My reasoning for my position change on Lemon

[Pancho]

he is a transformer in reverse

[Todd4State]

This is getting very wordy so I'll just pick a few highlights to address.

1) Fox is Lemonis' Peter Sirmon: and Mullen fired him after 1 season. If he had kept Sirmon into '17 for another 5-7 season Mullen would have been fired.

2) you can't pretend the bad defense is going to go away. We have no 3B, Chance may start for us and he's not known for defense, and Mershon hasn't proven he can play defense better than Forsythe. You also mention Alford maybe coming back as of he's not God awful defensively

3) on Hancock, he "hadn't had any problems before this year" because he hadn't caught before this year to have problems lol. Are you suggesting his arm magically got weaker this past off-season?

4) on the rotation-you can talk about how highly these guys are thought of in MLB circles, the fact is they have to go from "can't go an inning of relief in SEC play" to "SEC starter" in 1 off-season. That's extremely rare. Dohm coming back is great but his SEC ERA was what? He also needs to take a step to become a stud.

1) Did Sirmon win National Assistant of the Year in 2014? Didn't think so. Pretty sure that factored into Lemonis's decision to bring him back.

2) So bringing in better defensive players means the defense will get worse? You do realize that there is a transfer portal right? Who cares about Alford? Odds are he is gone but he hasn't announced anything yet. Even if he comes back there is no guarantee that he starts.

3) Hancock caught most of the midweek games for LoTan. There weren't any issues then. Most of the issues were our pitchers holding runners on.

4) If we get the pitching coach we are rumored to get we should be fine. A big difference between 2015 and 2016 was Dakota Hudson emerged for us. And that team in 2016 didn't exactly have the deepest bullpen. We really only need a few to step up rather than the entire staff. The pitching coach we are rumored to get has a good reputation for turning pitchers around. That should make a huge difference for us.

[BuckyIsAB****]

Well that explains the holes in the roster

Everyone else deals with the same issues right?

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

1) Did Sirmon win National Assistant of the Year in 2014? Didn't think so. Pretty sure that factored into Lemonis's decision to bring him back.

2) So bringing in better defensive players means the defense will get worse? You do realize that there is a transfer portal right? Who cares about Alford? Odds are he is gone but he hasn't announced anything yet. Even if he comes back there is no guarantee that he starts.

3) Hancock caught most of the midweek games for LoTan. There weren't any issues then. Most of the issues were our pitchers holding runners on.

4) If we get the pitching coach we are rumored to get we should be fine. A big difference between 2015 and 2016 was Dakota Hudson emerged for us. And that team in 2016 didn't exactly have the deepest bullpen. We really only need a few to step up rather than the entire staff. The pitching coach we are rumored to get has a good reputation for turning pitchers around. That should make a huge difference for us.

1) even of Sirmon had won it before coming to State, if Mullen had brought him back for 2017 and the defense was league worst AGAIN and we went 5-7 AGAIN Mullen would have been fired. No football HC survives back to back 5-7 seasons well into their tenure. Why would we treat Lemonis any different?

2) I never said bringing in better defensive players would make our defense worse. Please quote where I did. What I DID say is A) you're ASSUMING the new players will be good defensively, B) even if you replaced the guys you blame with plus defenders this year we STILL would have been a well below average D so you can't just blame it all on those 2, and C) LEMONIS IS RESPONSIBLE FOR FIELDING A BAD DEFENSE

3) again I'll ask: Is it your belief Hancock's arm got significantly weaker this past off-season? Because if his arm has always been this weak its on Lemonis for not noticing. Only of it magically went to crap would Lemonis not be at fault.

4) hope you're right and this new PC makes everyone into all Americans. BUT, at almost every school the projects rarely turn out. There's a lot of SEC teams that recruit good, but struggle to field 3 starters, and process several failed projects an off-season to bring new ones in- If it was easy to take a Loo or a Holcombe and turn them into SEC starters in 1 off-season, then every single SEC team would have 3 good starters. I hope I'm wrong but I have massive doubts any of them will take the steps we need, let alone as many as we need.

At the end of the day, all your arguments for keeping Lemonis are based on hypothetical and excuses. We can't blame Lemonis for having a bad defense this season for... reasons, and we should assume we'll get good defenders so we shouldn't worry next year. Yeah Hancock is an awful defensive catcher but we can't expect Lemonis to have known that when he didn't pursue a transfer. Yeah the pitching staff is full of guys who can't go an inning currently but we should assume the new PC will make a full rotation out of them. Yeah Lemonis kept Fox after his keague worst ERA season but Fox had won awards so you can't blame him for being ignorant that his PC is bad at his job.

