Exactly. I honestly believe he's only gonna get better.
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Yeah if you've got your seed wrapped up use it as a "spring training" type situation. Get your starters a couple
of abs, get your big pitchers a few innings to keep them sharp, and get your backups plenty of playing time to keep them sharp cause you may need them. I honestly believe arky lost their shot at playing for the nc last year with the injuries they got in the sect. Lost their #1 starting pitcher and hard hitting first baseman for the rest of the year and it cost them
And yes single elimination is the way to go.
I always figured if there was nothing at stake, starters were using it to practice things with their swings and pitchers were doing the same with their weakest pitches to get in-game training.
I don't think there is any way we look like total ass in the SEC tourney then just flip the switch back to great team the next week unless some of that was going on.
Simple solution. We typically have a rainout or two causing us to play 54-55 games. We could easily get Mississippi Valley or someone like that in for a game or two. Polk used to schedule games like that in the late 80's after the SEC Tournament ahead of the regionals. Not sure why but it happened a couple of times.
I think he would have to have losing seasons though for it to get to that point though. He will get a longer leash from the MSU fan base than a lot of coaches would. See Stansbury, Polk, etc. MSU fans are pretty loyal.
But I agree with Commerce. I think he is actually going to get better. He was already talking to coaches in the offseason that have won National Championships about how to handle the season after. I think he wants to be a Bertman type legend if he can. He's far from done and I think we are going to win a LOT under him. I do think we may have a hangover this year and it may take a couple of years for him to get his guys in but as you know we're recruiting a lot more nationally to add to what we are doing in state. But odd as it sounds once he gets everything situated I think we are going to see an era of MSU baseball that we only dreamed about.
You could but remember the roster isn't infinite. We can only carry 35. We typically in a weekend are going to use around 20-23 players depending on game situations and how the pitching does. The thing I've found about coaches is they are competitive people and when they get into a game they may intend to throw Bednar say 50- 60 pitches but then he has everything working in the SEC Tournament and so hey let's let him go another inning. Still looks good- OK one more won't hurt. And then before you know it he's up to 110.
I think Arkansas got too cocky too. And when that happens in baseball you usually end up like they did too. They blew out NC State in game one and thought it would be easy and even if they lose game two they would "Call the Kopps". Yeah well....
I thought Arkansas took a similar trajectory that we did in 2019. Even though they went deep in the sec tournament, you could see that for the last month of the season, they had come back down to earth quite a bit. Their offense cooled off and the few pitchers they had started to wear out. They were still winning but it was a struggle compared to the first 2/3 of the season.
That NC State team was really talented and peaked at the right time. I still contend we caught a bit of a break by not having to deal with them in the Championship, at full strength they were a better team than Vandy. Not saying we wouldn?t have beaten them as well, but I?m sure their fans feel like COVID cost them a national championship.
Regarding Hoover, if last season didn?t prove that it means absolutely nothing for the top teams in the league, anyone who thinks otherwise is just being hard headed.
People need to remember that we were at a disadvantage as well because with how it worked out it allowed Vanderbilt to reset their pitching staff on full rest basically. Fortunately Preston Johnson and Sims were lights out and that offset the advantage somewhat.
Basically if you were paying attention during that month and a half. Lemonis gave a free doctoral class on pitching management and team morale management. He earned every bit of praise last year especially after the SECT which is the most worthless tourney in all of sports, because you either play hard or too much or play bad and lose confidence and get rusty. Two weeks is a LONNNGGG time for a pitching staff to sit and flat ground and bullpen work just doesn’t cut it.
That may be true of coaches in general, but Lemonis consistently kept Simms on the bench in the regular season when the short term play was for him to get in the game. Whether that was in order to protect Simms arm, develop other pitchers, keep the possibility of using him twice in a weekend, or whatever combination of those, if he can layoff using sims because of looking forward to other SEC conference games, I can't imagine he's going to have trouble sticking to a plan in the SEC tourney so that he can maximize his chances in the NCAA tournament.
I think Cadaver has it right. It's basically a combination of spring training and bowl practice for us. Play starters enough to keep them fresh and "on schedule", but pull them early enough to actually get some rest. May not be able to pull every position player because of roster limitations, but the ones that are in need of a break should be able to get one.