UGA looking for a baseball coach

[State82]

Stricklin out in Athens.

[CaptainObvious]

Was about to post this. 10 seasons, 3 NCAA tourneys. Finished 29-27 this season. But finished ahead of State in SEC, made Hoover. Early exit. I guess making Hoover don?t men much, other then now it is the only way to get to a regional whereas before, certain teams made a regional without going to Hoover if they had a good overall record and finished at least 12-17 in conference.

I guess mediocre ain?t good enough for a club sport in Athens.

[mparkerfd20]

Meanwhile below mediocre is just fine and dandy here.

[Captain Falcon]

People forget that they were a Top 8 seed in 2018 and 2019. And probably would’ve been one in 2020 if not for COVID. He had a few years with some unreal arms on his staff. But didn’t do a ton with them and otherwise did absolutely nothing in his decade there. He’s the coach that took Kent State to Omaha so he doesn’t suck. Just didn’t do enough there over a decade.

[AlSwearengen]

We will end up needing a coach and Haire will be gone. I will want to slam my in a door.

[CaptainObvious]

We will end up needing a coach and Haire will be gone. I will want to slam my in a door.
Take solace in the fact that a door is only 1.75 inches thick.

[Coach34]

Georgia fired a guy that made the NCAA Tourney 3 times in 10 years?

Seems like they were pretty patient with him and realize you cant make decisions based on 1 or 2 seasons

[Quaoarsking]

We will end up needing a coach and Haire will be gone. I will want to slam my in a door.

Yep. Alabama and Georgia will end up with a better coach than us in 2024. Hopefully the new guy in 2025 will be better than both of theirs, but there's no guarantee of that.

[Quaoarsking]

Georgia fired a guy that made the NCAA Tourney 3 times in 10 years?

Seems like they were pretty patient with him and realize you cant make decisions based on 1 or 2 seasons

Actually, they gave him some patience early on, but now they have a much quicker hook than us.

https://i.imgur.com/7eVfzLR.png

Note that none of his 10 seasons were as bad as Lemonis in 2022-23.

[BuckyIsAB****]

Georgia fired a guy that made the NCAA Tourney 3 times in 10 years?

Seems like they were pretty patient with him and realize you cant make decisions based on 1 or 2 seasons

Careful you will tear a shoulder up from reaching so hard

[Coach34]

Meh- Lemon was 4 wins away from making the NCAA Tourney this season. We arent that far off.

Fix the pitching

[schddog72]

Meh- Lemon was 4 wins away from making the NCAA Tourney this season. We arent that far off.

Fix the pitching

Can I insert a comma here and add: "fix the defense, especially left side of the infield, fix the fundamentals, fix the TERRIBLE decision-making, a la pitching to a power hitter who has already hit two dingers out of the park and accounted for every one of the opponents runs whilst having a base open. How about bunting a crucial runner over to 2nd base when your best bunter is at bat. How about teaching outfield fundamentals so that our outfielders aren't running into each other like the Bad News Bears multiple times in one game." I think this is enough for starters.

[CaptainObvious]

Meh- Lemon was 4 wins away from making the NCAA Tourney this season. We arent that far off.

Fix the pitching

And 4 losses from our worst record ever in the SEC.

[smootness]

Meh- Lemon was 4 wins away from making the NCAA Tourney this season. We arent that far off.

Fix the pitching

Dude.

If you had any credibility left, you would be throwing it away on this.

[Homedawg]

Was about to post this. 10 seasons, 3 NCAA tourneys. Finished 29-27 this season. But finished ahead of State in SEC, made Hoover. Early exit. I guess making Hoover don?t men much, other then now it is the only way to get to a regional whereas before, certain teams made a regional without going to Hoover if they had a good overall record and finished at least 12-17 in conference.

I guess mediocre ain?t good enough for a club sport in Athens.

That might be the WORST argument ever. He went to 3 regionals in ten years. Not going again this year. Yet comparing to our deal?? Everyone can make a case for firing lem. I get it. But this is apples and grapes.... Next time don't hit send. Just awful comparison

[SpaceBully]

That might be the WORST argument ever. He went to 3 regionals in ten years. Not going again this year. Yet comparing to our deal?? Everyone can make a case for firing lem. I get it. But this is apples and grapes.... Next time don't hit send. Just awful comparison

And there's 3x the baseball talent in GA than in Mississippi. UGA and GaTech should both be in regionals every year.

[Todd4State]

Actually, they gave him some patience early on, but now they have a much quicker hook than us.

https://i.imgur.com/7eVfzLR.png

Note that none of his 10 seasons were as bad as Lemonis in 2022-23.

Lemonis's last four years are better than any four year period he had at Georgia.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Lemonis's last four years are better than any four year period he had at Georgia.

His last two are also worse than any 2 year period at UGA.

[Todd4State]

His last two are also worse than any 2 year period at UGA.

He had four losing seasons in a row at Georgia

[BuckyIsAB****]

Meh- Lemon was 4 wins away from making the NCAA Tourney this season. We arent that far off.

Fix the pitching

You mean Lemonizik

[StarkVegasSteve]

He had four losing seasons in a row at Georgia

But he never won less than 10 conference games. We have won 9 in back to back seasons. Look, it is ok to just admit you like Lemonis and you did not want him to get fired. But there are no stats that make him look good. He won on the talent of others and since his guys have been here we have sucked. It will be the same thing next year and we will be looking for a new coach in May 2024. Is what it is.

[ScooterDog]

schddog72 said it all and said it best. I just hope Lemo reads this.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

You guys are really overvaluing ?player development?. In regards to baseball the development is done during the summers and in the minors. There isnt that much practice time in college to develop players. They either have it or they don?t. This past two years are some of the least talented MSU teams in a long time. The $68 Million social club and its patrons isnt going to get MSU the players it needs. NIL and recruiting is where it is at.

[StarkVegasSteve]

You guys are really overvaluing ?player development?. In regards to baseball the development is done during the summers and in the minors. There isnt that much practice time in college to develop players. They either have it or they don?t. This past two years are some of the least talented MSU teams in a long time. The $68 Million social club and its patrons isnt going to get MSU the players it needs. NIL and recruiting is where it is at.

BINGO

[CaptainObvious]

Lemonis's last four years are better than any four year period he had at Georgia.

You talking per year or aggregate:

Over the last 4 years, Georgia is 60-60 in the SEC.
Georgia has made Hoover all 4 of those years.

State is 58-62 in SEC and made Hoover in the first 2 and made hasty exits, but still went to Omaha both years.

