Dakota Hudson is straight dealing in the Championship series

Well, Tatum is NOT dealing thus far.

Not basing that on today, but I think the rotation will end up being Brown, Sexton and Hudson. I'm still gun-shy with Hudson, so promoting him to Friday is a stretch. My outside-the-box prediction for the season is that Brown ends up being the Friday night guy. I say use Tatum out of the bullpen, where he excelled as a freshman. Good role for a lefty with movement. Let one of the freshmen, and McCord if healthy, battle it out for the 4th/midweek spot. Houston the closer. I hope Gentry is ready to go, that will be a great addition late in games. Nobody is talking about Mintz either, or Billingsley, who I believe was hurt as well.

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Originally Posted by bulldogcountry1

How much was on Butch and how much was on Cohen? I recall hearing rumblings before the season started (maybe even from you) about how they were disagreeing with how the staff was going to be managed. Who "won" that argument in the end? I agree that it was Butch

I remember watching an SEC game later in the season, and the camera caught the two of them disagreeing in the dugout when the time was coming to make a call to the pen. Before long, Butch came out and brought in Ross for another beating. Making an educated guess, I'd say that Butch is to Blame for player devotion that caused him to mismanage the staff because it just doesn't fit the way Cohen over manages the lineup in every way.

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They both get the blame. Butch for putting them out there and not having at least one of the five guys in the Cape capable to pitch as sophomores and Cohen gets the blame because he is the head coach and the buck stops there.

Butch handles the staff for the most part.

Dude, it will be between Tatum, Houston, Dakota and Sexton for weekend. Brown is a long reliever. Rigby is the closer. Hudson is the Friday night guy. Sexton is Saturday. Those two in my mind are set as is the closer. Billingsley and Myles if not healthy aren't on the roster. Padgett Breaux and Ford will fight it out for Tuesday. But as the case most years, starters don't go the whole season so if Padgett does well they might pitch him on Sunday once.

A few points.

1. The majority of player development takes place during the summer. The laid back atmosphere in summer leagues is a part of this, but players can work through some of their issues in the summer that the coaches cannot afford to allow them to work through in the spring when winning is the most important aspect. Summer league is a lot like minor league ball.

2. What Dakota has done this summer is hone his command and gain a lot of confidence. Dakota always had a great arm, but command of his pitches was a significant issue early on. Frankie Piliere told me on twitter that Dakota's command is much better than what it was in the spring. He made a post mentioning how Dakota was working 93-95 on the mound. That means that when he lets it rip, he's probably touching 98 mph on his fastball now. He has also developed a sharp cutter that he can throw in the upper 80s.

3. Fans who say that what these players do in the summer time never translates into the spring have a personal vendetta against the coaching staff. Hunter Renfroe, Kendall Graveman, Chris Stratton, Chad Girodo, Adam Frazier, Jacob Lindgren, Jonathan Holder....etc all disagree with you.

I'm not sure why some of our fans think that our guys that have good summers aren't having good seasons the next year. If anything a good summer has translated into a great season for us.


Heck, that's where we got the idea that Girodo was going to be great for us in the first place and where guys like Renfroe, Stratton and Lindgren emerged.

Last year we had a lot of guys that had summers that were cut short because of injuries- like Rea and Robson or they didn't participate like Preston Brown and Ross. Preston was recovering from an arm injury. Humphreys didn't play summer ball last year either.

Anyway, like I said in May- we are probably going to know what kind of a year we are going to have by August. Well, here we are and I would say based on the overall results I'm pretty pleased.

Hudson has been throwing gas.
Sexton had a rough start but has improved.
Tatum and Houston both had summers.
Daniel Brown had a good summer but still needs to get his walks down.

Humphreys didn't hit all that well but finished the summer hot hitting around .385 in the playoffs.
Robson hit over .300 in the Cape.
Rooker got a promotion to the Cape after hitting 10 home runs in his summer league to go with a high 300's average.

And then Gridley, Holland, Cody Brown, and Michael Smith and Luke Reynolds had good years in their summer leagues. Nate Lowe the JUCO transfer had a very respectable summer in the Cal Ripken League which should help him translate to SEC ball.

I'm also hearing that there is a good chance that Gavin Collins and Jacob Barfield can participate most of the fall after having been injured.

It comes down to experience and repetition. All these guys have it now. At minimum, we should be in a regional in 2016. To go further means development from the young guys, the other pieces of the puzzle.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

I'm not sure why some of our fans think that our guys that have good summers aren't having good seasons the next year. If anything a good summer has translated into a great season for us.


Heck, that's where we got the idea that Girodo was going to be great for us in the first place and where guys like Renfroe, Stratton and Lindgren emerged.

Last year we had a lot of guys that had summers that were cut short because of injuries- like Rea and Robson or they didn't participate like Preston Brown and Ross. Preston was recovering from an arm injury. Humphreys didn't play summer ball last year either.

Anyway, like I said in May- we are probably going to know what kind of a year we are going to have by August. Well, here we are and I would say based on the overall results I'm pretty pleased.

Hudson has been throwing gas.
Sexton had a rough start but has improved.
Tatum and Houston both had summers.
Daniel Brown had a good summer but still needs to get his walks down.

Humphreys didn't hit all that well but finished the summer hot hitting around .385 in the playoffs.
Robson hit over .300 in the Cape.
Rooker got a promotion to the Cape after hitting 10 home runs in his summer league to go with a high 300's average.

And then Gridley, Holland, Cody Brown, and Michael Smith and Luke Reynolds had good years in their summer leagues. Nate Lowe the JUCO transfer had a very respectable summer in the Cal Ripken League which should help him translate to SEC ball.

I'm also hearing that there is a good chance that Gavin Collins and Jacob Barfield can participate most of the fall after having been injured.

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Another thing to note is that, if I am not mistaken, Reid Humphreys finished the Cape League playing left field.

You left off Cole Gordon, who may have had the most impressive summer of our hitters by hitting over .400 in the Great Lakes League, winning that batting title while also hitting 7 bombs in only 75 at bats.

Certainly no room for excuses next season...

I like what these pitchers have done so far. Has our gamesmanship and competiveness improved is what I want to see. Again, no excuses.