Baseball Thoughts- Pre-Exams

[Todd4State]

Pre-exams meaning MSU has finals this week.

I'm taking a 5 tools approach with this- the five tools for non-baseball fans is arm strength, power, hitting for average, speed, and defense. I personally because I like to add my own thing add leadership and baseball IQ to the mix as well. That's just me. But for this I'll stick to five.

Arm strength (pitching)- MacLeoud and Bednar are talented but they're also essentially sophomores because of COVID despite their draft status. So sometimes they flash like Bednar did against Vanderbilt and sometimes they look like Bednar against Ole Miss. One thing about our starters is none of them are very efficient. We're only able to get 5-6 IP max because of that. That means we have to rely on the bullpen a lot- and fortunately we have a very good bullpen. But it also means we have to work those guys a lot. Against some of the better teams in the league we're going to have to use Sims twice in a weekend. We need to get Brandon Smith back. We need to keep developing Cerentola. And we need Stinnett and Preston Johnson to keep stepping up. Lemonis needs to have a quicker hook with Fristoe. He is a freshman and he is getting lit up the second-third time through because he does not have a third pitch to go to at this point. Foxhall and Lemonis need to stop being stubborn and "seeing what happens" and give him the hook after the first time through and go to Harding. I'm not just talking about today. It's a weekly theme. We also need someone like Cade Smith, Mikey Tepper, Stone Simmons or Spencer Price to step up an give us some innings here and there. How good this staff ultimately is will depend on 1. IF Smith comes back and 2. IF Cerentola can be used out of the bullpen as an option. We need to stop being cute on Sunday and use our big guns out of the pen sooner- ideally I would be fine with something like Harding starts and gives us 3, a healthy Smith gives us 2, Preston Johnson/Stinnett/Chase Patrick piece together innings 6-7, and then use Sims for 8-9. We need to maximize our talent and stop sitting on our ass waiting to see if a guy can work out of every jam.

Power- Hot take- we're going to have at least four guys that have 10 or more home runs on this team this year and are going to end up hitting more home runs than Ole Miss this year. Our schedule has been top heavy this year and three of the four remaining SEC series are against teams that have pitching staffs in the bottom half of the SEC with South Carolina being the exception. Tanner, James, Allen, and Rowdey are all going to hit 10 or more- and if he can bust out of his slump maybe Hancock as well. If I'm wrong I'm wrong- but I'll be pretty close one way or the other.

Average- Along those lines for the year our offense will finish in the top half of the SEC in average for the same reasons. One thing that will help is if we stop being so pull heavy- looking at you Josh Hatcher. Our hitters have GOT TO start looking to hit gap to gap more. Our approach is BAD at times. Some of that is some guys being inexperienced. But it needs to start to improve. The good news is we have beaten some really good pitchers this year- Madden from Texas, Hill from LSU, Hoglund from Ole Miss, and Leiter from Vanderbilt. We've gotten shut down some too. That happens against really good pitchers. We need to find a way to sit Hatcher without sacrificing defense. Which leads me too...

Defense- We HAVE TO get better here. We're so sloppy at times. Except for Logan Tanner who is a freak and has the run game shut down. It's past time to move Tanner Allen back to first and play Cumbest in RF. This maximizes our defense while also adding some offense because despite the fact that Cumbest having zero summer ball experience he's still better than Hatcher. Now that school is out this needs to be a MAJOR point of emphasis. Kam James needs to take at least 200 ground balls a day now that class is out. Get Ron Polk back out there and have the team go over his playbook defensive fundamentals AGAIN. Like every day. A lot of times when we have lost it's because we kick the ball around like the Bad News Bears with special guest Chuck Knoblauch.

Speed- We're among the best in the league at stealing bases so no complaints here. Forsyth needs to get better at bunting though. That needs to be part of his game and no reason for him to not be decent at it.

Leadership- Lemonis has to do a little bit better job of managing this team if he is going to beat elite teams. That means find a solution to a guy like Josh Hatcher struggling. That means not sitting around like a bump on a log while Fristoe is getting lit up the second or third time through the order again. That means finding ways to use Sims twice in a weekend against some of the better teams in the league like he did against Ole Miss.

