3D Chess - the Lesson of Paul Skenes

[The Federalist Engineer]

To fire Lemonis - you must pay 6MM buyout (According to Coach 34)

To NIL Skenes - 250K (According to a dumb-as-dogshit LSU fan I know)

Then MSU is better off keeping Lemonis and getting 4 Paul Skenes type pitch talents for 1M by appropriating "buyout" dollars to getting top-notch All American players.

Win the National Championship in 2024

Then fire Lemonis after the dog pile clears and buyout is zero, hire only 350K coaches from here out.

[bulldogcountry1]

A 6MM buyout seems pretty unbelievable, especially after last season. If that is the case, then we cannot fire him. Even if we have some donors willing to pay it, we will have to turn around and pay someone else handsomely to come. Then, you have to hire assistants.

At that point, what would be left for NIL? As bad as I hate the NIL situation, I think the better option would be to convince these donors to donate to NIL. 4-6MM should put us in position to pull/hold good players for years.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

I don't disagree. But boosters tend to be older, and older people tend to be "back in my day" types who don't want to change their views.

If any booster questions what you're saying (that NIL offers more bang for your buck than getting good coaches) I say look at any pro sport- the coaches make pennies compared to the star players, and virtually nothing compared to the roster as a whole. Yet at State the HC in every sport makes more than all his players combined.

This is a huge opportunity for us to take advantage of college sports continued overpaying of coaches vs players, but we are State so I'm sire the boosters will refuse to use that 6M on NIL

[Leeshouldveflanked]

How much did we pay Hancock, Stinnett, Forsythe, Pico, Hujsack, Gartman, Simmons, Auger, and Yntema?

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

How much did we pay Hancock, Stinnett, Forsythe, Pico, Hujsack, Gartman, Simmons, Auger, and Yntema?

Would be interesting to know. I remember 50k for Stinnett got said here a few times, if true it's really not that bad of a deal. Yeah he himself isn't worth the roster spot, but that's the coaches misevaluating. The point is, a guy came back another year for 50k. We can do that for 3-5 key contributors/prospects we want to stay, then offer 150k to keep some studs that have big offers to transfer away, then offer 250k to get 2-3 huge transfer contributors, and for the total cost of about a million we've got talented well rounded team. Vs 6M to fire a coach + millions more to entice a new coach, that's cheap.

[Homedawg]

How much did we pay Hancock, Stinnett, Forsythe, Pico, Hujsack, Gartman, Simmons, Auger, and Yntema?

Way less than what skenes got added together. And several you listed got zero

[maroonmania]

To fire Lemonis - you must pay 6MM buyout (According to Coach 34)

To NIL Skenes - 250K (According to a dumb-as-dogshit LSU fan I know)

Then MSU is better off keeping Lemonis and getting 4 Paul Skenes type pitch talents for 1M by appropriating "buyout" dollars to getting top-notch All American players.

Win the National Championship in 2024

Then fire Lemonis after the dog pile clears and buyout is zero, hire only 350K coaches from here out.


Buy out will NEVER be zero or even close to it. You can go a year without extending a coach's contract but not multiple years. If you do you will hamstring his efforts to recruit and retain coaches. It will become quite obvious the school is preparing to make a change. You really either need to commit to a coach or move on. Giving a coach one last 'trial' year in his 5th season on the job is not really a position you want to be in. Either you believe in a guy or you dont.

[R2Dawg]

Would be interesting to know. I remember 50k for Stinnett got said here a few times, if true it's really not that bad of a deal. Yeah he himself isn't worth the roster spot, but that's the coaches misevaluating. The point is, a guy came back another year for 50k. We can do that for 3-5 key contributors/prospects we want to stay, then offer 150k to keep some studs that have big offers to transfer away, then offer 250k to get 2-3 huge transfer contributors, and for the total cost of about a million we've got talented well rounded team. Vs 6M to fire a coach + millions more to entice a new coach, that's cheap.

You can't misuse NIL money on a player that doesn't even contribute unless you want to kill giving. That goes against all the must have NIL or you can't win crowd which is most. There will be more and more examples of how money won't buy championships every year but with small budgets, we can't swing and miss.

[R2Dawg]

To fire Lemonis - you must pay 6MM buyout (According to Coach 34)

To NIL Skenes - 250K (According to a dumb-as-dogshit LSU fan I know)

Then MSU is better off keeping Lemonis and getting 4 Paul Skenes type pitch talents for 1M by appropriating "buyout" dollars to getting top-notch All American players.

