I'm going to do something a little bit different because I think everyone knows how I feel and I don't want to regurgitate that again. We have problems and I can rationalize why they are happening or at least give me opinion on that. That just means that what is happening is explainable. That, however doesn't mean it's acceptable. The bottom line is that what is going on with MSU baseball is unacceptable- and we know what the problems are. Everyone associated with MSU baseball should be pissed off right now.

Sure, we don't have lottery scholarships. That just means we don't have everything. We have a lot of things that most programs would kill for- things that even some of the lottery schools don't have. I could vent I suppose- but there's been enough of that on here. I want to talk about how to fix it. I want to talk about having a losing season maybe every 20 years instead of every other year. You can put down our program and say "it's not 1985 anymore"- but the fact is we deserve and should have better. We have shown that we can be a consistent winner throughout the years and have done some pretty good things even recently.

So how do we fix it?

I'm going to steal a line from Hugh Freeze- we got to recruit better players. I won't say that to the team's face like Freeze did though. Like Kenny Powers once said to his Mexican League team- "Right now- you suck; but don't get all defensive on me, I suck right now too." That's probably how my speech to our team would go too if I said it to their face.

Anyway- we have to change how we recruit hitters. Cohen did a good job of getting elite hitters to commit to us. He did a horrible job of getting them past the draft. Even worse was how he tried to make up for their loss. The only way to overcome that is to evaluate player's signability better. There are more and more really good players that want to go to college first. As I've said- we're not always going to get everyone we sign past the draft. Cann was not able to get everyone at LSU. That's the nature of the business- but we have to have a better idea of WHO is going to go and then make an informed decision on how to replace that player. I remember the class a couple of years ago- there was an interview with Cohen about how many guys we would get into school out of that class, and he said he felt like there was a chance we would get all of them in. We didn't- we lost Fenter, Riley, and Pickett out of that group. And I would say that most players do know whether they are going to go pro or not before the draft even happens. We HAVE TO do a better job with that.

Who do we replace those players with? Well, nowadays baseball recruiting is changing. We're seeing more and more guys flip. There are also players that simply develop later and that shows up their senior year. When you are trying to evaluate high school players, you have to remember that they develop at different rates and some will be obviously good in junior high- like Bryce Harper and some it won't be until their junior or senior year in high school like Hunter Renfroe. Those are the two avenues that I think we should use the most when replacing players. And if a guy decides to go to school because he didn't like where he was drafted or whatever- so what? Now we have two really good players. Let the coaches figure out the scholarship situation.

At the end of the recruiting cycle we need to make sure that pretty much every position is filled so that when our players are juniors they won't be young. And that needs to happen for every single class going forward. We need 11-14 commitments- 2-6 pitchers, a catcher, four infielders including a first baseman, and three outfielders. I know that's over the limit of 35- we have to process out as we need to. The ultimate goal is to get a junior laden class every year.

On the JUCO's- they have value. We saw that last year with Lowe and Kruger. The problem is we over-rely on them for key positions and as we see what happens when they don't pan out. It can get pretty ugly. But the thing about it is- we really don't need to rely on the JUCO's so much. We're one of the top programs in the country in the SEC. We should be able to attract really good high school talent and don't really need to rely on the JUCO's as much as we are. I hope Cann goes away from this- some of our classes are almost 50% JUCO guys. That's not good. JUCO's are good for sidearm/submarine guys like Rigby, catch and throw guys like Lovelady- but the others we should take very selectively. I take a JUCO it needs to be someone with D-I/power 5 experience like Lowe and Kruger, or someone that was drafted out of high school and went JUCO, or see above- an arm angle guy or a catch and throw guy. And that's it. By the time the JUCO's guys figure it out, we've really only gotten one good year out of them if that.

As far as the pitching goes- first and foremost, Cann and Cohen need to take a very long look as to why we have had so many arm injuries. The solution at this point is to patiently wait on everyone to get better. But no one else in the country has as many- again it's unacceptable for the standards that are MSU baseball and even worse we're talking about players getting hurt. We need to look not only at our pitching program but also take a long look at our S&C program. If we need to make changes with the S&C aspect of our staff we by all means need to do so. IF it's true that our S&C guy wasn't on the same page as our last pitching coach and guys have gotten injured because of it- he needs to be fired. To me- and remember my career is in rehab so I have some knowledge here even though sports rehab isn't my background- that's absolutely negligent. Let's go find the very best S&C coach for baseball out there and hire him.

Also as far as pitching goes I think Cann needs to get his own pitching coach that is HIS own guy. Right now Gary Henderson is essentially a guy trying to rehab his career and get through some things. We need a pitching coach that is just as impressive as Cann is that is upbeat and can recruit and has a MLB background like Cann. Pitching is SO key in this conference. If you don't have it, you're screwed.

What can make me feel better about this season right now? Nothing really. I do hope that they let me detonate the grandstand at Dudy-Noble this May though. That would probably be a good way to get out some pent up frustration. Or maybe they'll just let all of us at EliteDawgs have a hammer. I bet we could take down the grandstand in an hour as a group. Or even better- maybe someone from the athletic dept. could read this and actually put my ideas into action.