Lemonis...

[Captain Falcon]

Let's just hope lemonis can build like Vitello. Tenn's 5 best pitchers are all Vitello recruits... 3 fresh, 1 soph, and a juco flame thrower

And the MVP of the College World Series last year was a Lemonis recruit.

[Commercecomet24]

We are all going to feel much better when Tennessee is eliminated this year. It would be cool if it's done by some shitty PAC12 team that bunts them to death.

They are starting to struggle some and
very rarely does the team that starts the season hot win it all. I don't believe ut wins it. Oregon State is really starting to get hot. I think it's wide open this year.

[Cowbell]

They are starting to struggle some and
very rarely does the team that starts the season hot win it all. I don't believe ut wins it. Oregon State is really starting to get hot. I think it's wide open this year.

Biancoball - getting to number 1 early so that everyone can watch that late season slide

[The Federalist Engineer]

Biancoball - getting to number 1 early so that everyone can watch that late season slide

Doucheball is the Tennessee version



Maybe this is how you recruit 14 and 15 year-old kids. I bet riding with Bianco or Andy Cannizarro is thrilling to mid-teenage boys. My son is 7, I bet he rather hang with Vitello than Van Horn.

[Cooterpoot]

We've got some young kids committed that I wouldn't touch with a 10 ft pole. I have no idea what we see in them except they play for a particular organization. They aren't even great HS players. I think sometimes coaches start taking kids like that from a particular organization and miss out on some better players. There's one kid that's been hurt this year and just came back that's as good as any hitter in MS. Already has like 5 bombs in the week he's been back. He's signed out of state with a former coach of ours.
We really need to get back into FL. That's completely dried up for us. AL has been pretty good for lately. TX needs to be bigger for us. LA is hit and miss because of LSU. We seem to be going East for talent more and that's a positive.

[mparkerfd20]

Didn't see that. But I think if you ask most fans, they don't agree with that.

I lean heavily towards agreeing with it. Never have understood the GoTro love here. Without major changes both he and Foxhall need to be looking elsewhere.

[Cooterpoot]

I lean heavily towards agreeing with it. Never have understood the GoTro love here. Without major changes both he and Foxhall need to be looking elsewhere.

Gotro can't coach clutch. That's on the kids. Average and HRs are as good and better than last year. It's the failures and some bad luck when we needed to produce with runners on that's been the killer. The possible negative take is that we've gotten away from driving the ball around the park and seem to have too many dead pull hitters. We're recruiting so hard to that short RF porch. I hate that!

[msstate7]

Yeah I don't get the argument here. Lemonis has out performed Vitello at this point and it's not even close. Lemonis inherited some talent but he also inherited some major issues and some personalities that didn't gel easily.

We were on a 3 year SR streak coming off a CWS appearance when lemonis was hired.

Tennessee hadn't been to a regional in 14 years when Vitello was hired. Tenn is about to win 50 in back-to-back years after a CWS appearance last year

Vitello has a better winning % at Tenn than lemonis at state. I like lemonis (even though I'm pissed about this year), but I'd trade straight up.

ETA... lemonis does have the ultimate feather in his cap, and that should in no way be minimized, but as a state (and braves here) fan, we should realize that winning it all takes more than a little luck. It's not very often imo that the best team wins it all in baseball (pro or college). Putting yourself in a position to succeed in the postseason should be the biggest factor in judging a coach

[Coach34]

We were on a 3 year SR streak coming off a CWS appearance when lemonis was hired.

Tennessee hadn't been to a regional in 14 years when Vitello was hired. Tenn is about to win 50 in back-to-back years after a CWS appearance last year

Vitello has a better winning % at Tenn than lemonis at state. I like lemonis (even though I'm pissed about this year), but I'd trade straight up.

Exactly. We won a Natty because Bednar turned into Superman in Omaha. We'll see if somebody from Tenn does the same thing.

[CaptainObvious]

Closer. Closer. Closer. Not having a closer this year easily cost us 8-10 wins - maybe more. As a team, we have 4 saves this year. Last year, Sims had 13 and the team total was 18. 2019 Gordon had 11 and the team had 16. 2018 we had 14 as a team. 2017 Price had 14 and the team had 26. 2016 we had 19. You get the picture. This is our worst season for saves since 2015 (9), and the lowest total I can find going back to at least 1987 (5 - and I don't think the records on thebaseballcube.com are complete).