Win the National Championship in 2024

Then fire Lemonis after the dog pile clears and buyout is zero, hire only 350K coaches from here out.


Finally the blueprint for success, now just execute.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

You can't misuse NIL money on a player that doesn't even contribute unless you want to kill giving

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I will say that if boosters behave like that they're hypocrites: We "misused" money hiring JoMo, but the boosters still contributed for us to hire a new coach. Same is true for any coach weve fired in any sport. Why would they stop giving to NIL if it have a sub 100% hit rate when they contribute to coaching buyouts and new coach salaries even when the AD making the new hire is the one who failed last time?

Point is, NIL is just what player salaries are to coaching salaries in pro leagues. Any pro team owner that says "I'm going to pay big bucks for a coach because we need a good coach" but also says "I'm going to have the lowest paid roster in the league because once a guy got lazy after I gave him a big contract" is an idiot who will not win. Boosters may not like it, but NIL is more important than having a good coach.

[Really Clark?]

The buyout is not $6 MIL for Lemonis, it's a little less than that for the entire staff. Which we have already committed part of that in the pot to fire Fox.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Yes, collegiate baseball NIL and the Lemonis Paradox figured out for 2024. This is me and Selmon figuring it out and Homedawg angry about it....

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BriskPossibleBorer-max-1mb.gif

[somebodyshotmypaw]

Nothing is as funny as broke asses telling other people how to spend their money. If the big boosters want to throw $1 million at the program then they should have some say-so where that goes. If you wanted Skenes so badly then why didn’t you write the damn check and get him? Y’all sound like the government being experts on spending other people’s money.

[Coach34]

The buyout is not $6 MIL for Lemonis, it's a little less than that for the entire staff. Which we have already committed part of that in the pot to fire Fox.

Yes. That $6MM number includes Fox, Lemon, GoTro, and Cheese

[Quaoarsking]

If Selmon & Keenum don't have the guts to make the HC change, they could at least try to get the boosters willing to spend millions on the buyout to spend that same amount on NIL. I don't like that compromise, but it would be better than nothing.

[Johnson85]

Buy out will NEVER be zero or even close to it. You can go a year without extending a coach's contract but not multiple years. If you do you will hamstring his efforts to recruit and retain coaches. It will become quite obvious the school is preparing to make a change. You really either need to commit to a coach or move on. Giving a coach one last 'trial' year in his 5th season on the job is not really a position you want to be in. Either you believe in a guy or you dont.

You can extend a coach while keeping the buyout the same. So if Lem has 3 years and a buyout that is $2M if he has 2 years left on his contract and $1M if he has one year left, then pretty easy to renew him to 4 years and make the buyout start at $2M, reduce to $1M, then $500k. That's not going to hamstring recruiting. Now at some point the coach will refuse to sign an extension as the cheap buyout gets closer to the current year, but I can't imagine Lemonis would balk at this point at getting a 4 year extension if there is any buyout after the end of his current contract. If he gets a $100k if he is fired after what would be the end of his current contract, that's a pretty good deal for somebody that arguably should be fired.

[Johnson85]

If Selmon & Keenum don't have the guts to make the HC change, they could at least try to get the boosters willing to spend millions on the buyout to spend that same amount on NIL. I don't like that compromise, but it would be better than nothing.

I have no clue how Lemonis would react to this, but I would like to see a proposal pitched to Lemonis along the lines of "we have boosters that are willing to pony up the money to fire you and your staff but they like you and want to see you succeed. If you will restructure your deal where you get back to 4 years at a slightly lower salary and a lower buyout, they are going to commit to make $1M a year available for your NIL for the next four years. The savings from your salary will also be more or less put back into NIL by boosters that would have more or less been paying that part of the salary." That would be less money out of the boosters pocket while still making us a major player in NIL for baseball. And start us on a path to paying coaches less and players more.

[Cooterpoot]

The point of the OP is that we tried to NIL shit the MSU way and it's going to end up costing us more. And he's correct.
Todd said yesterday we'd have at least 8 more wins with Skenes, maybe more. That too is correct.
So, let's sit on a questionable coach and not go big on NIL. Because that's the MSU way of doing shit. Then give up that $5MM to the school from our AD too.
Such a waste

[confucius say]

Nothing is as funny as broke asses telling other people how to spend their money. If the big boosters want to throw $1 million at the program then they should have some say-so where that goes. If you wanted Skenes so badly then why didn’t you write the damn check and get him? Y’all sound like the government being experts on spending other people’s money.