However, over 10 years, Striklin has depended on entirely his own recruits or transfers in 7 of them, with some success and some average to mediocre seasons. Did UGA keep him too long? Probably not since they tied for 2nd SEC East and he got them to a regional in 2022.

So really. Lemonis pretty much had his own team this year and mostly his own team last year, not only his 2.worst years, but all next to last and last in the SEC regular season which is now the ONLY way to get to a Regional through Hoover qualifying.

Lemonis 2 best seasons, which were great, were with someone else?s recruits. His worst 2 are with a smattering of leftovers and his own recruits.

Striklin?s best seasons were with his own recruits and his last and worst season was with his own recruits.

[StarkVegasSteve]

You talking per year or aggregate:

Over the last 4 years, Georgia is 60-60 in the SEC.
Georgia has made Hoover all 4 of those years.

State is 58-62 in SEC and made Hoover in the first 2 and made hasty exits, but still went to Omaha both years.

However, over 10 years, Striklin has depended on entirely his own recruits or transfers in 7 of them, with some success and some average to mediocre seasons. Did UGA keep him too long? Probably not since they tied for 2nd SEC East and he got them to a regional in 2022.

So really. Lemonis pretty much had his own team this year and mostly his own team last year, not only his 2.worst years, but all next to last and last in the SEC regular season which is now the ONLY way to get to a Regional through Hoover qualifying.

Lemonis 2 best seasons, which were great, were with someone else?s recruits. His worst 2 are with a smattering of leftovers and his own recruits.

Striklin?s best seasons were with his own recruits and his last and worst season was with his own recruits.

He likes Lemonis and wants him to stay so he has been spewing BS stats for 3 weeks trying to justify it. The fact is the guy is a great manager of talent when he is given it and is an average recruiter and a below average talent evaluator

[bulldawg989]

Lemonis's last four years are better than any four year period he had at Georgia.

Tote that water, boy.

[Todd4State]

But he never won less than 10 conference games. We have won 9 in back to back seasons. Look, it is ok to just admit you like Lemonis and you did not want him to get fired. But there are no stats that make him look good. He won on the talent of others and since his guys have been here we have sucked. It will be the same thing next year and we will be looking for a new coach in May 2024. Is what it is.

Give Lemonis 10 seasons and then compare. I think we both know who will look better at the end of the day in that scenario.

I don't care that much about Lemonis personally. But I do feel like I am fair to all coaches. The main reason I didn't want him fired was because that ultimately wasn't the best thing for MSU given the circumstances. And that's whether he "figures it out" or not. You know that too.

If he hires the pitching coach he is rumored to be hiring and that doesn't turn into a Schlossnagle situation and he continues to have success in the portal there is a very good chance he turns this around. We'll see how it turns out. Again- doesn't matter becaue we made the best decision for MSU no matter how it turns out and that's all I really care about.

[Todd4State]

You guys are really overvaluing ?player development?. In regards to baseball the development is done during the summers and in the minors. There isnt that much practice time in college to develop players. They either have it or they don?t. This past two years are some of the least talented MSU teams in a long time. The $68 Million social club and its patrons isnt going to get MSU the players it needs. NIL and recruiting is where it is at.

Then we should have been sending more of our pitchers out to play summer baseball rather than work out with trainers. Based on the summer ball rosters it looks like that is changing.

Foxhall was bad beyond development. How he managed the staff was atrocious.

[Quaoarsking]

Give Lemonis 10 seasons and then compare. I think we both know who will look better at the end of the day in that scenario.


Of course. The national title is going to outweigh anything. And Lemonis would only need to get to 1 more NCAA Tournament to match Stricklin's 3. However, I'm not convinced that 5 more years of Lemonis would have a better SEC winning percentage than Stricklin. He might.

Either way, it's clear that our standards aren't as high as the what an elite program's standards should be. "If we give him 10 years, Lemonis will have a better resume than a guy who got fired from Georgia!" OK, so what? That will be true for virtually any coach we would plausibly hire.

[Todd4State]

Of course. The national title is going to outweigh anything. And Lemonis would only need to get to 1 more NCAA Tournament to match Stricklin's 3. However, I'm not convinced that 5 more years of Lemonis would have a better SEC winning percentage than Stricklin. He might.

Either way, it's clear that our standards aren't as high as the what an elite program's standards should be. "If we give him 10 years, Lemonis will have a better resume than a guy who got fired from Georgia!" OK, so what? That will be true for virtually any coach we would plausibly hire.

Standards? If Lemonis has another season like this one he will be gone. Whereas at Georgia he would have ten years.

People are confusing our current situation with our program standards for some reason. They're two separate things.

Our standards haven't changed. We're not going to deep six our baseball program so we can do this again in three years because we didn't handle Lemonis properly.

Bitch all y'all want but Selmon and MSU is handling this the right way whether you realize it or choose to realize it or not.

[Quaoarsking]

Todd, you're just making all these sweeping assertions without backup. "Do this again in three years" ... what? That comes from nowhere. There is no evidence that whatever coach we hired next (Haire or whoever) would be bad and get fired in 3 years. Any reasonably competent coach (of which there are dozens, probably more) can have us making Regionals most years, given our fanbase and resources. The odds that we would hire one who can are very low.

Now, "just making Regionals" shouldn't be good enough at MSU, but neither should "not making Regionals or even Hoover," yet here were are.

[Quaoarsking]

Also, we don't know what would happen at Georgia because Stricklin never had a season as bad as Lemonis's last 2. Stricklin's predecessor David Perno was up and down over the years, but Georgia never gave him the chance to have 2 straight awful years, much less 3:

https://i.imgur.com/8hvf86t.png

If 2012-13 was a bad enough 2-year stretch for Georgia to can Perno, despite his 3 Omaha appearances and a runner up, 2022-23 should be bad enough for a program of our higher stature and fan interest to can Lemonis, despite the good things he's good in his career.

[BuckyIsAB****]

You talking per year or aggregate:

Over the last 4 years, Georgia is 60-60 in the SEC.
Georgia has made Hoover all 4 of those years.

State is 58-62 in SEC and made Hoover in the first 2 and made hasty exits, but still went to Omaha both years.

However, over 10 years, Striklin has depended on entirely his own recruits or transfers in 7 of them, with some success and some average to mediocre seasons. Did UGA keep him too long? Probably not since they tied for 2nd SEC East and he got them to a regional in 2022.

So really. Lemonis pretty much had his own team this year and mostly his own team last year, not only his 2.worst years, but all next to last and last in the SEC regular season which is now the ONLY way to get to a Regional through Hoover qualifying.