Ultimately we can play this excuse game for any coach in any sport

[Pancho]

all true facts from the real MSU is us. approaching the total wasting of one year of eligibility of the few decent players we have.

[tcdog70]

Why, why does anyone think we will be better with lemonis? i said fire his ass last year when we bottomed out. Oh no--He will turn it around -some said. Bullshit--Folks he ain't turning $hit around. First thing he could do is go find an infield that can play defense--then get pitchers that pitch to contact. Don't walk 14 players a game. When runners get in scoring position--advance them. Drop the home run or bust attitude. Let's get back to playing MSU baseball-17 the analytics. By not firing Lemonois we will be average at best.

[Coach34]

Everyone else deals with the same issues right?

No. Not every other school had 4 different coaches in the span of two years

[Dawgface]

By not firing Lemonois we will be average at best.

Hey if he improves the team to 'average at best' next year just think......He will get another year. Oh joy!

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Baseball recruiting is done -very roughly- about 3 years before they get to campus. So the Fr and So are Lemonis', the Jr are End of Cann/Henderson/ start of Lemonis, and only the oldest giys are Cohen. But transfers and Juco guys are Lemonis so that complicates things. Fine I'll go look at the roster. Correct whatever is wrong as ill het a few wrong:

Hancock- Cohen
Hoyle- Lemonis
Hunt- Cohen
Simmons- Lemonis
Stinnett- Lemonis
Seibert- Lemonis
Gartman- Lemonis
Nixon- Lemonis
Hujsak- Lemonis
Larry- Lemonis
Ledbetter-Lemonis
Clark- Cann?
Smith- Cann?
Forsythe- Cann?
Davis- Lemonis
Auger- Lemonis
The rest of the roster are Sophomores or freshman so they're Lemonis.

Point is, this is pretty clearly Lemonis's team. He's been here 5 years. The Portal exists.

The FACT is that as Cohen and Cann guys age out the team gets worse and worse.

[R2Dawg]

Baseball recruiting is done -very roughly- about 3 years before they get to campus. So the Fr and So are Lemonis', the Jr are End of Cann/Henderson/ start of Lemonis, and only the oldest giys are Cohen. But transfers and Juco guys are Lemonis so that complicates things. Fine I'll go look at the roster. Correct whatever is wrong as ill het a few wrong:

Hancock- Cohen
Hoyle- Lemonis
Hunt- Cohen
Simmons- Lemonis
Stinnett- Lemonis
Seibert- Lemonis
Gartman- Lemonis
Nixon- Lemonis
Hujsak- Lemonis
Larry- Lemonis
Ledbetter-Lemonis
Clark- Cann?
Smith- Cann?
Forsythe- Cann?
Davis- Lemonis
Auger- Lemonis
The rest of the roster are Sophomores or freshman so they're Lemonis.

Point is, this is pretty clearly Lemonis's team. He's been here 5 years. The Portal exists.

The FACT is that as Cohen and Cann guys age out the team gets worse and worse.

Boy it does appear that way.

[Goldendawg]

No. Not every other school had 4 different coaches in the span of two years

This didn't seem to be an issue when we won the NC with all those 4 coaches' players. So now it is an excuse for the last two years when Lemonis has now been HC five years? Please explain. Thanks.

[confucius say]

Baseball recruiting is done -very roughly- about 3 years before they get to campus. So the Fr and So are Lemonis', the Jr are End of Cann/Henderson/ start of Lemonis, and only the oldest giys are Cohen. But transfers and Juco guys are Lemonis so that complicates things. Fine I'll go look at the roster. Correct whatever is wrong as ill het a few wrong:

Hancock- Cohen
Hoyle- Lemonis
Hunt- Cohen
Simmons- Lemonis
Stinnett- Lemonis
Seibert- Lemonis
Gartman- Lemonis
Nixon- Lemonis
Hujsak- Lemonis
Larry- Lemonis
Ledbetter-Lemonis
Clark- Cann?
Smith- Cann?
Forsythe- Cann?
Davis- Lemonis
Auger- Lemonis
The rest of the roster are Sophomores or freshman so they're Lemonis.

Point is, this is pretty clearly Lemonis's team. He's been here 5 years. The Portal exists.

The FACT is that as Cohen and Cann guys age out the team gets worse and worse.

