What if: Baseball version

[slickdawg]

What if we had actually gotten an aspiring coach when Pat McMahon left us for UF ?


Cohen has done an great job getting things rebuilt. We should finish at least .500 in conference play this year. The winning percentage jump is incredible, and correlates with him getting talent back on the field. .411 to .762 in three years - remarkable.


2005 Ron Polk 42 22 0 .656 13 16 0 .448 7th 1st Regionals
2006 Ron Polk 37 23 0 .617 12 17 0 .414 9th -- Regionals
2007 Ron Polk 38 22 0 .633 15 13 0 .536 4th 7th (T) Regionals, Super Regionals, College World Series
2008 Ron Polk 23 33 0 .411 9 21 0 .300 12th -- --
2009 John Cohen 25 29 0 .463 9 20 0 .310 12th -- --
2010 John Cohen 23 33 0 .411 6 24 0 .200 12th -- --
2011 John Cohen 38 25 0 .616 14 16 0 .467 6th 8th Regionals, Super Regionals
2012 John Cohen 40 24 0 .639 16 14 0 .533 5th (T) 1st Regionals
2013 John Cohen 32 10 0 .762 10 8 0 .556

[missouridawg]

What if we got Cohen in 2005 instead RP2? It's pretty clear, now, that Cohen knows how to run a college baseball program.

[slickdawg]

Looking back a little further..... just for reference



1998 Pat McMahon 42 23 0 .646 14 15 0 .483 6th 3rd (T) Regionals, College World Series
1999 Pat McMahon 42 21 0 .667 15 13 0 .536 6th 3rd (T) Regionals
2000 Pat McMahon 41 20 0 .672 17 10 0 .630 4th 7th (T) Regionals, Super Regionals
2001 Pat McMahon 39 24 0 .619 17 13 0 .567 4th (T) 1st Regionals, Super Regionals
2002 Ron Polk 34 24 1 .576 14 15 0 .483 7th 5th (T) --
2003 Ron Polk 42 20 1 .667 17 12 0 .586 4th 3rd (T) Regionals
2004 Ron Polk 35 24 0 .593 13 17 0 .433 9th -- Regionals
2005 Ron Polk 42 22 0 .656 13 16 0 .448 7th 1st Regionals
2006 Ron Polk 37 23 0 .617 12 17 0 .414 9th -- Regionals
2007 Ron Polk 38 22 0 .633 15 13 0 .536 4th 7th (T) Regionals, Super Regionals, College World Series
2008 Ron Polk 23 33 0 .411 9 21 0 .300 12th -- --
2009 John Cohen 25 29 0 .463 9 20 0 .310 12th -- --
2010 John Cohen 23 33 0 .411 6 24 0 .200 12th -- --
2011 John Cohen 38 25 0 .616 14 16 0 .467 6th 8th Regionals, Super Regionals
2012 John Cohen 40 24 0 .639 16 14 0 .533 5th (T) 1st Regionals
2013 John Cohen 32 10 0 .762 10 8 0 .556

[Quaoarsking]

Supposedly Paul Mainieri wanted the job

[Esmerelda Villalobos]

cohen knows what he is doing. I dont understand anyone complaining about him. Yes, he does things that make you scratch your head but he is a damn good coach. He is the best we have on campus by a LOOOOOONG shot. I honestly believe he brings a championship to starkville.

[Todd4State]

In 2002, Cohen was still a newcomer on the scene. He left Northwestern State to be the hitting coach for Pat McMahon at Florida.

If we hire a credible coach- Cohen, Manieri, whomever- I don't think our program declines and I also don't think Ole Miss and USM would have had quite the success that they have had. It's not a coincidence that both have declined since we hired Cohen. Our recruiting and some of our arrogant baseball fans "Ole Miss is just a fluke this year" attitude is what killed us.

[engie]

Yep. What Todd said exactly.

Polk 2's recruiting was insanely lazy -- which, to me, reflected on Raffo just as badly.

[slickdawg]

Yep. What Todd said exactly.

Polk 2's recruiting was insanely lazy -- which, to me, reflected on Raffo just as badly.

Another horrible what if - Raffo getting the HC job.

[Todd4State]

Polk was going to stay around if Raffo was the head coach. If you want to know what our team would look like, google UAB's team.

[engie]

Raffo has done a nice job at Arky St. I just never felt like he did enough in his role at MSU to ever become obvious heir apparent. Didn't recruit well enough nor hard enough. 5 minutes talking to him and Dan McDonnell back to back would tell you all you needed to know about how recruiting would go between those two. Baseball recruiting can often be more reflective on assistants than the HC. I know that the friends and teammates I knew personally all went to OM because of McDonnell -- had very little to do with Bianco. Yet, OM also experienced a recruiting lull between McDonnell and Godwin because they didn't hire as well -- and it's plagued them the past few years in their performance.

