Pitching Lane Forsythe

Was one of the dumbest decisions I have ever seen at MSU.

But....but.... we have injuries. Yeah well we could have pitched Tullar, Talley, Pico, Fristoe, and KC. Could have also pitched Walker and Cheatham.

So no we didn't "have to" pitch him. In fact I've never seen a position player that wasn't a true dual position guy come in that situation ever.

Our coaches overthought things and we got burned.
Period. That look even dumber with how Tullar and Talley performed.

But....but....we want to save our arms for games that matter. We routinely and have always pitched some of our weekend relief guys midweek for every coach going back to Polk including Lemonis. Even this year. We pitched two guys that we used this past weekend tonight.

Our fans like to pat our coaches on the back for saving arms. And yet we have what? Three out for the year and one literally MIA with some unknown injury that Ian Tommy John but requires surgery per rumor? Maybe pithing once a week isn't the answer after all.

And no one is talking about what might have happened if Lane hurts his arm. Then our shortstop is down who has been hot and it would hurt us defensively too.

But....but.... we only scored 2 runs tonight. Yeah and our shortstop allowed three in a game we lost by three. And now because we overthought things we didn't get an opportunity to win the game in extra innings.

I like Lemonis. But he overthought this one. Sometimes the best move is the normal move.

It was 17ing stupid. He obviously took the pitching advice of Genes Page.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Especially when it comes to baseball. The problem with it in this particular case is that we will never know if those hitters in that inning would have scored at least one run no matter who the pitcher was.

This is one of several bad decisions we can look back to if we don?t make a Regional. But on the other hand only scoring 2 runs against bad midweek pitching is inexcusable as well.

I agree but we had 4 hits and two unearned runs, so it isn't just one thing that cost us last night. The problem with this team is inconsistency, maybe be one of the worse teams I have ever seen at Msu. This team doesn't seem have the mentality you need to be successful.

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Originally Posted by basedog

I agree but we had 4 hits and two unearned runs, so it isn't just one thing that cost us last night. The problem with this team is inconsistency, maybe be one of the worse teams I have ever seen at Msu. This team doesn't seem have the mentality you need to be successful.

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Wait til next year. Next year sets up to be reallllllly bad. Our recruiting and some coaching need to improve. We've got to recruit better fast. I hate going transfer heavy, but we have no choice.

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Originally Posted by basedog

I agree but we had 4 hits and two unearned runs, so it isn't just one thing that cost us last night. The problem with this team is inconsistency, maybe be one of the worse teams I have ever seen at Msu. This team doesn't seem have the mentality you need to be successful.

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The difference is who we put on the mound is a lot more in our control than where/how hard we hit the ball.

I would like to have seen what would have happened in extra innings and we didn't give ourselves the opportunity to do that.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

In fact I've never seen a position player that wasn't a true dual position guy come in that situation ever.

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Did you miss those games the "Mayor" threw some innings?

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Originally Posted by BiscuitEater

Did you miss those games the "Mayor" threw some innings?

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No. But the difference is Mangum came to MSU with the possibility of being a pitcher or an outfielder. He had worked with our staff early in his career before they settled on him being an outfielder. Forsythe did not.

And quite frankly he wasn't very good as a pitcher against them either.

When Mangum pitched our situation was worse than our current situation is now. Pitching Forsythe in general just doesn't make a lot of sense. It's an unnecessary move.

We crushed some balls last night. But our hitting philosophy is now HR or bust. We've turned into what sucks about baseball. Low averages, lots of Ks, & HRs.

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Originally Posted by Cooterpoot

We crushed some balls last night. But our hitting philosophy is now HR or bust. We've turned into what sucks about baseball. Low averages, lots of Ks, & HRs.

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Yeah. I don't like spreadsheet baseball.

Our approach at the plate as has been all season in seeking HRs cost us alot last night. 6 warning track fly balls and minimal ability to drive the ball on the ground and in gaps. Our plate approach does not match a professional ballpark with 375 gaps. It showed well last night.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

The difference is who we put on the mound is a lot more in our control than where/how hard we hit the ball.

I would like to have seen what would have happened in extra innings and we didn't give ourselves the opportunity to do that.

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A few weeks ago many on ED where questioning why Forsythe has pitched, now many are saying what a dumb move. Yes it was a bad move only because it didn't work, better to have given him a try now than in Sec play.

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Originally Posted by basedog

A few weeks ago many on ED where questioning why Forsythe has pitched, now many are saying what a dumb move. Yes it was a bad move only because it didn't work, better to have given him a try now than in Sec play.

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Do you mean questioning why he hasn't pitched?

