I'm sick of seeing opponents who look bigger than us

Yea i know Cohen recruited to our "park" (speed and pitching) but shit, i'm just starting to get sick of "strategy". I'm sick of the Righty vs. Lefty shit, I'm sick of 5-8, 160 lb players. I want the Pete Youngs, the Castorias, the Jody Hursts, the Ron Browns - Where the hell are the big and bad ass looking players who are 6-2, 230 who can BASH!!!!!!????

Change the philosophy - So what - are park is big. Recruit guys that hit the hell out of the baseball and play those guys. Rooker should just get the DH at bats. Move Humphries down the lineup and take the pressure off of him with other guys that can BASH. Sorry i'm just sick and tired of wanting another 1989 lineup.

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Originally Posted by BHildreth3

I want the Pete Youngs, the Castorias, the Jody Hursts, the Ron Browns - Where the hell are the big and bad ass looking players who are 6-2, 230 who can BASH!!!!!!????

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Have you checked out the MLB?**

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Originally Posted by BHildreth3

Yea i know Cohen recruited to our "park" (speed and pitching) but shit, i'm just starting to get sick of "strategy". I'm sick of the Righty vs. Lefty shit, I'm sick of 5-8, 160 lb players. I want the Pete Youngs, the Castorias, the Jody Hursts, the Ron Browns - Where the hell are the big and bad ass looking players who are 6-2, 230 who can BASH!!!!!!????

Change the philosophy - So what - are park is big. Recruit guys that hit the hell out of the baseball and play those guys. Rooker should just get the DH at bats. Move Humphries down the lineup and take the pressure off of him with other guys that can BASH. Sorry i'm just sick and tired of wanting another 1989 lineup.

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Outside of a few here and there, they simply don't exist in college baseball. For the ones that do make it college, there is usually a good story as to why they ended up in college. For example, Alex Bregman broke a finger his senior year of high school when he would've been a lock top 3 round pick and gone pro. Hunter Renfro was from Crystal Springs Academy and only got around 30 ABs his Sr year of high school because no one would pitch to him, and I could go on and on with more fluke stories of how ML caliber hitters made it to college.

The problem is that hitters don't develop like pitchers. If you look at the MLB All-Star game rosters each year, you will see that, outside of the frontline starters, pitchers come from all parts of the draft and can develop late in their careers. Thus many MLB pitchers make it to college because they threw 88-90 in high school and end up throwing 95 by the time they are juniors. However, hitters don't typically follow that development path. Most hitters in the MLB All-Star game come from the top half of the 1st round and have been famous since they were 15. People that hit, have typically hit their entire lives, and there are very few of them. If MLB scouts think an amateur player can really hit, he typically goes in the top 2 rounds. Of course, some slip through the cracks, but much less hitters do than pitchers. It's just the nature of the game.

The fact is that Cohen would love to get these guys, but so few of them filter to college baseball that it's impossible to have a team building strategy based upon them making it to campus. If they do, GREAT, but you can't base the foundation of your program on that hope.

So, basically what Shotgun is saying is the power guys that colleges get are usually guys like Wes Rea and Sikes Orvis that have a brighter baseball future in the beer league than they do in the Big Leagues. A lot of the power guys- you have to hope that you can coach them up enough to be good by year three usually as far as hitting for average and power. That's why our 85 team was so special. And why it hasn't been replicated since.

Most power hitters in college are what I call "accident" power hitters. They swing at anything in the area code and occasionally they will accidentally hit one out.

Haven't you heard? We play small ball. ;)

Some have touched on this but the variables in high school are almost impossible to calculate. Guys that never get pitched to, size of ball parks, coaching philosophy, the list goes on and on.

I coach at a high school where the field dimensions are 320 in the corners, 360 in the gaps, and 395 in dead center. Varsity played a game this past weekend at a field where dead center was 350. So it's hard to look solely at a kid in high school and declare him a power hitter. Lot of factors in play.

And quite simply, those guys that are bashers are leaving the game of baseball. You are starting to see it become more of a small ball league because when college baseball changed the bats, virtually every team had to adjust to that. Thus, guys going into the majors are the same way because those are the players that are being pumped out. Smaller guys that hit more for contact.

7-10 years ago you weren't a power hitter in college if you didn't hit 10+ homers. Now if you hit 6 or 7 you might lead your team. In the pros you see Nelson Cruz lead the majors in 2014 with 40 HRs, and there were only 3 guys in the NL above 30 this past year. Add the pitching aspect in and you've created a league of guys where if you hit 20+ homers you are considered a power guy. It's amazing how the game has changed just in the last 5 years.

