I know (very) little about the baseball... but I know that you cats are struggling this year....
But 2 years removed from yall's most successful season ever...?
Is it a (Bammer-Football-Dubose-type thing?
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I know (very) little about the baseball... but I know that you cats are struggling this year....
But 2 years removed from yall's most successful season ever...?
Is it a (Bammer-Football-Dubose-type thing?
Speaking for myself only, I don't hate Cohen. I just think he meddles too much and we won't maximize our potential under him. He's recruited a bunch of soft, untalented players who have no fight in them. Plus he has a need to prove he's the smartest guy in baseball so he does ridiculously quirky and unorthodox things that just don't work. Examples:
We went 82 straight games with a different lineup.
We're using our fastest player, a midget slap hitter, in the 4 hole behind our slowest player. We basically negate his greatest asset, which is his speed.
We routinely fail to get more than 1 good to great year out of high ceiling prospects, particularly pitchers. Basically, we get an outstanding JR season then they leave.
We have failed to recruit power arms, preferring pitchers who rely on movement and contact.
We routinely make pitching changes in the middle of ABs, i.e. count is 1-1.....time for a pitching change!
Basically, we've become a clown show trying to outsmart the competition and it's backfired on us. We became known for being "unconventional" during our CWS run and went too far with it. We have to get back to basics and improve our talent level. I'm sure there are some who hate Cohen given the Polk situation, but I'm guessing they are a very small group. I just want to win. If Cohen can do it, I'd be thrilled. If he can't, he needs to go. It's just that simple for me. I'm loyal to the program, not the coach.
He wasnt the guy that Polk wanted to replace him- so about 25% of our fanbase wont ever like him because of that
He cusses alot and is very confrontational- which turns off another 15%
He's very unconventional and bunts alot- which turns off another 10%
Fanbase is 50/50 on him in spite of him leading us to the best season we have ever had
I don't understand half of that, WMD... but I appreciate you casting pearls before this swine....Quote:
Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg
data shows this year's team has "fallen off the cliff"... but Cohen's SEC win % the last several years is similar to MSU's last 25 years...
Is it just pissin' away talent? ( I DO NOT understand baseball very well)...
Some of it is, some of it isn't. For example, I don't expect a kid like Seth Heck to be a doubles machine or a world beater. He's decent, but certainly not the type of player we should be relying on. Then there is a kid like Jacob Robson (the cleanup hitter): Big time talent, but he didn't produce at a high level until his JR season (this year). For whatever reason, we failed to develop him quickly enough for him to be an impact player as a Sophomore. The third group is represented by Wes Rea: Talented but hasn't nearly reached his potential. He leads us in most hitting categories, but hasn't developed his power stroke at all. We started out by having him crowd the plate and handcuffing himself on the inside fastball. We've backed him off the plate some, but he still is mostly an opposite field doubles and singles hitter. He's only got 5 HRs this season when he should be in double digits. We know the power is there, because we've seen him hit some absolute moonshots during his career, most notably in our Super Regional against Virginia.Quote:
Originally Posted by TUSK
Outside of that, it's all rumor and speculation as to the problems. While we've recruited more "talent" on paper, it hasn't translated to the field. And a large part of that is mental. These guys just aren't mentally tough and have no fight in them. There's no leadership from the players themselves, either. We have talk of skipped workouts by team captains with no repercussions. Players faking injury to avoid practice. No one really knows, but there's a whole lot of smoke around this team right now. I think it all started with the current group of Seniors who got the big head following the CWS run.
I'd also say part of the problem is Cohen's inability to find a happy medium with his coaching style. When he first arrived, he earned the nickname The Intense Bastard amongst a portion of our fan base. As C34 alluded to, he was a hardass who demanded you give maximum effort and wasn't afraid to cuss your ass in the dugout if he thought you weren't. During our CWS run, the players asked to be allowed to have "kept" facial hair and for a little freedom in the dugout. Since we were winning, no one minded it. We had some characters, but we also had some serious player leadership that wasn't afraid to grab a guy by the balls and get in his grill if he wasn't doing his job. We no longer have anyone to do that. After that team, Cohen continued to allow all the dugout antics, facial hair, etc. He basically mellowed too much and stopped being the hardass who got the job in the first place. He needs to return to being The Intense Bastard, kill the dugout antics, but allow the kept facial hair. To me, that's the perfect balance for who he is.