Lemonis 2 best seasons, which were great, were with someone else?s recruits. His worst 2 are with a smattering of leftovers and his own recruits.

Striklin?s best seasons were with his own recruits and his last and worst season was with his own recruits.

Tough

[BuckyIsAB****]

Standards? If Lemonis has another season like this one he will be gone. Whereas at Georgia he would have ten years.

People are confusing our current situation with our program standards for some reason. They're two separate things.

Our standards haven't changed. We're not going to deep six our baseball program so we can do this again in three years because we didn't handle Lemonis properly.

Bitch all y'all want but Selmon and MSU is handling this the right way whether you realize it or choose to realize it or not.

Standards absolutely have changed. The culture has changed. When Lemonis and mostly his guys took over it tanked. It was a perfect storm of guys that never had to be the man here and a head coach that never had to be tough

[State82]

Add Mizzou to the coaching search list.

[Quaoarsking]

Add Mizzou to the coaching search list.

Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri will all hire good coaches while we choose to have another shit year with Lemonis. We'll be kicking ourselves for years.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri will all hire good coaches while we choose to have another shit year with Lemonis. We'll be kicking ourselves for years.

There will always be a new flavor of the month. Even UGA's coach was a hot shot at one point.

But what we are seeing is that folks are not messing around with bad baseball situations.

Next years top guys? Masilkowski- Oregon and Vaughn - Maryland. We can watch regionals and see for sure. See which pitching staffs that throw strikes.

[TheLostDawg]

Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri will all hire good coaches while we choose to have another shit year with Lemonis. We'll be kicking ourselves for years.

If this is true, Selmon will lose a lot of fan support early on. I really hope he was smart enough to over pay to get a pitching coach to see what we can do.
I just think Lemonis should have seen through Fox last year. The fact that he didn't and waited so late to firehim is why I've lost faith in Lemonis. I hope it gets fixed and we roll again but I have my doubts. We may be digging a deeper hole with nil and free transfer rule we may be okay next year but yall all talk how you recruit years ahead in baseball. We'll see but next year may be the one year we have to unload much of our nil money to save the baseball program.

[Quaoarsking]

Next years top guys? Masilkowski- Oregon and Vaughn - Maryland. We can watch regionals and see for sure. See which pitching staffs that throw strikes.

Who's to say those coaches won't be hired away this year though? Both of them have impressive resumes through 2023.

[Mjoelner34]

If this is true, Selmon will lose a lot of fan support early on. I really hope he was smart enough to over pay to get a pitching coach to see what we can do.
I just think Lemonis should have seen through Fox last year. The fact that he didn't and waited so late to firehim is why I've lost faith in Lemonis. I hope it gets fixed and we roll again but I have my doubts. We may be digging a deeper hole with nil and free transfer rule we may be okay next year but yall all talk how you recruit years ahead in baseball. We'll see but next year may be the one year we have to unload much of our nil money to save the baseball program.

Exactly how I feel.

[TNDawg35]

Exactly how I feel.

My god! You don’t fire a coach after having one bad year full of injuries after he won assistant of the year in college baseball and broke all kinds of records in 2021! How do you people not understand that! You All Keep saying Lemonis should have seen through him and fired him in 2022. Y’all are crazy! You just don’t do that. Good luck hiring any kind of decent coach at all after you pull that shit!

[Quaoarsking]

My god! You don’t fire a coach after having one bad year full of injuries after he won assistant of the year in college baseball and broke all kinds of records in 2021! How do you people not understand that! You All Keep saying Lemonis should have seen through him and fired him in 2022. Y’all are crazy! You just don’t do that. Good luck hiring any kind of decent coach at all after you pull that shit!

Not that I disagree with your point about bringing back Foxhall for 2023, but the argument "if you fire coach X, you'll never hire someone any good to replace him because no one would ever take the job!" is pretty much always false in any situation. There will always be another coach out there who wants the chance to prove he can do it, especially at a program of our stature.

[The Federalist Engineer]

MacDonnell is unhappy - Bama's Byrne is going to show John Cohen how a real AD does business..

" I always expect to be here. But I?m not going to shy away from (recent concerns about facilities). I?ve been very vocal. Right? The past few years [?]

I just I want to be at a place that?s committed when it?s all said and done. Because the kids were recruited to be at a place that?s committed. And, ultimately we?re trying to get to Omaha and win a national championship. And ain?t gonna happen unless we make a full commitment."

https://www.outkick.com/dan-mcdonnell-louisville-baseball-alabama-job-rumors-commitment-reaction-angry/

[Mjoelner34]

My god! You don’t fire a coach after having one bad year full of injuries after he won assistant of the year in college baseball and broke all kinds of records in 2021! How do you people not understand that! You All Keep saying Lemonis should have seen through him and fired him in 2022. Y’all are crazy! You just don’t do that. Good luck hiring any kind of decent coach at all after you pull that shit!

We fired a head coach 1 year removed from a national coach of the year and SEC coach of the year awards. I guess Sly deserved another year too.

[Quaoarsking]

MacDonnell is unhappy - Bama's Byrne is going to show John Cohen how a real AD does business..

" I always expect to be here. But I?m not going to shy away from (recent concerns about facilities). I?ve been very vocal. Right? The past few years [?]

I just I want to be at a place that?s committed when it?s all said and done. Because the kids were recruited to be at a place that?s committed. And, ultimately we?re trying to get to Omaha and win a national championship. And ain?t gonna happen unless we make a full commitment."

https://www.outkick.com/dan-mcdonnell-louisville-baseball-alabama-job-rumors-commitment-reaction-angry/

Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri hiring good coaches while we're stuck with one more year of losing, and then hiring someone worse than any of those 3 in a year is going to sting for a long time.

[CaptainObvious]

Nah. We are just positioning our baseball program to the level of our historical average for our football and basketball programs. Around 10th in the SEC

[Todd4State]

We fired a head coach 1 year removed from a national coach of the year and SEC coach of the year awards. I guess Sly deserved another year too.

Winning the Liberty Bowl = winning a National Championship now?

[Todd4State]

Not that I disagree with your point about bringing back Foxhall for 2023, but the argument "if you fire coach X, you'll never hire someone any good to replace him because no one would ever take the job!" is pretty much always false in any situation. There will always be another coach out there who wants the chance to prove he can do it, especially at a program of our stature.

I didn't agree with bringing Foxhall back but I definitely understood it. It pretty much turned out the way I thought it would too.

[Quaoarsking]

I didn't agree with bringing Foxhall back but I definitely understood it. It pretty much turned out the way I thought it would too.

