MSU baseball recruiting/offseason thoughts

[Todd4State]

We're in a new era of baseball recruiting. And MSU is changing with it. I think Lemonis is probably a really nice guy. The problem is with being a nice guy is that is sometimes good - I think his demeanor stabilized a veteran team and let them work which yielded really good results in 2019 and 2021 and probably would have in 2020. At the same time his nice guy personality also led to loyalty to players on this years team in part because of what they did in 2021. I definitely think we got burned with that. I also think that Lemonis learned his lesson.

With the portal and NIL here and more scholarships on the horizon here is what I envision happening going forward with MSU baseball.

1. We're going to focus even more of our resources on guys that can come in and help right away from high school and less on projects who may have been guys like Cole Gordon. Someone that maybe redshirted and struggled early in his career but then became a productive player. Going forward if you're not performing at least at Pico Kohn level- you're not going to be in the SEC for long.

2. This will cause those projects to go to mid-majors like USM, Tulane, Memphis, La Tech, etc. The caveat is the projects that develop- like Landon Gartman are going to get their opportunity at MSU after they go somewhere else first.

3. As you might imagine this is going to water down JUCO. Or guys that do go to JUCO are going to have to go somewhere like USM or Memphis like Gartman did and then come to MSU that way. As for MSU we should almost completely go away from JUCO because it's risky and pointless when there are more established players in the portal. Most of our JUCO's are going to be guys like Colby Holcombe who is a top 200 draft prospect or a guy that started out at another D-1 school like Nate Lowe and Jack Kruger.

4. NIL is going to help us keep players in Starkville that would have gone pro otherwise. I'd keep an eye on Preston Johnson, Luke Hancock, and Kam James. And to a lesser degree KC Hunt and Kellum Clark. I wouldn't be surprised if we keep at least one of those in the first group I mentioned.

5. All MSU fans need to donate what they can to the Bulldog Initiative. That's going to give us our recruiting arm money.

6. I'm consistently hearing that we are going to keep between 9-15 players that were on the team last year. I'm guessing that will be Fristoe, Cade Smith, Pico, maybe Tullar since Foxhall loves him, and Hunt on the pitching side. And then Hines, Alford, Forsythe, Kellum, Downs, and Seibert (I know). Hopefully Bryce Chance stays. How Fristoe does in the Cape this year is going to go a long way as far as whether he comes back or not.

7. Right now Hunter Hines, Cade Smith, and maybe Pico are all going to be the only players with a spot on this team. Maybe Forsythe depending on how things play out this year. This fall and spring is going to be fun because there will be a LOT of competition. Not only transfers and old guys- but there are going to be some freshmen competing for spots as well.

8. Foxhall will be coaching for his job this year. We'll see if the transfers save him or not. He better hope that Fristoe becomes Stratton/Hudson 3.0 this summer. I'll definitely be watching that closely.

9. I'm expecting at least 10 players from the portal this year. We're just hearing about the guys that played on teams whose season is over. Once the regionals end after this weekend I expect it to hop up consistently.

[wrapit]

Great Post. Thanks!

Got to be a tough position as coaches to select/offer which players enter the portal after their post season is over, all while knowing other, better players whose teams are making deep runs in the post season might become available later as well.

[Cooterpoot]

We better do a better job of recruiting the portal than last year. We got one that was actually good. The rest were a waste.

[AlSwearengen]

I hate mentioning names but can’t get around it. There is no way Tullar should take a roster spot based on past performance and if Fristoe picks up next year where he left off this year, I’m going to pull my damn hair out.