Not offensively. The team has gotten better offensively. Worse on the mound. From the twitters today:

Sec games only

2021
Hit .266; slugged .416; OBP .354
2023
Hit .266; slugged .486; OBP .366

All games

2021
Hit .278; slugged .439; OBP .375
2023
Hit .286; slugged .505; OBP .399

[confucius say]

This didn't seem to be an issue when we won the NC with all those 4 coaches' players. So now it is an excuse for the last two years when Lemonis has now been HC five years? Please explain. Thanks.

Bc when we had 4 coaches in 4 years our recruiting suffered and those guys are now your juniors. We totally whiffed on pitching for 2 cycles. Our offense is better than when we won a NC.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Bc when we had 4 coaches in 4 years our recruiting suffered and those guys are now your juniors. We totally whiffed on pitching for 2 cycles. Our offense is better than when we won a NC.

No man, these recruiting classes have been rated super high. Maybe we got all the hidden head-cases, that can be argued. These recruiting groups since 2018 have been loaded. Cohen almost never got a top-100 recruit or an MLB-200 player. Fristoe and Tepper were blue chips. Cijntje is rated higher than JT Ginn. You would not know it by their ERAs, Opposition Batting Averages, K/BB ratios, or win-loss records.

Until recently, MSU had zero players in MLB-200, it was all Vandy, LSU, Florida, and some Ole Miss. Until recently, Cohen's classes were groups that we called all-Midgets lineups. First guy off the bus was Cole Gordon then a string of small guys. But Pirtle was a great collegiate player.

Henderson had to maneuver in Super Regionals with Payton Plumlee, Billingsley, Spencer Price, Riley Self, Carlisle Koesttler, Zach Neff, and Cole Gordon. These non-ranked warrior-type kids probably would not meet Fox's velo and spin rate requirements in recent days. He seems to prefer Walling, Hardin, Yntema, and Stinnett types with double digit ERAs that can't even make Hoover, much less a Super Regional.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Not offensively. The team has gotten better offensively. Worse on the mound. From the twitters today:

Sec games only

2021
Hit .266; slugged .416; OBP .354
2023
Hit .266; slugged .486; OBP .366

All games

2021
Hit .278; slugged .439; OBP .375
2023
Hit .286; slugged .505; OBP .399

This is true in a vacuum, but you've got to remember this season had the tighter strike zones and ALL offenses saw a benefit to it, and pitching staffs saw the ERA go up. You've got to look at the relative stats, how we finished in the SEC.

SEC only stats:

2023: 9th in BA, 3rd in SLG, 10th in OBP, 10th in runs scored.

2021: 7th in BA, 8th in SLG, 6th in OBP, T5th in runs scored.

The '21 team was good at scoring runs because that '21 team had DUDES on it, and they nutted up when they needed to. The secret State sauce left with TA and Rowdy and Lemonis never learned the recipe

[BuckyIsAB****]

No. Not every other school had 4 different coaches in the span of two years

The teams that dealt with actual problems won. Lemonis teams with no real adversity have came in 13th and 14th. Not a good argument

[BuckyIsAB****]

Bc when we had 4 coaches in 4 years our recruiting suffered and those guys are now your juniors. We totally whiffed on pitching for 2 cycles. Our offense is better than when we won a NC.

Our offense currently is no way better

[smootness]

My expectation of making a Super hasnt changed. But you guys are kidding yourselves if you think we are going to fire a coach that made a Regional.

That's exactly the problem. If he just squeaks into a regional next year, that's still 3 straight years of below-standard results, and we'll have to keep him yet again.

[smootness]

Lemonis inherited a great roster and won a national championship. Moorehead inherited a great roster and went 8-5.

Yes, and obviously no one was ever going to call for Lemonis to go after he won a national title.

The problem is, he inherited a roster and won a national title with it. Then he built a roster that has royally sucked two years in a row.

[smootness]

This is true in a vacuum, but you've got to remember this season had the tighter strike zones and ALL offenses saw a benefit to it, and pitching staffs saw the ERA go up. You've got to look at the relative stats, how we finished in the SEC.

SEC only stats:

2023: 9th in BA, 3rd in SLG, 10th in OBP, 10th in runs scored.

2021: 7th in BA, 8th in SLG, 6th in OBP, T5th in runs scored.

The '21 team was good at scoring runs because that '21 team had DUDES on it, and they nutted up when they needed to. The secret State sauce left with TA and Rowdy and Lemonis never learned the recipe

You are utterly dominating this thread.