Explain your trust in goat row.
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Foscue, Allen , westy all 270 or lower first year. Then what?? This year, while nobody wants to believe it Bc nobody made a big jump- everyone improved in some shape form or fashion- side lotan. Go look at the numbers if you want or just keep bashing. That's fine too
Which has better odds? Tommy White coming to Starkvegas or TN getting several players busted for PEDs?
You have to be a lot more clutch more times when your pitching staff is literally never stopping the other team. It's also magnified because of that "one time where had we gotten a hit we would have scored 10 runs" when we "only scored 9". Whereas if we win the gam 9-8 that moment doesn't get noticed at all.
It's funny to me how there is this common theme among some MSU fans that the offense was somehow expected to overcome the pitching staff. That's not how it works in baseball. I don't think I've seen anyone post about how the pitching wasn't clutch enough- when that's way more true than the offense not being clutch.
Good post and this pretty much sums it up. Literally no lead was safe with our pitching. In our last 4 series we had the lead in over half those games and couldn't hold it and that doesn't even count the earlier games we blew leads in. Our offense put us in a position to finish at least .500 in conference but we couldn't hold leads or finish games. As usual in baseball it all comes down to pitching every single time.
ACC had 9 dudes with 20 plus HRs this year. SEC had 4.
Seems like a function of competition and arm talent in the ACC. In 2021, only 3 ACC hitters had +20. In 2019, only two had +20.
In 2021, no ACC team hit 100 HR, max 92. In 2019, only one team got +80. This year, 5 teams more than 100 and 2 more than 90.
I haven't run the numbers, but I'd be willing to bet that MSU had the fewest Non-HR extra base hits than any SEC team, and in the group of teams nationally that had the fewest.
Yes, Pitching was dreadful and injuries added to the frustration. But my biggest frustration is with guys trying to hit bombs when we just needed to string some base hits together.
Smart pitchers played right into that, and it killed us.
Solid pitching combined with scrappy infielders willing to get their heads and asses down low not fearing face injuries and outfielders timing their dives is key to winning. The only thing I did decent in organized sports was having a good IF Glove playing with an attitude hoping the ball be hit my way every pitch; teeth clinched mumbling "Come on Sumbitch, I DARE you hit it to me". Unfortunately I never had enough ASS to drive the ball so one summer of Brandon High was my LASS. Tough Confident Pitching and D sporting War Faces have always been paramount because it can be relied on more consistently than hitting which is historically up, down, streaky and slumpy prompting some batters to seek Pagan Idol Worship for Guidance knocking once Fine Christian Boys off the Pinnacles of Righteousness into the Eternal Flames of HELL.
On a per-game basis for MSU
22.4% fewer runs, 19.5% fewer hits, 27.1% fewer 2B, 160% fewer 3B, 20.9% fewer walks, but 21.1% more HRs
Tennessee (per game)
15.3% more runs, 3.3% fewer hits, 6.3% more 2B, 47.8% more 3B, 6.1% more walks, and 30.5% more HRs
The biggest per-game improvers in HRs were
Missouri 41.9%, Florida 40.3%, Tennessee 30.5%, and Georgia 29.6% (overall SEC 11.6% more HR)
Biggest per-game changes in 2Bs (+ or -)
Texas AM +30.5%, Kentucky +29.5%, MSU -27.1%, LSU +20.8%
And you would be partly wrong. In SEC play, we had 49 2Bs and 4 3B. That put us 6th in the SEC in non-HR extra base hits in SEC play. Now, we did not load up against our OOC schedule, and were 9th with 101 non-HR extra base hits.
But, why do you discount HR when we had 95 on the season, which was good for 5th in the league and were just 3 away from having our most ever in a single season? Our average was essentially the same and our HR were up significantly.
We hit 28 less doubles in '22 than '21, but hit 20 more HR. And that is with 16 fewer games. If you factor out post-season - which gets us to a real comparison - we only had 1 less double (we had 27 2b in post season last year) and hit 35 more HR.
To recap regular season comparisons:
2B 97 ('21) vs. 96 ('22)
3B 11 ('21) vs. 5 ('22)
HR 60 ('21) vs 95 ('22)
EXBH - 168 ('21) vs 196 ('22)
Non HR EXBH - 108 ('21) vs 101 ('22)
Our non-HR extra base hits were virtually the same but we hit 35 more HR.
I said before the season I thought we had 6 guys that could hit 15 HR's. Yeager, Cumbest, and Hines made it. Clark hit 14 even tho he struggled at times. James and Tanner were disappointing
what are the chances of Lemo landing both of the Tulane guys?
As soon as I started reading about Cumbest as a Croot, I grew an immediate Man Crush that I've displayed shamelessly here prolly more times than needed since he committed. Reading what that Padres Scout said combined with TE Prowess had me thinking baseball from the get go. I know I've disagreed with past posts advising football but I also know many came from those knowing more about both sports than me and had seen more tape than me. My opinions on him have been more Symbolic Man Crush than Hard Substance even though I remember doing some actual math once trying to figger out why the fella wasn't getting more AB's.