obvious personality traits that are only overcome by strong willed and self motivated players. we gotta hope some of the incoming guys have these qualities.
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obvious personality traits that are only overcome by strong willed and self motivated players. we gotta hope some of the incoming guys have these qualities.
His folks are sidewalk Ole Miss fans as 80% of the people are up here. But if he wants to go to MSU I dont think the parents would have a problem. As far as ?he cant play at MSU? he is just now starting to fill out physically. He is only 16 and has 2 more years to go before he graduates and will probably be 6?8? and 240 by then. He is 86-89 on his fastball and really raw as a pitcher. I think his dad is going get him a pitching coach like Harmon has. He sure isnt going to get any coaching at school. Jared Johnson at Smithville gained 5 mph on his FB from his Junior to Senior year. I could see him hitting mid 90?s by his Senior year.
The biggest issue is we didn't meet our needs. Get ready for O'Brien in CF next year and we have no legit ace.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leeshouldveflanked
well, he better do something to attract Lemo and Parker other than the norm so far. So far he hasn't shown anything that says D1 and I've seen him pitch numerous times and who cares if he's 6'8"? He will not gain 50 pounds while playing basketball from september to march each year. His velo is a moot point without better control of his other 2 pitches. I thought McNickel was working on improving his mechanics to improve deficiencies to pitch and not simply throw. I'm not sure going to Billingsly accomplishes much but maybe paying more for the same thing will? I agree he is raw but if he's still raw as a junior then he's a juco project and that in itself isn't bad but right now he's not mentally in the league with Jared Johnson or Harmon(who i question ever makes it to campus). The one thing I do agree with you on is the coaching he receives at school. Harmon has high school coaches who understand and they work daily during their athletic block on these issues in the fall while this kid is playing basketball til spring break. I hope to see him in maroon one day but he'll have to improve mentally to reach such a goal.
Along with missing on all the big portal guys. And the lack of attention to in-state recruits.
It appears our HS commits are easier for MLB to pull than other colleges.
To me, it's a sign that MSU's "commitments" are fake, loose, and just for leverage. The actual recruits (kids that want to be college players) like the top-150 guys that Butch kept in Auburn, are not the players that Lemons is signing at a rate that reflects MSU tradition, facilities, and pedigree. MSU is recruiting only marginally above the average SEC school, like Auburn. Now, UGA is out recruiting MSU, joining the other leaders like Ark, Vandy, LSU, UTK, TAM, and UF. I know, I know, some folks are happy being the 7th or 8th best college baseball program in the SEC.
If SEC coaches were in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross... Lemons would be Jack Lemmon's character. The dude that 'sells' houses to crazy people that will never actually buy a house. No way that Alex Baldwin would give Chris Lemons the good leads.
https://c.tenor.com/6k-5plFLqRwAAAAC/tenor.gif
It's not the problem at allQuote:
Originally Posted by bulldogcountry1
Then it?s money or it?s the coach/staff lacking charisma of some sort.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cooterpoot
It ain?t the money, either, when your top player and a projected weekend portal pitcher sign pro contracts at the last minute, and you still can?t buy a transfer with the NIL they left behind.
?unless the purse strings at the BI are tight.
We have no problem getting top commits. We can't sign them. That's on the staff for not having other guys and realizing the reality of it all. It's not money and it's not Starkville. Lemonis isn't a great recruiter overall and I've said it over and over. Is what it is now. This staff is getting handled by better recruiting coaches primarily. Leno is half-asser who thinks Dudy Noble recruits itself. Got lazy as hell after the natty too. Plus, baseball is quirky too, it's not like football.
Listened to the end of Rosebowl's podcast today and it sounds like the Oregon State staff just outworked ours at the end to get Arquette back in their boat. Not sure what OSU's final NIL offer was but I assume it was still significantly less than ours. But according to Rosie it was not big deal to lose the top rated portal recruit because he was just a luxury. Sounds like a lot of water toting to me because as Todd stated, we absolutely didn't meet all our needs with what we got out the portal given all that we lost off this year's roster. I see us being a mid-level SEC team next year at best which should hopefully get us back into the post-season but I don't really see us hosting as a Top 16 seed but I would love to be wrong. We really needed a few studs out of the portal given we lost our entire SEC rotation and our best 3 hitters and I don't think we really got that. Arquette would have gone a long way to helping to shore up our lineup. Instead, he goes to a team that doesn't even have a conference home at the moment.Quote:
Originally Posted by bulldogcountry1
I think this will be the nature of the SEC each year for Lemo and crew. Their head is basically on the chopping block annually. Maybe he subtly loves a challenge?
(1) lost the Ohio State leftyQuote:
Originally Posted by maroonmania
(2) lost the Long Beach Lefty
(3) nothing with the ECU kids
(4) nothing with the better Indiana State prospects
(5) nothing with any inter SEC kids (Cade Fisher, others)
(6) nothing with Ole Miss blue chips
(7) nothing with recruits that had other major offers. Maybe Pruett did?
Got a fake UKentucky commitment. Lost a 1st team All SEC sophomore SS for 255K. Had no backup plan. Lost an 8th rounder that would be a 1st rounder in 3 years.
This offseason is a disaster. I bet if DJ were an LSU Tiger, he would be back for a Junior year to win an NC and be a 1st rounder.
Anyways, time to return to my hole until February when baseball starts again.
