kids we started in May(after they finished high school ball) and finshed early August before school started. You can't play baseball year around, especially for pitchers, it's just to hard on them. I also monitored pitch counts closely and would not try to win a tournament by putting one of my kids in jeopardy. I also made sure that everyone I had was at least a servicable pitcher so I had a lot of arms to throw and not have to tax one player. It's why I won a lot of big national tournaments because I had fresh arms for championship bracket play and everyone else was scrounging for inning. I've had a lot of my kids play college ball and not one arm surgery for any of my former players. I know so many of these coaches that played every weekend and all year long and that's just insane! I've seen so many coaches throw a kid 120-130 pitches just to win a tournament, INSANE! The last national tournament we won before i gave it up we played a team in the championship game that had a super talented lefty pitching for them. I found out that kid had thrown 6 innings the day before for another team in another tournament! We run ruled them because he had nothing left! I could go on and on about the abuse of young pitchers and players I've seen by coaches but none of us have that kind of time! Take care of these young arms and bodies!

ETA Worst thing you can do is make a kid hate the game because he plays it all the time and its more like a job than fun!

[Cooterpoot]

And Commerce I know you are a travel ball coach, but baseball is not a year round sport, especially for pitchers. There needs to be at least a few months off for pitchers a year. I can’t tell you how many kids I saw that I had to work with that had tendon issues or TOS that admitted they have been doing mound work at least 2 a week year round since they were 14 years old. And we wonder why arms and joints are falling off.

Hitters are fine for year round work, but not pitching. I also believe that it takes the fun out of it and makes it a job which also detracts from the sport.

Legit travel organizations aren't hurting kids. Now parents? Absolutely. Parents have the most say in usage. Too many like their kid being "the guy". Parents living a dream that's not theirs.

[SilentSteel16]

Commerce I really do believe that if travel ball coaches respected their kids as much as you did then we won’t have all these arm problems that are going on right now. Not just with us at State but Texas just lost their Friday night guy to a UCL injury as well. He is a sophomore so I am sure he had (assumption) years taken off of his arm by travel ball throwing.

The way you handled your team is textbook for how a travel ball team should be run. I applaud you for that and I am sure the kids are grateful. A true baseball player is a competitor at heart, he won’t be honest with you about his arm or legs not being under him, It takes a grownup like you to mandate it much like you did. That is integrity as a coach and I just hope and pray that other coaches would do the same for their players but sadly it usually is an ego thing with the coaches and the players are the ones that suffer.

[SilentSteel16]

Legit travel organizations aren't hurting kids. Now parents? Absolutely. Parents have the most say in usage. Too many like their kid being "the guy". Parents living a dream that's not theirs.

Amen, there are really good coaches out there much like Commerce. IT IS THE PARENTS!! Organizations like Perfect Game whom tell the parents and the world how great their kids are at 14 years old creates a problem that most parents can’t handle. The kid will never turn down a tournament unless he has already lost love for the game. The kid won’t be the one that tells the coach hey my arm hurts, but say how they don’t want to disappoint their parents so yeah I can throw 100 more pitches.

You are spot on about the parents, but there are a lot and I mean ALOT of ego centered coaches out there that want one more cheap made ring. Those guys and gals should be held accountable for the arm issues these kids have.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Legit travel organizations aren't hurting kids. Now parents? Absolutely. Parents have the most say in usage. Too many like their kid being "the guy". Parents living a dream that's not theirs.

Had a buddy growing up that his parents pushed him to play baseball year round. Was a pretty good athlete and played all sports until 10th grade when he got an interest letter from LSU and his parents freaked out and made him quit everything to focus on baseball. Ended up at JUCO and had arm problems and never pitched in a game. I still think had he not played year round he could have had a decent college career.

[Commercecomet24]

Legit travel organizations aren't hurting kids. Now parents? Absolutely. Parents have the most say in usage. Too many like their kid being "the guy". Parents living a dream that's not theirs.

Yeah this 100%, too. The problem is though for every legit organization there is 5-6 that aren't.

[Commercecomet24]

Amen, there are really good coaches out there much like Commerce. IT IS THE PARENTS!! Organizations like Perfect Game whom tell the parents and the world how great their kids are at 14 years old creates a problem that most parents can’t handle. The kid will never turn down a tournament unless he has already lost love for the game. The kid won’t be the one that tells the coach hey my arm hurts, but say how they don’t want to disappoint their parents so yeah I can throw 100 more pitches.

You are spot on about the parents, but there are a lot and I mean ALOT of ego centered coaches out there that want one more cheap made ring. Those guys and gals should be held accountable for the arm issues these kids have.

Yep.

[Todd4State]

With the way mlb is going he might just have to if he wants to keep playing, lol.

Nice jinx!**

[Commercecomet24]

Nice jinx!**

Thank you!! I knew it would work lol!

[Leeshouldveflanked]

We have a 6 foot 7 eight grader that pitches, catches and plays SS at the local school. He is part of the Yalobusha Giants Organization so he will be on Ole Miss watchlist soon if he isnt already. Hopefully the HS coach doesnt ruin him.
He also plays HS basketball.