Some baseball thoughts

[Todd4State]

You are trying too hard. Again, not saying permanently bench, I’m saying he needs to get right and benching him at this point is the best option if we can at all possible.

Lemonis waits way too long to bench someone. Even worse we have options like Pimentel, Hancock, Allen, Kellum Clark, and Kace Garner off the top of my head.

[Really Clark?]

Lemonis waits way too long to bench someone. Even worse we have options like Pimentel, Hancock, Allen, Kellum Clark, and Kace Garner off the top of my head.

Cumbest as well if we move Allen back to first

[HoopsDawg]

Lemonis waits way too long to bench someone. Even worse we have options like Pimentel, Hancock, Allen, Kellum Clark, and Kace Garner off the top of my head.

Other than Hatcher, the only options are Clark or Hancock. Lemonis is not going to move Allen back to first. We have seen Pimental. It's either Hatcher, Clark or Hancock at first. Hancock at first opens up the DH spot. So that is intriguing to me. The concern with Clark is that he did not hit well in practice.

[HoopsDawg]

The thing about Kellum Clark, yes he is a freshman, but he's going to be 20 next month. He was rated a 10 by Perfect Game. He has a lot of pop. Need to get him some at bats vs Southern for sure.

[Really Clark?]

Here is another stat, removing Hatcher’s numbers from the rest of the starters in SEC play moves us from 11th to 7th in the league in average. From .234 to .251. That would put us one spot ahead of Arkansas, in average.

[StarkVegasSteve]

No one has said bench Hatch indefinitely. The ones who are saying he needs to sit, myself included, want him to sit for the time being to get his mind off of it. We know Hatcher is a good hitter and no one thinks he suddenly forgot to hit, but IMO right now it is best for the team if he sits for a couple of games. He looks lost most at bats. His Ks this weekend were really bad.

[Rex54]

No one has said bench Hatch indefinitely. The ones who are saying he needs to sit, myself included, want him to sit for the time being to get his mind off of it.

That's not how it works. This is the only sport everyone becomes an armchair psychiatrist! Did you not see the two ropes he hit Sunday right at the defenders? He's making hard contact, it will soon begin to find holes. There's nobody close to his upside on the bench so instead of sitting him to appease the Psych 101 crowd, we should play him and give ourselves the best chance to win baseball games.

[Really Clark?]

That's not how it works. This is the only sport everyone becomes an armchair psychiatrist! Did you not see the two ropes he hit Sunday right at the defenders? He's making hard contact, it will soon begin to find holes. There's nobody close to his upside on the bench so instead of sitting him to appease the Psych 101 crowd, we should play him and give ourselves the best chance to win baseball games.

That is exactly how it works. There has to be a stopping point where you get a player outside the lines to reset. It may not work, sometimes it takes a player months to get back right. Sometimes it never happens. But you cannot keep pushing someone into the lineup that is in a huge slump and still decreasing to the point that he is almost the worse in the league. .114 is NOT someone who is just snake bit. He is in a horrific slump over the first 9 SEC games and over the last 14 games he has dropped from .260 to .200 and unfortunately we are over half way through the season with 3 huge series ahead. Obviously a good hitting Hatcher helps this team immensely, but don’t point to one hard hit line drive and dead pull hard ground as evidence when he stunk up the whole series and went 0’fer for the weekend including some horrible AB’s this weekend. None of us are seeing what he is doing at practice so all we can do is look at his swings over this weekend, over the start of the SEC and over the last 14 games (which is a full quarter of our season) and he has had very bad mechanic breakdowns, bad plate discipline, and looks to be in his head guessing a lot.

[Johnson85]

That's not how it works. This is the only sport everyone becomes an armchair psychiatrist! Did you not see the two ropes he hit Sunday right at the defenders? He's making hard contact, it will soon begin to find holes. There's nobody close to his upside on the bench so instead of sitting him to appease the Psych 101 crowd, we should play him and give ourselves the best chance to win baseball games.

You realize if that wasn't how it worked, you'd never see anybody lose a starting spot once they earned it? Letting a reasonably proven hitter work through a slump is the first and best approach. But Hatcher has been given half the season to work through it and he has regressed. And the pitching isn't getting easier. He's probably not going to figure it out right now. Rowdy is an odd player that can suck it up for half the season and then be better than average the next half. Hatcher unfortunately probably isn't figuring it out at this point because if he were, he'd probably already have shown some signs. BUt you can't just give up on him and send him out their to keep sucking to punish him for not being as good as he was previously. You have to at least try to make adjustments and see if that shakes him out of it. Probably won't work, but worst case scenario is we get some younger players experience while they suck just as hard as Hatcher has been sucking.

[skadoosh14]

This is two weeks in a row now that we've mismanaged Sims. Last week he didn't touch the mound until Sunday (after it was too late), and this week he only threw 2 innings. He's a weapon that most teams don't have. Use him. If Saturday (or the second game of the series) is the only game you're going to throw him, then it needs to be 3-4 innings. Otherwise, throw him a couple of innings on Friday and then the same on Sunday.

Why would you want to throw Sims in a game where we're up by 4 in the top of the 7th with a fantastic bullpen? It makes so much more sense to save him for a close game. You know, like one where we're tied with 2 innings left.

I'm so glad Lemonis and co manages the pitching staff instead of forum posters.

[KOdawg1]

Why would you want to throw Sims in a game where we're up by 4 in the top of the 7th with a fantastic bullpen? It makes so much more sense to save him for a close game. You know, like one where we're tied with 2 innings left.

I'm so glad Lemonis and co manages the pitching staff instead of forum posters.

He didn't pitch a meaningful inning against Arkansas. Not one. And he should've came in to close the game on Saturday. That was a close game. You know, like the one where we're up by one run with a chance to sweep the series.

And fr? You mean to tell me that I don't manage the team??? News to me.**