my bad, I thought he was a leftie. Can't wait for 2/14 to get here.
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I would guess Pico, Ligon, Simmons. I’m not really sure. Seems lime we have elite potential. Just need to tap into it. I liked Gavin Black a lot last year. He turned it on there at the end. If he doesn’t start as the closer, I imagine he is by EOS.
Lemonis doesn't like to overwork pitchers during the season so I suspect we will see at least two closers like we saw last year with Hardin and Tyler Davis.
My guess is Black will be one and Nolan Stevens will be one. I think we see Dane Burns, Makhai Grant, and maybe Charlie Foster in that role as well. And of course Stone Simmons has been a closer before too.
Lemon said "get 3 outs for us" in the latest interview I saw on Stevens. Same with Sullivan
It's hard for me to believe Black is not the top candidate to close. I'm curious about Simmons role. He's 35 years old and should be finally healthy. He could be a big piece for us this season
I'm kind of reading between the lines on what Lemonis has said about how he will use Stevens. Plus with him being a position player using him like Thigpen or Young makes some sense. Plus that's how they tried to use him at times. IMO they used him in too many high leverage situations before he was ready last year. Of course I think they were surprised when Aaron Nixon signed too and I think they thought he would be the closer going into last year.
Dual position guys complicate the DH situation and I imagine they want to keep Stevens and Sullivan's bat in the lineup as much as possible.
I like Foster a lot too. Certainly could be in the rotation by years end. I have heard people just as high on Dane Burns and Makhai Grant too though. Both are coming off of injuries and it sounds like Burns is way ahead of where he was expected to be.
Stone is fighting Pruett for the third spot in the rotation. Whoever doesn't get the third spot probably is going to play the same role Houston Harding had for about half of the 2021 season while also starting midweek games. Personally I think I like Stone better as a reliever and Pruett better as a starter.
I do too. At least for games like USM and South Alabama and Memphis, etc. I would only want them to go 4-5 innings at the most though to let some other guys get work and also to let them have some rest in case we need to transition them to the weekend.
I know a lot of fans don't like scheduling SWAC teams but teams like that are when we can get a chance to put guys into live game action and see what they can do. Now obviously, we don't want to over schedule those types of games but there is a balance because like Coach said you have to give guys a chance to see what they can do and sometimes use them as rehab starts like we did with Pico last year.
And it's interesting looking at our schedule and this has to be by design- our most difficult midweek games are on pre-SEC play. USM twice, Troy, and then the two Biloxi games.
The most difficult midweek game during SEC play is the Governor's Cup.
That leads me to believe we will probably use Stone and Pruett as our midweek guy to start with and then go from there.
This recent interviews are interesting, takes dedication and belief to comeback after 2 years of rehab.
https://youtu.be/oB_0iAh_4WU?si=_QxhbU2iQC9aa6cd
https://www.youtube.com/live/qwi0iJk...DQMFLPiMwOPnTn