Why stop it at next year. Lemo won't get us above that level at any point.Quote:
Originally Posted by maroonmania
Yeah the Lemon defenders can miss me with the "Arquette was just icing on the cake" talk. A player like that is an entirely different cake with icing already on it. And we let Oregon State just outwork us and take him.Quote:
Originally Posted by maroonmania
We landed some decent players. But so did everyone else. And we didn't really address our needs. Michael O'Brien is our CF and we still don't have a proven weekend starters.
Agree, over the last 12 years the program had gotten to the point that it was all about making Omaha. Now we have regressed back to regularly questioning if we can make the post season. I will be very surprised if Lemonis ever gets us back to Omaha again and I absolutely don't see us winning the SEC with him in the NIL environment. Just too many other SEC teams that outrecruit and outspend us with proven portal players and players that are borderline with signing MLB contracts.Quote:
Originally Posted by StateDawg44
Here we go again. After being completely wrong this past season I see that some of you are doubling down.Quote:
Originally Posted by KOdawg1
We met most of our needs in the portal. We had a better portal this cycle than last year
Offensively, we brought guys in that are going to make it tough for Chance and Downs to get AB's. We already look to be better offensively than we were this past season. Hines should get back to form. Highfill returns. I love that we got an All-B12 freshman that hit .287 with 7 HR's. This time last year you were whining that Hugesack couldnt hit- but now we are stressed he's leaving? O'Brien hit .327 this summer when he got regular AB's. I'm betting we get some growth out of him.
On the mound we dont have the SP's we had- but our bullpen is way better. We already know who most likely works the 8th and 9th for us with Virginia and Black. The overall staff should be pretty damn good.
Lastly- we had a great run from 2012-2021 but that's just what it was- a run. The SEC is not the same as it was then. College baseball is not the same as it was then. The SEC just set a record with 11 teams making a Regional. Plus we are adding Texas and OU now- which would have made 13 teams. We expect to be good in baseball and in 2024 we were. Now bring on 2025 and let's see what we get done.
I was one of the few standing with you saying Huge Sack was gonna be good so you're completely wrong there. I can pull the posts up to back that up. Try again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
As to the rest of your long ass post, I never said we wouldn't be good next year. I think we'll be average. So again, you're arguing something I didn't say. Try again.
The point of my post was to diminish those saying Arquette wasn't a loss. He was. A big one. He's not icing on the cake. He is the cake.
I literally said we landed some good players but you didn't read and just saw it was me before spouting off some BS. Try again.
There does seem to be this weird assumption that none of the players on the 2024 roster will improve at all, especially the ones that didn't play much last year...it's really weirdQuote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
I think it's entirely possible to improve but we tried to land several CFs before whiffing on all of them so the coaches obviously didn't feel great about rolling with O'Brien otherwise, we wouldn't have tried to bring in the Stetson, UK, and other OFs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tripp McNeely
Can he be good? Sure.
He's doing good in summer ball. But you go with proven over unproven every time. And we tried to do that but just didn't get it done for whatever reason.
Arquette would have certainly been a good pick-up. Hate we lost that battle
I dont think we will be average. Average in college baseball means you are unranked and a 3 seed heading into Regionals. I think we will be above average and fighting for a host spot again in 25. My biggest concern is will the Committee once again steal host spots from the SEC in the name of "growing the game"
I will be surprised if Chance isn't in the lineup. He should be improved going into this year, he definitely got better last year.
That's a bit of an understatement. Marquette would have been our highest average hitter right out at the gate and very likely would have hit over .300 even in the SEC. He is projected to be a 1st rounder next year. Can you name one player on our roster coming back that you would have confidence in hitting over .300? Chance is our highest returning hitter for average at .286 at least for guys with 100 ABs. After that it falls all the way down to Hines at .257. Yes, our 2nd best returning hitter for average from last year's team is Hines at a whopping 257!Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
I will be surprised if Chance isn't in the lineup. He should be improved going into this year, he definitely got better last year.
He probably will but with Hines returning that threw playing time at DH/LF/RF into a big battle. Downs hit .300 this year he just couldnt stay healthy. Ace is going to play somewhere and hit in the middle of the order. Sullivan hit 17 HR's this past season and will be competing for AB's. Stevens was a big bat coming out of HSQuote:
Originally Posted by basedog
We have some real competition for playing time in 25
Competition is always a good thing, hopefully we have some depth, last few years has been really bad in the depth department.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
Chance will 100% be starting & it's not remotely in question.
I'm wondering with the new bats coming in if he might get a shot to play 2nd. Larry played it most of the season with a terrible arm. Wouldnt be any different with Chance there
wait, what about the citadel guy. ain't he a mid infielder?
yes- he could play 2nd, SS, 3rd, or even CFQuote:
Originally Posted by Pancho
Meh . . . . . if we get to top 5, it will be in spite of Lemonhead and not because of him . . . . . .Quote:
Originally Posted by RockyDog
That would actually be his best position. He wasn?t an outfielder until he came here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
Downs is a curious case. He's a strong lad and sized for college power. He was also a big recruit. But his 29 hits last year were almost all singles. I think he got a rolling double or two. Schools like Tennessee don't have starters with sub 350 slugging percentage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
Even Polk commented that Downs hits like a small guy (paraphrasing). AD got 9 hits in the last 5 games, that took the average to 300 when it was 263 before. People do get better, if he can hit in 2025 like he did versus Virginia and St John, he's a big boost.
He has had some injuries. That has affected his power a lot I'm sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Federalist Engineer
I'm not sure what we're going to get out of him this year but I wouldn't be completely shocked if he comes out of nowhere and is fairly productive for us. I also wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being a PH guy for us and just is what he is.