It was a dumb move in OOC play too. It's even more dumb in SEC play.

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Originally Posted by Cooterpoot

Wait til next year. Next year sets up to be reallllllly bad. Our recruiting and some coaching need to improve. We've got to recruit better fast. I hate going transfer heavy, but we have no choice.

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It's kinda like Forrest Gulp stated about a box of chocolate, "you never know what you are getting". Too early to predict or complain about next year, second guessing is easy right now. I predicted before the season we would have issues, but never did I imagine it would be injuries to our staff, lack of on base hitting.

Players are given the chance to produce, some do some don't, and yes we have some that may have been over rated. I'm as disappointed as you and every one else. Not questioning your opinion as it is a message board but in baseball things can get fixed in a year, or more so than football. See Hunter Hines for example.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Do you mean questioning why he hasn't pitched?

It was a dumb move in OOC play too. It's even more dumb in SEC play.

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Like I said better to have tried him in non-conference play. Yes, he failed miserably, yes, it looks really bad now, but "That's Baseball".

Btw, the other relivers did there job, I was pleasantly surprise to say the least for what I have seen in the past few weeks.

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Originally Posted by Jcl

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Especially when it comes to baseball. The problem with it in this particular case is that we will never know if those hitters in that inning would have scored at least one run no matter who the pitcher was.

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It wasn't hindsight for anyone with a baseball IQ above 20.

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Originally Posted by basedog

It's kinda like Forrest Gulp stated about a box of chocolate, "you never know what you are getting". Too early to predict or complain about next year, second guessing is easy right now. I predicted before the season we would have issues, but never did I imagine it would be injuries to our staff, lack of on base hitting.

Players are given the chance to produce, some do some don't, and yes we have some that may have been over rated. I'm as disappointed as you and every one else. Not questioning your opinion as it is a message board but in baseball things can get fixed in a year, or more so than football. See Hunter Hines for example.

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Hines is hitting below .200 in league play. Only transfer we really hit on was Yeager. Nothing we can do about the injuries. Pen is just depleted. But we've got to find some players for next year. Juco IS NOT the answer position wise. Going to need to hit on transfers or we're going to see some FR getting a lot of time and they won't be ready.

I'm more upset with taking until late April to figure out Davis should be in CF when it was obvious in mid March.

And keeping running stinnet back out there instead of Brandon smith. If that change happens before sec play we easily win game 2 at Georgia and vs LSU, which puts us at 10-8.

Still like lemonis though.

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Originally Posted by confucius say

I'm more upset with taking until late April to figure out Davis should be in CF when it was obvious in mid March.

And keeping running stinnet back out there instead of Brandon smith. If that change happens before sec play we easily win game 2 at Georgia and vs LSU, which puts us at 10-8.

Still like lemonis though.

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Yep. Agree with this post. Lemonis cost us the saturday Tulane game as well with his pitching decisions. And I'm not talking about Stone Simmons.

This mid-week was against SEC hitting, not a good move with lane

Yeah the Forsythe move was strange but I thought our other pitching performances more than made up for it. We lost that game because we didn't hit well enough. Scored two runs without hitting the ball out of the infield and then didn't score again for the last 8 innings of the game.

Lemonis was a master at pushing the right buttons his first three years here, this year he's pushed some buttons that haven't worked out. It happens. But he's also done some good things this year. We've had to totally rebuild our starting rotation and are still somehow getting good starts. Offensively we've been the boom or bust team I thought we'd be. Injuries have really hurt the bullpen but we've gotten some good showings out of that group at times.

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Originally Posted by Captain Falcon

Yeah the Forsythe move was strange but I thought our other pitching performances more than made up for it. We lost that game because we didn't hit well enough. Scored two runs without hitting the ball out of the infield and then didn't score again for the last 8 innings of the game.

Lemonis was a master at pushing the right buttons his first three years here, this year he's pushed some buttons that haven't worked out. It happens. But he's also done some good things this year. We've had to totally rebuild our starting rotation and are still somehow getting good starts. Offensively we've been the boom or bust team I thought we'd be. Injuries have really hurt the bullpen but we've gotten some good showings out of that group at times.

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About how I feel.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Yeah. I don't like spreadsheet baseball.

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Why is the HR-or-Nothing approach taken over?

Does the staff not have confidence in the team's ability to get on base and manufacture runs?

Is it because teams are shifting on our hitters, so they must go over-the-shift?

Following the latest statistical trend?

Like Deltadawg63 says, it won't work in all parks. I don't think it works in TD Ameritrade. You want a team crafted to thrive there, if you are MSU coaches.