State of MSU at the Midway Point of SEC play

[Todd4State]

Todd I will disagree on 2 points:

1) I think we should have fired Lemo last year. The logic of "We needed to give him every chance possible to right the ship" sounds fine, but it also applies to football. Should we have given JoMo a year 3? Should we have given Arnett a year 2? I think if you have. A bad coach you rip the bandaid off immediately. Waste no more seasons under them.

2) recruiting. Like you can say his recruiting is good but this is year 6. What Fr do we have that can contribute? Not a one. Who's the best pitcher on our team Lemo got from HS? Loo? We have no 3rd starter or reliably middle reliever or closer. Our best 2 pitchers (when healthy) are Kahl and Dohm, both transfers. Hitting, who do we have in the lineup that's above SEC average in talent or potential? Jordan (HS), Hujsak (Tranfer), Hines (HS), Mershon (HS). The other 5 spots are not impressive from a pure talent or performance perspective. And we're starting 3 mediocre transfers (Koehler, Long, Larry) because Lemo can't fill those spots with talent. Overall the lineup is about 9th in the SEC as far as numbers go.

I'm not against Portal plays or somehow saying they don't count as far as giving Lemo props for bringing in talent. I'm saying you're supposed to use the Portal to bring in studs and sure, fill the odd hole. You're not supposed to use the Portal to bring in sub average SEC players to fill half the lineup because you can't recruit even mediocre guys from HS to fill those spots

1) Of course you disagree because you have a football mentality and that doesn't apply to baseball. Your way would have led to our baseball version of Rick Ray because no coach would have come here after we fired a coach two years removed from a NC with a pitching staff that had an ERA over 7. Then what? You "rip the band off again" because the next guy can't coach? Guess what happens to scabs if you rip them off before they are given a chance to heal- they take longer to heal. Joe Moorhead was given a chance to right the ship after he won the piss and miss and he screwed it up in the bowl game. Bad example by you. Arnett was our football version of Rick Ray. Lemonis had been to the equivalent of the BCS playoffs twice and won a NC. Arnett- not even close. Let me ask you this- should we have fired Dan Mullen after 2016 when Peter Sirmon screwed up the defense? Same thing here. Except Dan took the opportunity to turn the team around and did it and Lemonis has not. And because of that Dan was offered an extension to stay and Lemonis will be fired because of how they responded when given the opportunity. And our same top targets are in the exact same places they were last season as far as coaching candidates go. That should tell you a little about how often baseball coaches move in and of itself. Haire turned down Georgia to stay at Campbell.

2) So you're saying he can't recruit because none of the freshmen have taken over the team? FYI- Will Clark had to wait until Chris Maloney was injured to start. Brent Rooker redshirted. Ethan Small had an ERA through the roof and had Tommy John just like Grant. Hunter Renfroe looked completely lost as a freshman. Kendall Graveman got beat by Jackson State as a freshman. I could go on. Let me put this in terms that you can understand- if our freshmen in football don't contribute outside of a couple of guys does that make Lebby a bad recruiter? No. Loo is a good pitcher. Will Bednar turned out pretty good. The players in the portal are a crap shoot. LSU and you thought Eric Holman was going to be Paul Skenes 2.0 and lead them to another NC. That's not going to happen is it? I'm not sure what you want Lemonis to do. If he misses on a player do you want him to try to fill it with someone out of the portal or not? It sounds like you can't make up your mind here. Foxhall hurt our pitching recruiting badly. Stevens, Dotson, and Grant have really good potential. Highfill got hurt- not Lemonis's fault. McKenzie is not going to supplant Hines who is one of the school's top 10 home run hitters. Cupp has been hurt otherwise he would have been playing in the field over Larry with Mershon moving to second. Our best third base and CF prospects are in high school right now. I'm sure we'll go to the portal to try to fill third base anyway. Stevens should be starting at DH- that's on Lemonis. It's not because he is a bad player. Chance is a good solid college player. You need a couple on your team. He will get better over the next couple of years. Kohler got hurt in game one and hasn't hit the same since. Long hit a game tying home run in the 12th and is the team leader. Not a bad pick up. Larry is streaky. You also said that Khal Stephen wasn't any good and he's our ace. Probably will end up being a better pick up that Holman. The issue is Lemonis isn't developing these players to their full potential because he doesn't pay attention to the details. That doesn't mean the players are bad. It means they're poorly coached and underdeveloped. Don't believe me? Go look at Cade Smith and Eric Cerentola's stats in the minor leagues.

One last thing about the portal and freshmen- you're going to see less and less freshmen contribute right away because coaches knows that experience wins in the SEC. You have a classic case of "I only watch Mississippi State baseball" and no one else.