[Todd4State]

I think the Arkansas State fans are pretty happy with Raffo. All they really want to do is go to a regional.

Ole Miss has had some problems with their assistants- they fired one around Christmas time. That would be about like Dan firing a coordinator on the Fourth of July.

Carl Lafferty does a good bit of recruiting for Ole Miss too.

[Bo Darville]

Ron Polk is obviously as good of a baseball guy as you will find. He just was lazy at recruiting and expected kids to just show up and want to play at MSU. He also didn't have the fire that you need. Baseball has gotten extremely competitive just like basketball and football. You've got to work your tail off to get talent, then you've got to coach them hard and win. Losing won't be tolerated because stadiums are bigger, some games are now on TV, etc. This isn't women's swimming where nobody really cares about the result. Cohen is a guy who understands the pressure that comes with being a top-20 team in today's SEC. Shrugging your shoulders and saying "that's baseball" no longer works. The actual game didn't pass Ron Polk by, but the methods it takes to stay competitive certainly did.

[engie]

Baseball is about to get ALOT more competitive with the SECNetwork -- which will presumably show SEC baseball 7 days a week in March, April, May, and June. I look for us to incorporate midweek conference games as well in order to help with quality inventory. People just THOUGHT that we had an advantage in baseball before -- just wait until we are all on tv 15 times a year....

[Todd4State]

Another thing that really is helping is people like Michael Roth who used to play at South Carolina moving to the majors very quickly. Then you have Kevin Gausman and Mike Zunino not too far behind. Then we can sell get to the big leagues quicker and get a good education- best of both worlds. Plus, you get to skip a lot of the Bull Durham levels of the minors.

[slickdawg]

One HUGE difference between any Polk team and any Cohen team, the Cohen teams can bunt, Polk teams never could.

[Todd4State]

Ron Polk is obviously as good of a baseball guy as you will find. He just was lazy at recruiting and expected kids to just show up and want to play at MSU. He also didn't have the fire that you need. Baseball has gotten extremely competitive just like basketball and football. You've got to work your tail off to get talent, then you've got to coach them hard and win. Losing won't be tolerated because stadiums are bigger, some games are now on TV, etc. This isn't women's swimming where nobody really cares about the result. Cohen is a guy who understands the pressure that comes with being a top-20 team in today's SEC. Shrugging your shoulders and saying "that's baseball" no longer works. The actual game didn't pass Ron Polk by, but the methods it takes to stay competitive certainly did.


Let me put it this way- it's hard to stay up to date in the world nowadays when your only means of communication with the outside world is a typewriter and a newspaper.

I remember back in the early 90's, he told my Dad that if he couldn't win it the NC with Clark and Palmeiro, he wasn't ever going to be able to do it. Polk also resented MLB stealing recruits- and that's part of the reason why he recruited some of the players he did over other players. It was almost like Polk assumed that if you were going to get drafted, you were signing. That, or Polk just didn't want to deal with the re-recruiting and waiting game.


It just got to the point where winning wasn't a priority as much as it was about making sure "his" players had a good college experience and they learned something about baseball that day. That's not necessarily a bad thing- but there is a place for that, and that place isn't the SEC. But he's never going to take a Mississippi College type job (they talked to him when he was "retired" around 1998) because he wants the SEC support and facilities. Basically have his cake and eat it to.

That's why we got him from Georgia Southern- Georgia Southern wouldn't build a stadium like he wanted and they didn't have the support, but they went to a regional in Starkville (a regional that MSU didn't even participate in- they just picked sites regardless of whether the school was in it or not in those days) and he noticed the crowds and everything and once Bragan left for MLB, we hired Polk from Miami.

[Todd4State]

One HUGE difference between any Polk team and any Cohen team, the Cohen teams can bunt, Polk teams never could.

LOL.

I'll tell you another difference that people may not have noticed- our pitching is a LOT deeper under Cohen. We had Brantley, DuBose, Bobby Reed, etc.- lots of great pitchers through the years under Polk. So, having aces and even legit closers weren't the problem. The problem was we didn't usually have a dominant #2 and #3 and guys in the bullpen that we could use.

We also steal and are more aggressive under Cohen- that fits our stadium and it fits our recruiting base a lot better than what Polk was trying to do with station to station Earl Weaver ball.

[slickdawg]

Stealing - how could I leave that out? Polk acted like it was a real crime to do so.