They play at LSU!

I was 13 or so when i fell in love with State baseball - that '89 squad. I wish i could see a game with them vs. the SEC of today. I can't figure out if that lineup was just really great, or if it was a lack of SEC competition/bats used at that time. Just would be fun to see them play again. I want to say we hit 98 home runs and hit for record number of doubles.

Well, we have several of these guys.

Humpreys, Rooker, Gordon, Collins...we have several big, pro-looking guys with pop. Most of them just aren't really performing right now, which is why so many are calling for them to sit.

We also have Austin Riley potentially on the way, along with perhaps Marrero. We are getting bigger.

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Originally Posted by BHildreth3

Yea i know Cohen recruited to our "park" (speed and pitching) but shit, i'm just starting to get sick of "strategy". I'm sick of the Righty vs. Lefty shit, I'm sick of 5-8, 160 lb players. I want the Pete Youngs, the Castorias, the Jody Hursts, the Ron Browns - Where the hell are the big and bad ass looking players who are 6-2, 230 who can BASH!!!!!!????

Change the philosophy - So what - are park is big. Recruit guys that hit the hell out of the baseball and play those guys. Rooker should just get the DH at bats. Move Humphries down the lineup and take the pressure off of him with other guys that can BASH. Sorry i'm just sick and tired of wanting another 1989 lineup.

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Just out of curiosity, would you have started this thread if we had actually won the national title 2 years ago instead of finishing in a measly #2 in the country after losing the national championship series? Just wondering because Cohen's philosophy seemed to do alright that year.

Per PG
2016:
Dustin Skelton - 5'11
Elliot Anderson - 6'3
Walker Robbins - 6'2
Hagan Severance - 6'0
Mitchell Miller - 6'5
Riley Self - 6'4
Cole Whitman - 6'4

2015:
Greg Pickett - 6'4
Parker Ford - 6'3
Austin Riley - 6'3
Gray Fenter - 6'0
Elih Marrero - 5'9
Ethan Small - 6'3
Hunter Stovall - 5'10
Trysten Barlow - 6'2
Jared Padgett - 6'4
Luke Alexander - 6'0
Konnor Pilkington - 6'3
Brant Blaylock - 6'2
Noah Hughes - 6'2
Jake Mangum - 5'11
Ryan Cyr - 6'3
Kale Breaux - 5'11
Delvin Zinn - 5'10
Keegan James - 6'3

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Originally Posted by smootness

Well, we have several of these guys.

Humpreys, Rooker, Gordon, Collins...we have several big, pro-looking guys with pop. Most of them just aren't really performing right now, which is why so many are calling for them to sit.

We also have Austin Riley potentially on the way, along with perhaps Marrero. We are getting bigger.

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I don't think Marrero is going to be a power hitter and he's only 5'9". He will still be an outstanding player for us. Why Cole Gordon is sitting this year is a mystery. We miss Collins- he's the kind of guy that Shotgun was talking about as far as slipping through the cracks. He had an injury his senior year in high school, otherwise he would have been a high draft pick. You could say the same about Humphreys, but I think with him he's trying to do too much right now, and he probably does face a little more pressure in that he's a legacy, but he's a legacy that is supposed to perform. It's easy to forget that Rooker is just a freshman right now- he's got a lot of time to develop and I think he will.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

I don't think Marrero is going to be a power hitter and he's only 5'9". He will still be an outstanding player for us. Why Cole Gordon is sitting this year is a mystery. We miss Collins- he's the kind of guy that Shotgun was talking about as far as slipping through the cracks. He had an injury his senior year in high school, otherwise he would have been a high draft pick. You could say the same about Humphreys, but I think with him he's trying to do too much right now, and he probably does face a little more pressure in that he's a legacy, but he's a legacy that is supposed to perform. It's easy to forget that Rooker is just a freshman right now- he's got a lot of time to develop and I think he will.

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Yeah, I forgot Marrero was that short, but he's still along the lines of what the OP is talking about. He's a solidly built guy with a legitimate swing. He's no slap hitter.

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Originally Posted by smootness

Yeah, I forgot Marrero was that short, but he's still along the lines of what the OP is talking about. He's a solidly built guy with a legitimate swing. He's no slap hitter.

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He was good enough to make Team USA. Which means that even if he was a midget, anyone else in the country would take him.

His Dad was 6'0" so I wouldn't be shocked if he has a little growth spurt. But I never count on those things either. When people watch Elih Marrero, people are going to be surprised at how fast he is.