Skenes wasn't lost because of miney

[Cooterpoot]

Skenes wasn't lost because of miney

We didn't match the offer either. Imagine if we had offered $350K. Still a deal.

[confucius say]

The point of the OP is that we tried to NIL shit the MSU way and it's going to end up costing us more. And he's correct.
Todd said yesterday we'd have at least 8 more wins with Skenes, maybe more. That too is correct.
So, let's sit on a questionable coach and not go big on NIL. Because that's the MSU way of doing shit. Then give up that $5MM to the school from our AD too.
Such a waste

If you could keep lemonis and use the buyout money to go get a bunch of pitchers, sign me up for that.

But you have to sell that to your boosters with the buyout money.

[Johnson85]

The point of the OP is that we tried to NIL shit the MSU way and it's going to end up costing us more. And he's correct.
Todd said yesterday we'd have at least 8 more wins with Skenes, maybe more. That too is correct.
So, let's sit on a questionable coach and not go big on NIL. Because that's the MSU way of doing shit. Then give up that $5MM to the school from our AD too.
Such a waste

I agree with your overall point, but I'm not sure we don't screw up Skenes some if we get him so not sure if we end up with 8 more wins. Certainly could. Maybe having a true Friday night starter takes the pressure off and we play better defense and all of our pitchers do better because they have better matchups and are in situations more appropriate for their talent. Or maybe having a bunch of innings extended by shit defense gets in Skenes head and he starts to look a little more like the rest of our team. Just hard to predict.

[Johnson85]

If you could keep lemonis and use the buyout money to go get a bunch of pitchers, sign me up for that.

But you have to sell that to your boosters with the buyout money.

I don't think that will be a hard sell unless the boosters have a hang up with players making money. THe biggest thing is you have to provide some guarantee that you're not going to come back and ask for a $4M buyout in a year or two anyway. Have to get Lemonis to buy in on having more NIL money but less security after this contract. I would think NIL money with a lower buyout in the future would sound better than a strong likelihood of being fired next year. With that much money for NIL, you'd think he'd be confident he can win enough to keep collecting a high salary and the lower buyout would be irrelevant.

[Cooterpoot]

I agree with your overall point, but I'm not sure we don't screw up Skenes some if we get him so not sure if we end up with 8 more wins. Certainly could. Maybe having a true Friday night starter takes the pressure off and we play better defense and all of our pitchers do better because they have better matchups and are in situations more appropriate for their talent. Or maybe having a bunch of innings extended by shit defense gets in Skenes head and he starts to look a little more like the rest of our team. Just hard to predict.

Skenes has what? 10 wins this year? I gave away two of his wins for defense etc.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

5 or 6 more SEC wins around .500 SEC record with Skenes.

[Johnson85]

Skenes has what? 10 wins this year? I gave away two of his wins for defense etc.

But it's not like we didn't win any Friday night games either. Excluding LSU, we have gone 3-9 in Friday night games by my count. In those ten losses, we've scored 1 against Auburn , 2 against Ole Miss and Arkansas, 3 against Vandy, 3 against OSU, 4 against USCe, 4 against Arizona, 5 against UK, 7 against UT. We certainly would have won more games with Skenes pitching, but with our run support, we could have gone 10-3 instead of 3-10 (counting LSU), or it could have been more like 7-6 instead of 3-10. If we don't make Skenes worse, and our team gains some confidence from having a friday night ace, it could be a 12 or 14 game difference by the time you count game 2 or 3's we would have won because of having better pitching available. IF Foxhall makes Skenes a little less effective, and mental mistakes in the field get to him, maybe when it's all said and done we "only" win 6 more even after accounting for game 2 and 3's.

I'd bet on 8 more wins before I bet on 6 more wins. It's not like we haven't had any transfer pitchers perform fine. Just not convinced it's a certainty.

[The Federalist Engineer]

5 or 6 more SEC wins around .500 SEC record with Skenes.

I am just talking smack here; but Skenes would have MSU ranked Top-12, challenging to a National Seed

(1) he wins more Fridays
(2) he saves the pen for other games.
(3) he gives confidence to other MSU pitchers, it's probably demoralizing when the "Ace" is getting shelled
(4) makes other pitchers more comfortable in their skin, you have a real Alpha predator, the other predators take a comfortable role
(5) he would have attracted another decent pitcher to transfer

I think Skenes wins MSU 8 more SEC games directly and indirectly. So you are 16-11 to face TAM this week.