I really hope that a year from now I'm not saying "It pretty much turned out the way I thought it would" about Lemonis's return, but I think we all know I probably will be.

[Todd4State]

I really hope that a year from now I'm not saying "It pretty much turned out the way I thought it would" about Lemonis's return, but I think we all know I probably will be.

We'll see. It doesn't really matter to me whether I am right or not. What matters the most is that we handled our program the right way and gave ourselves the best chance to hire someone that we all deserve if that isn't Chris Lemonis.

I think we have a lot more talent on the team than a lot of our fans realize. Our fans in general have a hard time with believing that players can improve a lot over the course of one offseason and I think we were so poorly coached on the pitching side that they had no chance to show their talent or what they could do.

There are metrics that support my thoughts on this- our stuff rate as a pitching staff was in the top 10. We just need to harness it. I like the core group of players that we have. Lot of work to do in the portal and getting the new pitching coach finalized. I really like Loo, Loftin, and Holcombe's talent and potential. Dohm is a good pitcher. I think him getting hurt against Auburn affected him some the rest of the season. I like Cam Shuelke a JUCO relief pitcher that can come in day one and have a role on the team. Tapper, Siary, and Gibbs have talent. They can help. We'll see who we add in the portal.

We're strong up the middle with Highfill, Mershon, Cupp, and Dakota Jordan. Hines is a 20 home run guy and makes a great tandem with Jordan. Need some other pieces for sure in some form of portal adds and freshmen. Bryce Chance is a good solid college player. I prefer he stays at DH in my rough draft though.

Alford and Aaron Downs will be interesting to follow this summer.

If Rob Walton is indeed the pitching coach and he can get our team ERA to 5 which isn't that great we're probably hosting a regional right now. We lost a few SEC games by one run so we're really not that far away as it may seem. But still a lot of work to do.

[Tater]

Also, we don't know what would happen at Georgia because Stricklin never had a season as bad as Lemonis's last 2. Stricklin's predecessor David Perno was up and down over the years, but Georgia never gave him the chance to have 2 straight awful years, much less 3:

https://i.imgur.com/8hvf86t.png

If 2012-13 was a bad enough 2-year stretch for Georgia to can Perno, despite his 3 Omaha appearances and a runner up, 2022-23 should be bad enough for a program of our higher stature and fan interest to can Lemonis, despite the good things he's good in his career.

He wasn't fired for 2 bad years, he was let go for 5 years with 1 SEC winning season and two total NCAA Tournament victories across two appearances and no hosting.

Fact of the matter is that in 2021 our pitching looked mediocre because we would let guys work through their bs in games and we looked trash at points (Swept by Ark, Barely beat Tulane, Lost a home series to Mizzou, double run ruled at Hoover.) Then we re-set and a lot of guys other than Macleod hit their stride.

2022 we had insane injury luck. Sims going down demoralized our team. I still think he was headed for the history books with 20+ Ks and a perfect game that night against Tulane. He looked as unhittable as I've ever seen. When you win a title, you get a mulligan year as assistants. We all felt in 2021 that Foxhall was trash after the mizzou series. But then we all ate crow on the run to the title.

So along comes 2023 and yea, it looks shaky to start and we have injuries. So you're giving it leeway to figure it out. Some of you would have fired him after Vandy, I get why but a natty earns you time to work it out. Pitching started looking better after we had a couple of good outings against at the time the best team in the nation (SCar also got bit by the injury bug but before that they looked like the odds on favorite). Alabama and Ole Miss we won the series and pitching looked relatively stable again. We go on the road to Auburn and really that Sunday game was what soured the fanbase. We don't blow that game and maybe Scott still has a job. But you don't fire a guy over that, especially when we lost a 2-1 game friday night. It wasn't his fault and we battled back ourselves on Saturday so the team didn't look lost. Then you have the Tennessee series. Team looked lost. It was time. And Lemonis did fire him then. Didn't work to save this season but that was naturally where it should have ended.

Find me the college baseball coach fired two years after winning the title. Especially winning that school's first ever title. I'll wait.

Lemonis knows he's got one year left to turn it around. We start out 0-6 with the level of performance that we had against a vandy this year then it should be done then. But I have a feel we're going to be better than a lot of people expect. I see us next being a 12-16 seed hosting and then winning our regional but losing the super to a team that finishes top 4 at CWS. That's just purely my gut feel, but we'll see.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

1) Lol Todd a week ago you were saying our only problems on defense were Forsythe and Alford, so replace them and were good... now you're saying it'll be "interesting" to follow Alford this summer. Which is it?

2) Regarding pitchers every team in this conference can list guys that have potential. Throwing 92+ isn't rare. Being a good pitcher is. But you can't just list guys with potential like that's all a staff needs to be good, or every SEC staff would be good.

3) A LOT of faith is being placed in Cupp. He needs to 1) Get to campus, 2) be ready to play SEC defense, and 3) be ready to hit SEC pitching. That's a lot of unproven things. "The MLB is high on him!" Yeah well the MLB is high on potential, not short term stuff like "he can start immediately in the SEC". The 2 correlate but its not a given Cupp will be able to be our SS savior.

4) As for being "strong up the middle", Highfill needs to get better. We had a lot of passed balls. Yes he can do it because he's young and did get better as the season went on, but it's an assumption to say he will. And it's an assumption Mershon will be solid at 2B when he wasn't at SS, especially because throwing errors were not the only kind he made. I've already mentioned Cupp. Jordan is good I agree there. So only 1/4 "up the middle" are we actually sure will be solid. And Hines needs to work on his glove at 1B, and we have to find a new 3B from the Portal.

5) people keep defending Lemonis because apparently FIVE YEARS isn't enough time to get decent players in. Let's look at that:

Schlossnagle is in year 2 at A&M. they were a national seed in year 1 and are a 2 seed this season. He's used the Portal a lot.

Vitello is in year 6 at Tennessee. In year 2 they made a regional, year 3 was canceled, year 4 made Omaha, year 5 were a national seed, year 6 are hosting.

Bohannon made a regional year 4, missed it year 5, was on path to host year 6.

Jay Johnson immediately used the Portal to elevate LSU. they are a national seed in year 2.

Butch Thompson is in year 8. They made a regional year 2, the supers year 3, Omaha year 4, year 5 was canceled, year 6 they missed, year 7 they made Omaha, year 8 are hosting. First years were before the Portal too

Corbin made a regional in year 2 and 4, and was a national seed year 5. That was obviously pre Portal.

Point is, it seems mediocre coach are mediocre, but good coaches can flip a team within 5 years.