I should also ask, which half specifically did you not understand? I'd definitely be willing to elaborate further to help clarify. If it was the part about lineups, pitching change tactics, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by TUSK
Simply put Cohen coaches pus$y baseball. He relies on walks, hit by pitches, errors/pastballs and bunting to score runs. That is the most pus$y way of playing baseball. People that played a good bit of baseball realized that this year. We don't want to play that style of baseball. Nobody does. We want big powerful great damage hitters not slap it to 2nd base type players. We also want big powerful pitchers that throw gas and can pitch a full game. Not the Ross Mitchell types. It's going to be impossible for Cohen to stock his roster completely all over with power in only one year so it's looking like next year is Cohen's last year so the divorce is already happening for a bunch on here.Quote:
Originally Posted by TUSK
I'll agree that this is probably my biggest dislike of Cohen ball. Basically, one of the main tenets of Cohen's offense working well seems to be needing the other team to screw up through walks, hbp and errors. I hate that. We have trouble when we come up a against teams who throw strikes and make plays in the field.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dawg61
In a nutshell, we have a site filled with college drop outs who buy tee shirts at Walmart, frustrated single accountants, 50 year old farmers who live with their parents and failed softball jocks who think they know more than a National Coach of the Year. They only remember seeing beer league softball scores from a few years back and think that this is how college baseball is supposed to be: every game should be 19-15. Cohen does some unconventional things that pisses off the worshipers of the 600 foot shot and we are having a down year. They are the same 145 lb boy wonders that tried to run Mullen off a couple of years ago when we were struggling at 6-6 and still believe that we are the 5 time world champions from the Polk era, even though we never won a single championship. They have no idea that you can do anything on the field except hit 600 ft homers. They congregate to free sites like this in order to save their money for the one trip to the bar in a last chance bid to buy drinks and impress the 3 times divorced, 43 year old cougar with fleeting dreams of getting lucky.
We haven't won the SEC regular season championship since 1989. 26 years
#Top5Program
100% correctQuote:
Originally Posted by bobcat91
In your "expert" opinion, would you say this year is acceptable? BTW, this will most likely be Cohen's 3rd year out of 7 to get 10 wins or less in sec play. Granted I'm a lay person when it comes to coaching big time baseball, but I don't think that is very good.Quote:
Originally Posted by bobcat91
Now I'm for giving Cohen another year, but we (fans) can't give another mulligan to Cohen. 3 mulligans in 7 years is quite generous
Oh yeah, if it's acceptable for Cohen to have an abomination of a season, why isn't it acceptable for our fans to flip out?
This is hilarious......but true.Quote:
Originally Posted by bobcat91
It's actually one in 5- those first 2 were on Polk. We had no talent when Cohen arrived. Polk hadnt left the damn campus to recruit for his last couple of years. He should have been fired earlier for thatQuote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
Then we're 72-73 in sec play if you throw those 2 years out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
We're worse this year than polk's last year. Does Cohen get 2 more years to fix it again?
Yikes...Quote:
Originally Posted by bobcat91
Nobody is excusing this season. Nobody is happy about it. But:Quote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
He had one of our best SEC regular seasons ever just last year
He played for the NC 2 years ago.
To act like he isnt doing a good job overall is retarded. We are having a down year- and we are all in agreement he needs to fix it and get us back in a regional next year.
Typically people say "well he hasn't forgotten how to coach from 2 years ago.." Unfortunately for us he has. The shit that goes on is ****ing retarded. He better get over himself and remember how to coach baseball because he damn sure isn't doing it.
Those that keep harping on we were just in a NC and it's just a down year must be missing the game after game after game after game of lineup shit, strategy shit, pitching shit, no balls shit, no first base coach shit, terrible base running shit, dugout antic shit, beard shit, shirts inside out shit, mingione shit, no leadership shit, and on and on and on shit.
Dare I say it's becoming stansburyesque with all the defending someone that isn't coaching or handling the team for shit. (And don't even start with saying this statement was dragging him into it because it wasn't so don't go down the road)
^^^^^^^^^^^This is why we are pissed.^^^^^^^^^^^^Quote:
Originally Posted by I seen it dawg
I call BS on this. Surely the fan base is more like 90-10 in favor of him (at least if you're talking about wanting him fired), even if basically everybody is pissed about this season. Maybe 30 to 40% think that we will ultimately need to go a different direction, even if most of those people recognize it woudl be crazy to talk about firing him this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
Have no way to back this up, just hopeful our fan base is not that stupid.
deserves at least one more year and reevaluate him then. Now, with that said he definitely needs to make a some changes. Even in our best year (2013) we didn't have great starting pitching so that's something that needs to be worked on. The rest of it is just over analyzation and over managing the game and processess. He just can't help himself. He won't settle on an everyday lineup and is just hard headed so he's his worst enemy a lof of the time. Oh yeah, he needs to hire a hitting coach.