And in 1987, we still qualified for the 6 team SEC tourney at UGA as the 6th seed, then proceeded to win it, beating LSU 13-3 in the Championship Game.

[OLJWales]

And in 1987, we still qualified for the 6 team SEC tourney at UGA as the 6th seed, then proceeded to win it, beating LSU 13-3 in the Championship Game.

LSUX Complained and whined about us piling on when we won. Still remember that game.

[AlSwearengen]

Everyone concerned with Vitello and Tenn., remember that he was at ark for 3 years and tcu before that. He had been recruiting the top kids for awhile in the same footprint and he is known to be one of, if not the top recruiter in the country. He probably didn’t miss a beat with who he was recruiting and probably has taken a few that were headed for ark. Lemonis, on the other hand, was probably not recruiting the same kids at Indiana that he recruits at State.

[HancockCountyDog]

I swear its as if some people just ignore that we lost the most dominant pitcher in the country and another one of our weekend starters and people think we should be just fine?

What is our record if Sims is healthy?

People that think Lemonis is on any type of hot seat next year are beyond stupid.

[Mjoelner34]

What is our record if Sims is healthy?

In the SEC we're 4-4 on Fridays. We scored 2 or less runs in all 4 losses so I'm gonna say he would not have made much of a difference there. Now, move him to Saturday and I think we would have seen some wins. UGA L 11-12, UPIG L 5-12, LSU L 3-4, Mizzou L 8-19. I think we at least win the UGA and Mizzou games with a good chance of also getting the LSU game. Maybe the UPIG game too if things played out like they actually did. They got 8 of their 12 in the first 3 innings. That wouldn't have happened with Sims. Of course with Sims back, PJ could have been long relief for Cade if needed on Sundays. That could have prevented some late inning meltdowns like we saw this year. He seemed to perform better in that role last year than as a starter this year.

[The Federalist Engineer]

In the SEC we're 4-4 on Fridays. We scored 2 or less runs in all 4 losses so I'm gonna say he would not have made much of a difference there. Now, move him to Saturday and I think we would have seen some wins. UGA L 11-12, UPIG L 5-12, LSU L 3-4, Mizzou L 8-19. I think we at least win the UGA and Mizzou games with a good chance of also getting the LSU game. Maybe the UPIG game too if things played out like they actually did. They got 8 of their 12 in the first 3 innings. That wouldn't have happened with Sims. Of course with Sims back, PJ could have been long relief for Cade if needed on Sundays. That could have prevented some late inning meltdowns like we saw this year. He seemed to perform better in that role last year than as a starter this year.

In an alternate universe- Sims, Simmons, and Auger do not get hurt. What does that mean...

100 + 50 + 40 = 190 innings are thrown by pitchers with sub 3 ERAs. That is 30% of the load in a good season.

That would have allowed PJ, Cade, Pico, BSmith, and KC Hunt handle the rest of the SEC load. There would not be so many +8 ERA guys running out of the pen to stop LSU in key moments. Certain cats we have would not have pitched many non SWAC innings this year.

MSU would be heading into this weekend with a shot to be a national seed. Needing 3 wins from 6 games to clinch.

[CJDAWG85]

We should?ve never moved him out of the closer roll. How many games have we blown this year because we have blown it late in the game?

[Mjoelner34]

We should?ve never moved him out of the closer roll. How many games have we blown this year because we have blown it late in the game?

It may be earlier in this thread but somebody posted the other day that last year we gave up something like 51 8th and 9th inning runs in 68 games. In 48 games this year we have already given up 80.

[CJDAWG85]

I counted like 10-12 games this year. Big swing in the record with Sims coming in late.

[Pancho]

I think going 12-18 in SEC next year with very little obvious improvement in 2024 would start some stirring.

[msstate7]

And the MVP of the College World Series last year was a Lemonis recruit.

He was awesome. Let's find some more bc this team is an abomination