This was a pretty critical review. But I think this team is clearly third in the SEC and we'll find out in a couple of weeks if we're third or fourth after the South Carolina series. For us to get to the top we have to get a little bit better- and I think we will in the future. What we are seeing right now is kind of a byproduct of having essentially four coaching changes in about five years. So it's a bit of a mess. But we're hardly bad. Overall we're pretty good in fact. But with some hard work and maybe a couple of tweaks and some more aggressive decision making this team can reach it's full potential. What I think will happen is we will improve on defense and our hitting will improve. Our pitching will be about the same. Lemonis will keep running Hatcher out there. As long as we take care of business the next few weeks we should be a national seed. I always like our odds in the postseason at Dudy-Noble. And I wish we had Landon Sims a couple of years ago against that ridiculous umpire in the CWS that squeezed us against Louisville. Anyway, overall I think we continue to improve and make a run and end up in Omaha again.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Good Analysis Todd:

(1) Fristoe can’t do 3 cycles of hitters. Trying to get three cycles is disrespectful to the opponent .
(2) Hatcher is not going to happen in 2021. He doesn’t look confident out there.
(3) I think I rather DH Kamren James and let Leggett play 3B, James is just though to watch defensively
(4) Cumbest playing more is just common sense, if Hatcher is the only 1B’man then sit Skinner
(5) Stinnetts is averaging 4 innings per month, thats brutal pitcher management. I wish Kumar and Nikhazy were being nursed like that.
(6) just me perhaps, I would take Freshman Kellum Clark hitting 230 if the next best option is a senior hitting 190.

[Cooterpoot]

(1) We suck at managing pitching.
(2) We rely too much on analytics. It's lazy coaching.
(3) Defense is bad. Especially 3B and CF.
(4) Some guys need to mature. They let things snowball on them if something goes bad.
(5) We've failed at recruiting when we have a 1B hitting below .200 and no one good enough with the bad to start over James at 3B.
(6) Just play Cumbest. Until he sucks, play him. This shit isn't that hard. But our coaches are making it hard.
(7) All that and we're still a top 10 team.

[The Federalist Engineer]

(1) We suck at managing pitching.
(2) We rely too much on analytics. It's lazy coaching.
(3) Defense is bad. Especially 3B and CF.
(4) Some guys need to mature. They let things snowball on them if something goes bad.
(5) We've failed at recruiting when we have a 1B hitting below .200 and no one good enough with the bad to start over James at 3B.
(6) Just play Cumbest. Until he sucks, play him. This shit isn't that hard. But our coaches are making it hard.
(7) All that and we're still a top 10 team.

I don't think we failed at recruiting. I think Hatch needs to have his vision checked. We have seen awesome players have a bad year before, for many reasons.

(1) John Cohen in 1989 sucked, got right in 1990.
(2) Rob Hauswauld sadly went from an All SEC, All American, Triple Crown Candidate to early retirement due to a head injury.
(3) Tommy Raffo dropped off in 1990 because he got Mono before the season. From Golden Spikes numbers in 1989 to mere All SEC numbers in 1990.

This year, Alex Binelas of Lousiville was supposed to be an All American, he is only now getting to 250, was hitting 220. Jud Fabian, another AA candidate and consensus #1st Rounder is also struggling for average. Of course these guys are still hitting 10 and 13 Homeruns. Hatch appears to not hit the weights, he still resembles his freshman body. All three were big recruits, drafted out of HS, just different outcomes. We are unlucky that Kellum Clark came down with something before the season.

Still a Top-5 team

[BrunswickDawg]

Some good points Todd.

First - I get what you are saying about MacLeod and Bednar - without having gone thru the SEC gauntlet, they are still learning what it is like to pitch to SEC hitting. Not to mention what it is like to deal with SEC umps and their lack of consistency.
I think we are essentially seeing with them this year what last year in the SEC schedule would have looked like with them as Freshman (MacLeod was a RSF). If they come back next year, look out.

Agree completely about having 4 guys with 10 HR. But, you buried the lead on that headline. We haven't had a team with more than 2 guys hitting 10 or more HR since 1999 (Wiese 19; Knott -14; Wren -13); and haven't had 4 or more guys do it since 1998 (Knott -13; Wiese -14; Chapman -10; Freeman - 11; Lee - 19). That's a loooong time to be a school without much power. Yes, I know that is getting back to the Gorilla Ball days - but we have had a whole lot of seasons over the past 21 years where didn't have a single guy hit 10 HR. Hopefully it is a sign of things to come.