You're correct. In fact, it's probably closer to 99% to 1%.Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnson85
Cohen is kinda like a restaurant owner, he has a so called 5 star chef, good waiters and so all is good. Then one day the 5 star chef starts to relax in the kitchen and the food starts to suffer. Waiters aren't getting the tips they are use to and start complaining to the owner who jumps the 5 star chef and they square off with customers listening as well the staff. Now the customers stop coming, Cohen fires everyone and starts over with a whole new staff because he wants to build a new restaurant, do the paying customers buy into it or is it to late?
So, do we build it and do they come and all is well?
This.Quote:
Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg
I wouldn't say 25% of the fanbase hates him because of Polk. Almost everyone thought Polk acted like a bitch in that situation and thought Cohen was a much better hire than raffo because he'd shown high level HC success.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
I'd also argue that 2013 wasn't our best season ever. We got hot and made it to the CWS finals, but the postseason can be a bit of a crapshoot. Our regular season was good, but not overwhelmingly dominant - only 16-14 in the sec. We did host a regional though. Basically it's the type of regular season we should expect regularly, winning cong record, position to host a regional. And when we deviate, it should more often than not be winning 20+ sec games and being a national seed than seasons like this (<10 sec Ws, no postseason).
You have to admit that some of the crazy shit that has happened this year isn't His Fault. A runner falling down rounding third, Ross going to shit, Pitchers arms giving out, Highly recruited players going pro, Umpires squeezing the zone and some of the blame falls on the players just not nutting up and making a play. Part of His Mantra is to pound the strike zone but in numerous situations we refuse to throw strikes. Is that His fault or the Pitchers. Our pitchers Saturday could have underhanded the pitch and we would have won. This year I have seen hard hit balls by us turn into outs and nubbers by our opponents drop in. We have trouble running the bases,can't go from 1st to 3td without problems.
We all know JC can Coach at a high level, His track records tells us this. So we need to bite the bullet, say **** it for this year and move on..
The reason the place goes downhill is because the chef decides to do this unconventionally, he serves heaps of ice and brownies as entrees with a side of Brussel sprouts, small slivers of roasted duck for dessert, will only serve fanta to drink, etc. like he's figured out something no other chef knows.Quote:
Originally Posted by basedog
Nice strawman because that's exactly what everyone whose bitched about this season and cohen's approach has said.Quote:
Originally Posted by bobcat91
So youre still holding those first two years against him unh? Expected post season runs those two?Quote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
72-73 since. I expect better than that. Unreasonable? Maybe soQuote:
Originally Posted by confucius say
No one is happy about this season. No one. The first two years Cohen was here are a pass because Polk left him nothing. This year is totally on him, the staff and players. This year is gone and we can move on. He has shown the ability to get the ship righted before, so I'm looking foreword to next year. We went to four straight regionals, two super regionals, the CWS and the National Championship series, yet we have morons saying fire him. He didn't forget how to coach. Make him fix it. I expect to be in a regional next year. Some forget that it was only a few years ago that LSU was left out of a regional and Virginia, who played for the National Championship last year, has a losing record in the ACC and is unranked.
i totally disagreeQuote:
Originally Posted by CadaverDawg
There is easily 20% of our fanbase that wanted him gone before 1 pitch was thrown this season. It's not about wins/losses with them- it's that he is not "Polk's Boy"
We may just not be a good team with the combo of talent and experience that's capable of competing for a postseason spot this year, but my problem is I feel we are doing some very obvious things that are limiting our ability to maximize our talent. Sometimes it just isn't your year, and sometimes you make decisions to ensure it isn't your year. I think Cohen has definitely crossed into the latter.Quote:
Originally Posted by bobcat91
And no I don't think he's trying to lose, I think he's just completely outsmarted himself and is overthinking the game, maybe because he know we don't have the requisite talent/experience this year, but it's definitely set him up to take almost all the blame for our failures.
I know plenty of people that were stans' backers and didn't want him gone. However I don't know a single person that was butthurt about us passing on raffo simply because he was "polk's boy".Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
That must be the problem. All my friends are in the 1% bracket.Quote:
Originally Posted by CadaverDawg
That's a totally different argument. And is a debatable one. In a vacuum, no, a .500 sec record is not good enough. But Would you agree 2011-2014 was acceptable, bc I was very happy with our program's results as a whole during that time. Super, regional and sec tourney, natty appearance, regional final.Quote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
How do you really feel?Quote:
Originally Posted by I seen it dawg
Cohen is the perfect fit for MSU baseball. If he's successful, he'll stay forever. If he's awful, he'll gladly walk off into the sun light without throwing away all of his files so the next coach has to start with zilch.
He just has to stop being stubborn and trust his players to produce. God coaches make adjustments. We'll see what he does next season.
You need to meet more people then...hell, half the former players were divided on it. Some still havent come back because of itQuote:
Originally Posted by dawgs
He just has to stop being stubborn and trust his players to produce. God coaches make adjustments. We'll see what he does next season.
Excellent point.