No good coach has his team get worse the more the roster turns over to his recruits. Let me say that again: NO GOOD COACH HAS HIS TEAM GWT WORSE THE MORE THE ROSTER TUENS OVER TO HIS RECRUITS!

find me a coach who missed Hoover year 4 and 5 but turned it around after that. Go ahead, I'll wait.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Also regarding the "we can't hire anyone decent if we fire Leminis now" narrative, my guess is Butch Thompson would take our job. He has a STRONG resume (see above) at a school with less history, fan support, and $$$ resources spent in baseball. He turned around Auburn pretty quick and is fairly consistent at postseason success. He knows us.

Plus his AD is now Cohen, the same man everyone says baseball coaches don't want to work under. So you'd think he'd be more willing to leave than a normal HC.

[Quaoarsking]

Find me the college baseball coach fired two years after winning the title. Especially winning that school's first ever title. I'll wait.

Probably Bianco next year because Ole Miss doesn't have the inferiority complex that our fanbase does.

Beyond that there aren't any examples of a coach having 2 awful seasons in the next 2 years, so we're in uncharted territory here.

[Quaoarsking]

What matters the most is that we handled our program the right way and gave ourselves the best chance to hire someone that we all deserve if that isn't Chris Lemonis.

"The right way," reminds us all of Croom. Not the ideal way to phrase an argument here.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri hiring good coaches while we're stuck with one more year of losing, and then hiring someone worse than any of those 3 in a year is going to sting for a long time.

Wonder if UGA snakes MacD.

Seems UGA is best sleeping giant job. Since MSU is content in the basement just yet.

[Coach34]

Probably Bianco next year because Ole Miss doesn't have the inferiority complex that our fanbase does.

Beyond that there aren't any examples of a coach having 2 awful seasons in the next 2 years, so we're in uncharted territory here.

They have been wanting to fire him for a decade. They also have deeper pockets. Lemon's 6MM price tag had as much to do with it as the Natty.

[Mjoelner34]

Winning the Liberty Bowl = winning a National Championship now?

What does the Liberty Bowl have to do with it? He said we couldn't fire an ASSISTANT after one year because of the accolades he had received. I correctly pointed out that we had already fired a head coach with similar accolades after 1 year.

[Homedawg]

We'll see. It doesn't really matter to me whether I am right or not. What matters the most is that we handled our program the right way and gave ourselves the best chance to hire someone that we all deserve if that isn't Chris Lemonis.

I think we have a lot more talent on the team than a lot of our fans realize. Our fans in general have a hard time with believing that players can improve a lot over the course of one offseason and I think we were so poorly coached on the pitching side that they had no chance to show their talent or what they could do.

There are metrics that support my thoughts on this- our stuff rate as a pitching staff was in the top 10. We just need to harness it. I like the core group of players that we have. Lot of work to do in the portal and getting the new pitching coach finalized. I really like Loo, Loftin, and Holcombe's talent and potential. Dohm is a good pitcher. I think him getting hurt against Auburn affected him some the rest of the season. I like Cam Shuelke a JUCO relief pitcher that can come in day one and have a role on the team. Tapper, Siary, and Gibbs have talent. They can help. We'll see who we add in the portal.

We're strong up the middle with Highfill, Mershon, Cupp, and Dakota Jordan. Hines is a 20 home run guy and makes a great tandem with Jordan. Need some other pieces for sure in some form of portal adds and freshmen. Bryce Chance is a good solid college player. I prefer he stays at DH in my rough draft though.

Alford and Aaron Downs will be interesting to follow this summer.

If Rob Walton is indeed the pitching coach and he can get our team ERA to 5 which isn't that great we're probably hosting a regional right now. We lost a few SEC games by one run so we're really not that far away as it may seem. But still a lot of work to do.

Alford isn't coming back.

[TNDawg35]

Y’all may as prepare yourselves. Ole Miss has a whole team to pay for this year…

[BrunswickDawg]

Wonder if UGA snakes MacD.

Seems UGA is best sleeping giant job. Since MSU is content in the basement just yet.

We've been hearing that UGA was a sleeping giant since Steve Webber won the CWS with them in 1990. Web was a very good coach (he was a Polk Ast. at Ga Southern), as was Perno. Stricklin wasn't bad.
Ultimately, UGA just only cares about football. They will pay attention when they are winning, but becoming some baseball giant seems inconceivable with what I know and have experienced with UGA.

[TheLostDawg]

My god! You don?t fire a coach after having one bad year full of injuries after he won assistant of the year in college baseball and broke all kinds of records in 2021! How do you people not understand that! You All Keep saying Lemonis should have seen through him and fired him in 2022. Y?all are crazy! You just don?t do that. Good luck hiring any kind of decent coach at all after you pull that shit!

See I don't get this argument. If you're a good coach then you should be able to see you have a lame duck pitching coach. If you don't and your going with the wait and see approach then you better be quick to pull the trigger. Lemonis didn't and it cost us a tournament bid. His fate should have been tied to that.

I hope that it works out and Lemonis learns but he's going to have to see his limitations and find people to make up for them whether that be on or off field.

[TheLostDawg]

Not that I disagree with your point about bringing back Foxhall for 2023, but the argument "if you fire coach X, you'll never hire someone any good to replace him because no one would ever take the job!" is pretty much always false in any situation. There will always be another coach out there who wants the chance to prove he can do it, especially at a program of our stature.

Agreed. Yall talk about how Alabama always got the top recruits and they all thought they would come in and start/ play. I think a lot of good coaches have that attitude.

[Tater]

See I don't get this argument. If you're a good coach then you should be able to see you have a lame duck pitching coach. If you don't and your going with the wait and see approach then you better be quick to pull the trigger. Lemonis didn't and it cost us a tournament bid. His fate should have been tied to that.

I hope that it works out and Lemonis learns but he's going to have to see his limitations and find people to make up for them whether that be on or off field.

I walked you through the season. At which point do you fire him? You don't fire somebody 6 SEC games in, period. We hadn't lost any non-con series. So where do you fire him? Maybe a week earlier against Auburn but that's it.

[BB30]

Coaching was a part of the issue this year for sure. Moving forward, if we don't get the NIL stuff rolling better we are going to be on the outside looking in a whole lot in all 3 of the major sports.

Alabama/UGA/UF/LSU/A&M/Texas/Oklahoma are all running multiple circles around us in this department and it will catch up with every sport eventually if it hasn't already. Baseball in this conference is about to get harder adding those two and the money that comes with those schools.