I'm not going to complain about how Lemonis has used Sims. The fact is that most weekends we haven't really needed him 2 times. A lot the people complaining about us not using him twice also complained when we used him Saturday "because it was a blow at the time". Well it wasn't - Johnson was done and we HAD to win that game regardless of score. Sims was there to shut them down and not let them get back in it. Most of our Friday games we haven't needed Sims. He has pitched a lot of Saturday's because of that and the fact those games end up being the series decider.

[WinningIsRelentless]

Managing pitchers when you only have 10 is tough managing a staff when you have the arms we have is even tougher.

[Cooterpoot]

I don't think we failed at recruiting. I think Hatch needs to have his vision checked. We have seen awesome players have a bad year before, for many reasons.

(1) John Cohen in 1989 sucked, got right in 1990.
(2) Rob Hauswauld sadly went from an All SEC, All American, Triple Crown Candidate to early retirement due to a head injury.
(3) Tommy Raffo dropped off in 1990 because he got Mono before the season. From Golden Spikes numbers in 1989 to mere All SEC numbers in 1990.

This year, Alex Binelas of Lousiville was supposed to be an All American, he is only now getting to 250, was hitting 220. Jud Fabian, another AA candidate and consensus #1st Rounder is also struggling for average. Of course these guys are still hitting 10 and 13 Homeruns. Hatch appears to not hit the weights, he still resembles his freshman body. All three were big recruits, drafted out of HS, just different outcomes. We are unlucky that Kellum Clark came down with something before the season.

Still a Top-5 team

Hatch has never good. Otherwise, he'd have been an everyday starter before this year. His bat is terrible. His defense is barely average. We're short players. That's not hard to see. It's the difference between good and great. The bottom half of the lineup is pretty weak with the bat. We're still playing bad defenders to get a bat in the lineup or bad hitters for some defense. We need to recruit better.

[Tbonewannabe]

Hatch has never good. Otherwise, he'd have been an everyday starter before this year. His bat is terrible. His defense is barely average. We're short players. That's not hard to see. It's the difference between good and great. The bottom half of the lineup is pretty weak with the bat. We're still playing bad defenders to get a bat in the lineup or bad hitters for some defense. We need to recruit better.

Hatcher was a .300 hitter as a Sophomore and the shortened 2020 season. He hit .259 as a freshman. It isn't like he has always been this bad.

I still think we should bench him though. You have to get Cumbest in the lineup somehow.

[Really Clark?]

Hatcher was a .300 hitter as a Sophomore and the shortened 2020 season. He hit .259 as a freshman. It isn't like he has always been this bad.

I still think we should bench him though. You have to get Cumbest in the lineup somehow.

Obviously he is beyond just in a slump so what I?m about to state is not all of his problem. His averages the last two years, especially last season, have also benefitted from a high BABIP. With enough balls in play over time you get a better picture of a players actual hit ability. Some of the issues that are glaring now were always there. Lot of ground balls and roll over ground balls, very very low walk rate, low OBP, made contact on questionable pitches, etc. Honestly all things being equal he is more of a .250-.275 hitter and .300 on a good year. This year has some regression to his mean as it relates to his hit ability. Not to this disappointing degree obviously, which is where the rest of the problems of from an extended very bad slump come into play for a hitter.

[Tbonewannabe]

Obviously he is beyond just in a slump so what I?m about to state is not all of his problem. His averages the last two years, especially last season, have also benefitted from a high BABIP. With enough balls in play over time you get a better picture of a players actual hit ability. Some of the issues that are glaring now were always there. Lot of ground balls and roll over ground balls, very very low walk rate, low OBP, made contact on questionable pitches, etc. Honestly all things being equal he is more of a .250-.275 hitter and .300 on a good year. This year has some regression to his mean as it relates to his hit ability. Not to this disappointing degree obviously, which is where the rest of the problems of from an extended very bad slump come into play for a hitter.

Whatever the metrics say, he has been a .280-.320 hitter for his entire career coming into this year. Maybe he has been lucky until this slump but that is being lucky for a long time. Saying all that, he has to sit for us to go very far in the post season. I am not sure he can get his head right in enough time to help us much this year.

[HoopsDawg]

Whatever the metrics say, he has been a .280-.320 hitter for his entire career coming into this year.

What is his career conference only average?

