Hopeully We (MSU) Learned A Hard But Valuable Lesson In Baseball This Year

It is a lot easier when we were the hunter instead of being at the top of the pack, and being the hunted and the team everybody wants to knock out. You can't rest your laurels on what you accomplished last year. Last year is past history. Teams aren't going to just bow down and say well they are the National Champs. That just gives them more incentive and motivation to beat you and prove that they are better than the National Champions, in which case that has happened a lot this season, and if they get the chance to totally humiliate you then do that too, as we have witnessed. Being King of College Baseball for one year is a great accomplishment, but having that mindset going into the next season, doesn't give you the entitlement or a guarantee that you will remain on that pedestal, host or play in a super regional , host or play in a regional , or even make the SEC tournament. Reality is not always good, but it is what is or what you make of it. Hopefully lessons have been learned from this debacle of a season, and the necessary decisions whatever they may be, or needed are made to right our MSU Baseball Ship sailing in the direction we all want to see it go. My MoverS Maroon Cap looks a little faded at the moment and I want it to look like new again.

It's going to be a very interesting offseason.

Lemonis's comment about him going out on the road to recruit personally definitely raised my eyebrows.

At the end of the day I think we found what worked best for us at MSU under Cohen. And that carried over for awhile and actually peaked when he left. But what I think happened this year in part at least is we started to go back in a direction that was more like Polk II.

Every program/team, etc. has an identity. To me, our identity is that we are a team that has a blend of super talented players (Clark, Palmeiro, Rooker, Renfroe, etc) and guys that play as hard as they possibly can for 9 innings (Mangum, Stovall, Tanner Allen, Rowdey, MacNamee, etc). It was very positive that Lemonis made a comment about getting back to our culture in his press conference today. We're also about having pitchers that attack the zone and are fearless. (Brantley, Small, Hudson, Graveman, Bednar, Sims). We're going to blend that aggressive pitching with good fundamental defense and on offense we're going to blend our power with speed and aggressive baserunning and small ball. That to me is what MSU baseball is all about. And that's what we've got to get back to on multiple levels.

We're also the team in the SEC that kind of sets the tone for the rest of the conference. Whether that's facilities, fan support, game day experience. I feel like we need to be like that with our strength and conditioning programs too. I think we've really fallen off there this past year and I feel like it has been part of the reason for the mounting injuries we've had on the pitching side. And that needs to be looked at very closely. We need to figure out who the best baseball S&C guy is and then hire him.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

It's going to be a very interesting offseason.

Lemonis's comment about him going out on the road to recruit personally definitely raised my eyebrows.

At the end of the day I think we found what worked best for us at MSU under Cohen. And that carried over for awhile and actually peaked when he left. But what I think happened this year in part at least is we started to go back in a direction that was more like Polk II.

Every program/team, etc. has an identity. To me, our identity is that we are a team that has a blend of super talented players (Clark, Palmeiro, Rooker, Renfroe, etc) and guys that play as hard as they possibly can for 9 innings (Mangum, Stovall, Tanner Allen, Rowdey, MacNamee, etc). It was very positive that Lemonis made a comment about getting back to our culture in his press conference today. We're also about having pitchers that attack the zone and are fearless. (Brantley, Small, Hudson, Graveman, Bednar, Sims). We're going to blend that aggressive pitching with good fundamental defense and on offense we're going to blend our power with speed and aggressive baserunning and small ball. That to me is what MSU baseball is all about. And that's what we've got to get back to on multiple levels.

We're also the team in the SEC that kind of sets the tone for the rest of the conference. Whether that's facilities, fan support, game day experience. I feel like we need to be like that with our strength and conditioning programs too. I think we've really fallen off there this past year and I feel like it has been part of the reason for the mounting injuries we've had on the pitching side. And that needs to be looked at very closely. We need to figure out who the best baseball S&C guy is and then hire him.

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Zach Dechant - TCU S&C

Injuries on the pitching side I think have come from years and years of overthrowing at a young age. With the amount of travel ball and year round baseball, a body just can’t withstand that much throwing, regardless of how well they are “monitored”

The rash of injuries with Wes Johnson was due to him implementing weighted ball workouts before those injuries were brought up.

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Originally Posted by Hambone

Injuries on the pitching side I think have come from years and years of overthrowing at a young age. With the amount of travel ball and year round baseball, a body just can’t withstand that much throwing, regardless of how well they are “monitored”

The rash of injuries with Wes Johnson was due to him implementing weighted ball workouts before those injuries were brought up.

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Kids throw less than they used to. HS ball has limits now. Good travel programs have limits too. Colleges aren't throwing them as much in general except at OM. These guys aren't playing daddy ball to win a $2.00 trophy. It's the damn velo training and some poor mechanics. People started thinking you've got to throw 95.

I bet Vitello has been out personally recruiting for the last 4 years. Good to see the MSU will start doing it too. Hopefully MSU did not just concede a near 1/2 decade advantage to UTK. That would be Mega Slytanic.

By the way, if you read the post-commitment statements from Sims, Bednar, and Tanner Allen, they talked about committing to Cannizarro. With recent guys, they talk about Fox and JG. Maybe I am reading too much into the recruit interviews

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Originally Posted by The Federalist Engineer

I bet Vitello has been out personally recruiting for the last 4 years. Good to see the MSU will start doing it too. Hopefully MSU did not just concede a near 1/2 decade advantage to UTK. That would be Mega Slytanic.

By the way, if you read the post-commitment statements from Sims, Bednar, and Tanner Allen, they talked about committing to Cannizarro. With recent guys, they talk about Fox and JG. Maybe I am reading too much into the recruit interviews

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Maybe this is what spawned that comment by Lemonis.

My impression is Lemonis is pretty hands off. Which I think was good for his first few teams. But this team clearly needed a lot more hands on.