We barely have enough NIL to cover football and basketball. Alabama and the others I named have so much coming in they can spend what they want on non revenue sports like baseball now. They will be getting kids that would normally sign a professional contract as a top 5 round pick to campus because they'll be offering close to the same in terms of signing bonus. Especially the high school kids going from the 10th round on. If. their bonus is under 350-400K they will end up in college and we don't have the money to keep up with that in any sport much less baseball.

We need to decide if we want to be ultra competitive in one or two sports or just be mediocre in all 3. If we put all of our NIL towards basketball and baseball we would have a shot at staying competitive in those sports. Football we will always be middle of the pack most years and if we are being honest, the chances of us winning a NC or even the SECCG in football are slim to none.

We can win in baseball and with basketball you just need enough NIL to snag 1 true stud and 3-5 guys that are talented pieces. Baseball we are already at a schools disadvantage with a lot of the schools in our conference and the disadvantage in baseball is growing wider with teams like LSU/Vandy/UF/UGA as they already has a scholly advantage, now they have money to add on top of that advantage.

Those that think we will simply stay competitive in baseball because we have a good history and good facilities are fooling themselves. If UGA hires even a decent coach they will blow up. Location to top recruits and unlimited $$$ is a massive problem for us long term. Same with LSU, the talent pools around GA/FL/FL panhandle/Louisiana is absolutely incredible. Especially what is around the Atlanta metro area. We have some good local talent for a small state and some really good arms in state but nothing compared to what is hanging out in Atlanta, Tampa, Alabama coast and Louisiana.

We've got to get serious about NIL and unfortunately, we don't have the fanbase size or donors to raise the type of money needed.

[AROB44]

Totally agree. If we don't pony up, we will become in baseball what La Tech was in women's basketball.

[RezDog7]

Totally agree. If we don't pony up, we will become in baseball what La Tech was in women's basketball.

Is La Tech women's basketball good?

[Pancho]

Not anymore, but they were many years ago prior to being left behind. see lemonis..............

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Not anymore, but they were many years ago prior to being left behind. see lemonis..............

Huh, the more you know...

"Louisiana Tech has won three National Championships and has competed in 13 Final Fours, 23 Sweet Sixteens, and 27 NCAA tournaments. The Lady Techsters basketball program boasts three Wade Trophy winners, five Olympic medalists, eight members of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, 16 All-Americans, and 21 WNBA players."

Last tournament appearance was in 2010. Sad

[CaptainObvious]

And if anyone wonders, their men?s basketball team was once called the Techsters

[Coach34]

a woman named Mulkey played there

[Cowbell]

a woman named Mulkey played there

Is that Kramer Robertson's Mom***

[Quaoarsking]

Also worth mentioning that what finally killed off Louisiana Tech was their 23-year-old head coach (Tyler Summitt, former Tennessee men's player and son of Pat Summitt) impregnating a player. I don't think the program was unsalvageable then, but at this point, is there any fanbase left there that cares?

I think it would take decades of futility for the same thing to happen to our baseball program, more than just a couple of years, because our fan support is so strong.

[Saltydog]

Alford isn't coming back.

His decision or ours?

[sandjunky]

His decision or ours?
So why did SI article say Lemonis asked him to come back?

[Todd4State]

Also worth mentioning that what finally killed off Louisiana Tech was their 23-year-old head coach (Tyler Summitt, former Tennessee men's player and son of Pat Summitt) impregnating a player. I don't think the program was unsalvageable then, but at this point, is there any fanbase left there that cares?

I think it would take decades of futility for the same thing to happen to our baseball program, more than just a couple of years, because our fan support is so strong.

The closest we came to killing off our baseball program was the Polk II era. That was thanks to LT more than anything.

[Todd4State]

1) Lol Todd a week ago you were saying our only problems on defense were Forsythe and Alford, so replace them and were good... now you're saying it'll be "interesting" to follow Alford this summer. Which is it?

2) Regarding pitchers every team in this conference can list guys that have potential. Throwing 92+ isn't rare. Being a good pitcher is. But you can't just list guys with potential like that's all a staff needs to be good, or every SEC staff would be good.

3) A LOT of faith is being placed in Cupp. He needs to 1) Get to campus, 2) be ready to play SEC defense, and 3) be ready to hit SEC pitching. That's a lot of unproven things. "The MLB is high on him!" Yeah well the MLB is high on potential, not short term stuff like "he can start immediately in the SEC". The 2 correlate but its not a given Cupp will be able to be our SS savior.

4) As for being "strong up the middle", Highfill needs to get better. We had a lot of passed balls. Yes he can do it because he's young and did get better as the season went on, but it's an assumption to say he will. And it's an assumption Mershon will be solid at 2B when he wasn't at SS, especially because throwing errors were not the only kind he made. I've already mentioned Cupp. Jordan is good I agree there. So only 1/4 "up the middle" are we actually sure will be solid. And Hines needs to work on his glove at 1B, and we have to find a new 3B from the Portal.

5) people keep defending Lemonis because apparently FIVE YEARS isn't enough time to get decent players in. Let's look at that:

Schlossnagle is in year 2 at A&M. they were a national seed in year 1 and are a 2 seed this season. He's used the Portal a lot.

Vitello is in year 6 at Tennessee. In year 2 they made a regional, year 3 was canceled, year 4 made Omaha, year 5 were a national seed, year 6 are hosting.

Bohannon made a regional year 4, missed it year 5, was on path to host year 6.

Jay Johnson immediately used the Portal to elevate LSU. they are a national seed in year 2.

Butch Thompson is in year 8. They made a regional year 2, the supers year 3, Omaha year 4, year 5 was canceled, year 6 they missed, year 7 they made Omaha, year 8 are hosting. First years were before the Portal too

Corbin made a regional in year 2 and 4, and was a national seed year 5. That was obviously pre Portal.

Point is, it seems mediocre coach are mediocre, but good coaches can flip a team within 5 years.

No good coach has his team get worse the more the roster turns over to his recruits. Let me say that again: NO GOOD COACH HAS HIS TEAM GWT WORSE THE MORE THE ROSTER TUENS OVER TO HIS RECRUITS!

find me a coach who missed Hoover year 4 and 5 but turned it around after that. Go ahead, I'll wait.

1. Where did I ever say that they were our "only" problems on defense? They were statistically the main problems as they had about half of our team errors between the two of them. Adding players that produce even half of the errors those two produced even would improve us defensively. But that's a point you clearly don't get. Or don't want to because it ruins the red herring that our "defense shows that we have more problems than pitching." It is rumored that Alford is going to enter the portal. But he hasn't yet. At any rate, we're bringing in a new third baseman whether he stays or not. Until he officially enters the portal which will probably happen- I'm assuming he is back.