[KOdawg1]

1. Rowdey - CF
2. Allen - 1B
3. James - LF
4. Hancock - DH
5. Tanner - C
6. Dubrule - 2B
7. Cumbest - RF
8. Leggett - 3B
9. Forsythe - SS

Landon Jordan leaving hurts.

I edited and swapped Kam and Hancock.

[The Federalist Engineer]

1. Rowdey - CF
2. Allen - 1B
3. James - DH
4. Hancock - LF
5. Tanner - C
6. Dubrule - 2B
7. Cumbest - RF
8. Leggett - 3B
9. Forsythe - SS

Landon Jordan leaving hurts

Hancock in LF? After watching him at 1B, I would be scared. My LF would be a Skinner/McDonald platoon.

[KOdawg1]

Hancock in LF? After watching him at 1B, I would be scared. My LF would be a Skinner/McDonald platoon.

And where would you put him? There's no situation that will be perfect. Otherwise, we would've already done it. You have to pick your poison. Hatcher's bat and James glove scares me more than Hancock (or maybe James) in LF

[WinningIsRelentless]

And where would you put him? There's no situation that will be perfect. Otherwise, we would've already done it. You have to pick your poison. Hatcher's bat and James glove scares me more than Hancock (or maybe James) in LF

James glove is better than Hatcher?s bat and Hancock?s glove. Period end of the story.

[Percho]

James glove is better than Hatcher?s bat and Hancock?s glove. Period end of the story.

I think James glove is ok he just hurries his throws.

[HoopsDawg]

The lineup should be:

1. Rowdey
2. TA
3. Kam
4. Luke
5. LT
6. Dubrule
7. Cumbest
8. Clark
9. Forsythe

I would probably play Hatcher vs Lefties, because Hatcher does put the ball in play and Kellum would probably struggle against Quality Lefties.

I would play Skinner some over Cumbest but it wouldn't be a straight platoon meaning i would still let Cumbest start against Righties unless he really starts to struggle.

[Coach34]

The lineup should be:

1. Rowdey
2. TA
3. Kam
4. Luke
5. LT
6. Dubrule
7. Cumbest
8. Clark
9. Forsythe

I would probably play Hatcher vs Lefties, because Hatcher does put the ball in play and Kellum would probably struggle against Quality Lefties.

I would play Skinner some over Cumbest but it wouldn't be a straight platoon meaning i would still let Cumbest start against Righties unless he really starts to struggle.

I would platoon Debrule/Leggett.
I would play Cumbest for the next 2 weeks and let's see what happens. He is hitting .385 and its like the coaching staff is pretending it isnt happening.
Skinner is getting exposed on breaking balls. he has got to keep working.
Hatcher gets up there and flails away- we cant keep that up at this point. He leads the country in groundouts to 2B
I played 1st base for 20 years from tball to semi-pro. It's not that damn hard. People just have to put the work in.
You either force Clark in and let him get his lumps the next month- or you stay the course with Hatcher. We are at the point of no return here soon.

[basedog]

I would platoon Debrule/Leggett.
I would play Cumbest for the next 2 weeks and let's see what happens. He is hitting .385 and its like the coaching staff is pretending it isnt happening.
Skinner is getting exposed on breaking balls. he has got to keep working.
Hatcher gets up there and flails away- we cant keep that up at this point. He leads the country in groundouts to 2B
I played 1st base for 20 years from tball to semi-pro. It's not that damn hard. People just have to put the work in.
You either force Clark in and let him get his lumps the next month- or you stay the course with Hatcher. We are at the point of no return here soon.

Yes to it all!

[The Federalist Engineer]

The lineup should be:

1. Rowdey
2. TA
3. Kam
4. Luke
5. LT
6. Dubrule
7. Cumbest
8. Clark
9. Forsythe

I would probably play Hatcher vs Lefties, because Hatcher does put the ball in play and Kellum would probably struggle against Quality Lefties.

I would play Skinner some over Cumbest but it wouldn't be a straight platoon meaning i would still let Cumbest start against Righties unless he really starts to struggle.

Why does Luke get a pass? He ain?t hitting either. Batting cleanup?

We need to stop wasting the DH spot. Leggett and McDonald are looking more lively with the bat.

Yeah, Luke had a hot start and could get hot again

Funny Hach puts the ball in play... ground balls to the 2nd baseman are double plays. Rather Pimentel swing for the homerun and strikeout than a DP.