2. Right- which is what our pitching coach failed to do. And why we are getting another one. Potential is a starting point. Our pitching staff was among the top 10 in stuff rate. Meaning there is something to work with.

3. Cupp has a very good chance to start and have the same impact that our freshmen had this year- Highfill, Mershon, and Dakota Jordan. He may not start- but he is the favorite in the club house. He has told our coaching staff that he is coming and he is a bad ass. Good chance he will be one of our team leaders in the coming year.

4. Assuming that players will improve from their freshmen to sophomore years is actually historically a pretty safe bet in general.

5. Recruiting isn't the issue.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

1. Where did I ever say that they were our "only" problems on defense?

https://www.elitedawgs.com/showthread.php?96879-We-Are-In-A-Bad-Situation/page1


On defense we made 65 errors as a team. 28 of those were made by two players. Both are likely gone this offseason.

Very correctable situation IMO.

That clearly implies changing those 2 will "correct" the situation. From later in the thread:

https://www.elitedawgs.com/showthread.php?96879-We-Are-In-A-Bad-Situation/page3


I mentioned that Alford was an issue along with Forsythe. That's 28 of our 65 errors between the two. One is off the team already and the other is pending. That's truth- and sounds like the issue is being taken care of already to me.

Our defense problem is being "taken care of" by removing Forsythe and Alford per you.


They were statistically the main problems as they had about half of our team errors between the two of them. Adding players that produce even half of the errors those two produced even would improve us defensively. But that's a point you clearly don't get. Or don't want to because it ruins the red herring that our "defense shows that we have more problems than pitching."

Bruh I was the one who did the math to show you that EVEN IF WE REPLACED THOSE 2 WITH GREAT DEFENDERS WE'D HAVE STILL HAVE BEEN #10 IN DEFENSE! From the above linked thread:


But let's say we do replace those 2 with defensive studs. Say a 3B that only makes 4 errors all season And a Ss who makes 6. That reduces our errors by 18! But we'd STILL be 10th in the league defensively. That's right, we can replace the 2 players you are putting all the blame on with + defenders and still be a bad defensive team.

Oddly enough, you never addressed that point. And here you are, yet again acting like our defense would be fine if Forsythe and Alford get replaced. Which BTW, its not exactly easy to find SEC ready SS and 3B in the Portal so I'm not convinced we'll get them. C34 seems to be banking on Cupp and Hujsak due to this fact.


It is rumored that Alford is going to enter the portal. But he hasn't yet. At any rate, we're bringing in a new third baseman whether he stays or not.

Todd you don't make sense: If Alford is going to transfer or be replaced, why did you say he'd be "interesting to follow" in the context of summer ball and development? What's interesting about a guy who won't get playing time for us?



2. Right- which is what our pitching coach failed to do. And why we are getting another one. Potential is a starting point. Our pitching staff was among the top 10 in stuff rate. Meaning there is something to work with.

Agreed we have a lot to work with, however development takes time and 1 offseason isn't much of it. That's why I'm doubtful. Plus the guy were rumored to hire is consistently about 5/9 in ERA in his conference.. not exactly elite results. But to be clear, the pitching problem next season would be the same under a new HC... I just don't think Lemonis will fix the team long term so I don't want him here.


3. Cupp has a very good chance to start and have the same impact that our freshmen had this year- Highfill, Mershon, and Dakota Jordan. He may not start- but he is the favorite in the club house. He has told our coaching staff that he is coming and he is a bad ass. Good chance he will be one of our team leaders in the coming year.

Not sure what the point of this was, as you didn't address anything I said: 1) it's an assumption he'll make it to campus, 2) it's an assumption he can play SEC defense immediately, 3) it's an assumption to say he can hit SEC pitching immediately. All 3 must happen for him to be our stating SS next year.


4. Assuming that players will improve from their freshmen to sophomore years is actually historically a pretty safe bet in general.

It's actually not- many guys don't improve. And the improvement that does happen is generally incremental... huge jumps (aka something "clicking") isn't more common than not improving at all is. We need a LOT of BIG jumps to field a decent staff.


5. Recruiting isn't the issue.

I agree. Lemonis is the issue. You're the one who wants to say it's all Foxhall, Forsythe, and Alford, while ignoring the fact Lemonis is responsible for all 3, ignoring the fact the defense sucky beyond those 2, and ignoring the fact our offense was #10 in runs scored. No part of this team is going well.

[Todd4State]

https://www.elitedawgs.com/showthread.php?96879-We-Are-In-A-Bad-Situation/page1



That clearly implies changing those 2 will "correct" the situation. From later in the thread:

https://www.elitedawgs.com/showthread.php?96879-We-Are-In-A-Bad-Situation/page3



Our defense problem is being "taken care of" by removing Forsythe and Alford per you.



Bruh I was the one who did the math to show you that EVEN IF WE REPLACED THOSE 2 WITH GREAT DEFENDERS WE'D HAVE STILL HAVE BEEN #10 IN DEFENSE! From the above linked thread:



Oddly enough, you never addressed that point. And here you are, yet again acting like our defense would be fine if Forsythe and Alford get replaced. Which BTW, its not exactly easy to find SEC ready SS and 3B in the Portal so I'm not convinced we'll get them. C34 seems to be banking on Cupp and Hujsak due to this fact.



Todd you don't make sense: If Alford is going to transfer or be replaced, why did you say he'd be "interesting to follow" in the context of summer ball and development? What's interesting about a guy who won't get playing time for us?




Agreed we have a lot to work with, however development takes time and 1 offseason isn't much of it. That's why I'm doubtful. Plus the guy were rumored to hire is consistently about 5/9 in ERA in his conference.. not exactly elite results. But to be clear, the pitching problem next season would be the same under a new HC... I just don't think Lemonis will fix the team long term so I don't want him here.



Not sure what the point of this was, as you didn't address anything I said: 1) it's an assumption he'll make it to campus, 2) it's an assumption he can play SEC defense immediately, 3) it's an assumption to say he can hit SEC pitching immediately. All 3 must happen for him to be our stating SS next year.



It's actually not- many guys don't improve. And the improvement that does happen is generally incremental... huge jumps (aka something "clicking") isn't more common than not improving at all is. We need a LOT of BIG jumps to field a decent staff.



I agree. Lemonis is the issue. You're the one who wants to say it's all Foxhall, Forsythe, and Alford, while ignoring the fact Lemonis is responsible for all 3, ignoring the fact the defense sucky beyond those 2, and ignoring the fact our offense was #10 in runs scored. No part of this team is going well.

1. So you have major comprehension issues. Which is not surprising. As everyone else can see nowhere did I say that getting rid of Alford and Forsythe would fix the issue. I was referring to "the situation" and the "issue" as the TEAM defense as a whole and that simply getting rid of those two is the START of fixing that. Not the final solution. I've also talked about putting Mershon back at his natural position of second base. And since Lemonis has mentioned defense as an issue I'm expecting there to be an emphasis on that this offseason throughout the entire team. Add in a year of experience to the equation to the most controllable aspect of the game and improvement is likely.

Oh- and you can play with variables all you want to. But if you are fully expecting every team to have the exact same fielding percentage and our other players making the exact same amount of errors next year outside of third base and shortstop your data is going to be extremely flawed to say the least if you're trying to translate that into next year. Meanwhile everyone else with a brain can see the two outliers we had on defense and make the fairly safe assumption that we will likely improve on defense. And by the way- the 10th place team in the SEC tied with the 9th place team in your scenario. There is also .09 difference between the first place team on defense and the 9th- I mean 10th place team in the SEC this year so you're literally talking about 15 errors as a team difference over the course of the entire season.

You're absolutely the only person who could look at our team defense and see Alford and Forsythe's stats and come to the conclusion that getting rid of them wouldn't make a difference. You don't like talking about it because it shoots an absolutely massive hole in your argument that Lemonis can't turn it around.

2. In case you haven't noticed our track record in the portal is pretty good. With our NIL we should be able to find two good INF who can play multiple positions including 3B and SS. There has already been a glut of good mid major players that have entered the portal. And more to come next week after the regionals. I'm sure when we get them you'll question their competition or some other BS though.

3. On Alford- he is RUMORED to be leaving. He probably will. As of now however- he isn't in the portal. Officially anyway. He wasn't asked to leave and he has been an assigned a summer league team by us as well. THAT'S what is interesting to follow with him right now.

4. If Walton gets the same results he got at Oklahoma State we're hosting right now. You know- just like Oklahoma State. An ERA of 5.19 isn't elite. But we don't have to be to elite to get much better results and a lot closer to our "standard". We also had a higher STUFF+ rate than OSU this year meaning when and if he takes over he's going to be working with a more talented group of pitchers than what we had. We were so poorly coached on the mound I think we're going to easily make big strides there. Which is part of the reason why I think we will likely turn this around.

5. Dylan Cupp- there is no assumption that he is coming. He has told our coaches he is coming. And this comes from multiple people. You can believe that or not. As to the other two things- that's exactly why we're going after infielders in the portal as insurance. But just like Dakota Jordan was likely going to start this time last year- same with Cupp this year. It's funny that you're lecturing me on making assumptions after your post about how our defense won't be good when you plugged in assumed variables and assumed about 2-3 other things that are a lot less likely to happen than Dylan Cupp starting for SS for us next year.

6. We had a winning season and were literally four games from making the regionals this year. We don't need everyone to make Hunter Renfroe like jumps between now and May to turn this around. Actually we would probably be in if Foxhall could manage the staff better than he did.

7. Sure Lemonis is responsible for Foxhall, Forsythe, and Alford. He's also responsible for firing Foxhall, benching Forsythe, and at times benching Alford and booting at least one of those two in portal officially as of now and at the very least bringing in competition to replace Alford. So my question is are you actually going to give him credit for turning the program around if it happens? Because all you've done is shit on everything. You seem a bit worried to me that the defense will improve and that we aren't going to just hire some random unknown pitching coach. I guess I would be too if I had some of the takes you've had lately.

[Quaoarsking]

"Just 4 games from making a Regional" is not a guarantee - it would most likely have to be 4 SEC games and even then it would have been dicey - but even if it were, that's 13.33% of the SEC season. That's not particularly close. That's like being 2.4 basketball wins away from being in the NCAA Tournament.

[Todd4State]

"Just 4 games from making a Regional" is not a guarantee - it would most likely have to be 4 SEC games and even then it would have been dicey - but even if it were, that's 13.33% of the SEC season. That's not particularly close. That's like being 2.4 basketball wins away from being in the NCAA Tournament.

Of course I meant four SEC games. 13 SEC wins gets you on the bubble- and likely in. 14 and you are solidly in.

When you factor in the one run losses where we had a lead and blew it, the fact that our pitching staff had an ERA of 7 during the season and over 9 in SEC play- us turning this around really isn't a stretch at all.

[basedog]

Ole Bert Stare may have been right and Haire being a Bulldog, just the wrong Bulldogs.

[Todd4State]

Ole Bert Stare may have been right and Haire being a Bulldog, just the wrong Bulldogs.

LOL. Good one.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Of course I meant four SEC games. 13 SEC wins gets you on the bubble- and likely in. 14 and you are solidly in.

When you factor in the one run losses where we had a lead and blew it, the fact that our pitching staff had an ERA of 7 during the season and over 9 in SEC play- us turning this around really isn't a stretch at all.

I keep seeing this ultra low low bar for what "turning it around" means.

"Turning it around" SHOULD mean State baseball- compete with the best in the conference, solidly be a host, make a Super.

You're defining "turning it around" to mean barely squeak into the tournament with a flawed teak that can't go anywhere.

These 2 are not the same.

You're having to play "woulda coulda shouda" games with our pitching staff to say we could have possibly snuck into the tournament, which is still below State standards. Think about that- that's how far your standards for us have fallen

[smootness]

Any time you see State baseball fans hanging their hats on being 4 SEC wins away from possibly squeaking into a regional, you know things are bad.

What a joke.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Any time you see State baseball fans hanging their hats on being 4 SEC wins away from possibly squeaking into a regional, you know things are bad.

What a joke.

This "4 wins away" stuff is "MsState" football fanbase rationality bleeding into baseball.

9-21 in the SEC means you Suck. Not making Hoover means you Suck.

All the teams you beat to get those 9 shitty wins are thinking, "how did we lose to those clowns". You are equidistant to 5 wins as 13.

[smootness]

We had a -112 run differential in the SEC. -112. In 30 games. That is an AVERAGE of almost 4/game.

Anyone thinking we were in any way some short or even medium distance from being decent or even mediocre is completely kidding themselves. We were terrible, for the 2nd year in a row.

To put that into perspective, Ole Miss, who was clearly the worst team in the league (or you at least assume) had a -93 run differential in conference. We were nearly 20 runs worse than them, despite the 3 more wins.

We were closer to being even worse than we were to being any better at all.