Arkansas Thoughts

[Todd4State]

Things like this weekend show me why we don't have a National Title. The potential to win one is absolutely there- but the mental attitude isn't. As I and others have said- and this is really the root of our problems- we have players that only respond when they are the underdog. When they get pats on the back they lose their focus and don't play anywhere up to their potential. Champions don't act like that. Champions want to win everything- even the things that don't matter like the SEC, the SEC Tournament, and even the Natty Light preseason College Baseball Classic in Flagstaff, Arizona. Because champions play for more than just to have their pats on the back. They play because they have pride in what they do and they respect the game to the point where it's not about themselves- but it's about everyone. That's who and why champions play for championships. The ironic thing to me is if they actually did win a National Championship they would be getting pats on the back for life. It's a mental and attitude thing and I don't believe this team has the mental ability or personality to go far enough to win a National Title. Because it's not something that is going to get learned overnight or in a month or whatever. You either have it or you don't. JT Ginn, Small, Colby White, and maybe Mangum are the only guys on the team that maybe have that. The rest appear to be in it all for themselves.


Let me address some things:


1. From some people: "This team sucks and has serious issues." From a mental standpoint- yes. From a pure talent standpoint- no. We have at least 3-5 guys on the team right now that I would say that it's not far fetched at all that they could develop into first round picks. (Ginn, Small, Westburg, Cumbest, Hayden Jones, and Cerentola) Now, I'm not saying that they all WILL be first round picks just that they have the physical talent and potential to develop into that. At the very least they are top 10 round picks easily at worst. Everyone we are starting outside of only one or two are going to get a shot at pro baseball. The talent is there. Enough to win it all. They need to get their heads on straight.


2. We won't be a National Seed: We may not- but it's not dead at this point. We have RPI 25 teams every game except four- one of those teams is 53 and the other is 107. With our RPI at 12 we have opportunities to make some noise and be in the National Seed picture.


3. This weekend was a complete disaster. However, our problems are inconsistent. That's good because if they're consistent it means it's a talent or physical issue. If you look at our entire body of work- we don't walk a lot of people, and we hit well, and our defense is average but improved since we reworked the infield. We also don't make a lot of mistakes on the bases. This weekend was the opposite- we walked people and pitched poorly for the most part, we had our poor approach come back for the whole team, we made errors, and we made baserunning mistakes. That again- goes back to focus, confidence and being competitive.


4. Lemonis is a bust and will run this program in the ground in two years: Here's my take on Lemonis- He's a CEO coach. Just like Jackie Sherrill essentially. So not a bad thing- but it does mean that he relies a lot on his assistants and he's going to be only as good as his assistants. Foxhall has not impressed me that much since SEC play started. He has a lot of input in the staff and he has a traditional approach to the bullpen. But he has to start being OK pitching our better guys if we're down a run. The coaching staffs approach to the game Thursday set the tone for the series in a really bad way. Gautreau has to do better of correcting approach issues IN GAME rather than just sit around and let our guys swing once and pop out time after time and not do anything about it until later. Halter needs to sit. Gilbert should be the third baseman going forward regardless of match ups.


5. We have three upper class pitchers that need to grow up. Keegan, Gordon, and Plumlee. Past time to pitch like freshmen. It's not fair to ask a freshman like Cerentola to be ready- especially when we have upperclassmen that should be doing better and aren't pulling their weight. Maybe we should bring the pink back-pack back for the Three Stooges.


#HailState. Let's keep the Governor's Cup.

[99jc]

I still like this team. I think we will be in Omaha but it will be a cold day in hell before I waste my time traveling 9 hours round trip to watch this shit show if we dont win 2/3 against Georgia.

[Maroonthirteen]

[BrunswickDawg]

Series like this is what makes baseball so frustrating. You can have a stretch where it seems like the entire team forgets how to play, then turn around and play like the '27 Yankees for a week. It always baffled me as a player, and baffles me as a fan. It's like a contagion - and it morphs and spreads.

[ZedFedder]

I’ll be curious to see how they perform next weekend. That will tell me more of their mental makeup than anything. I agree they were mentally weak this weekend, though. When the umpire kept calling outside pitches as strikes, they kept turning around to him and to our bench crying about it. How about growing a pair and dealing with it? We kept pouting and nothing changed.

[HoopsDawg]

When Small keeps you in the game like he did Game 1, you have to throw your best pen guys even if you are down. As it turned out, we were only down 1 run in the 8th, and we may have pulled that game out to set the tone for the series.

Hayden Jones needs to DH vs righties. He got the start in Game 3 vs Bama. Got 2 AB's, lined out to LF and reached on an error that would have been ruled a hit if his name was Jake Mangum. Then he doesn't get any AB's in the midweek game-ridiculous. We let him pinch hit twice this weekend and he went 1-2. This guy can swing the bat. If Hayden Jones had 100 AB's by now, we would be a better team.

Pitching: We should be able to get back to Ginn being the Game 2 starter this week. If Small and Ginn can give us 6-7 each, then that will make things easier on our pen and give us a plan for Sunday's. Sunday's is just a matter of Plumlee stepping up. We are at his mercy b/c we don't really have anywhere else to go. Maybe Egan.

I think Jake wanted to break the record at Pearl this week so he was pressing a little. Not worried about him. Among many other things, we did a poor job with 2 outs this weekend. Couldn't ever get the big hit early in the game to get some momentum.

[Liverpooldawg]

LOL! Hilarious! I'm not a baseball fan. I guess that enables me to see how funny this post is!

[Todd4State]

I still like this team. I think we will be in Omaha but it will be a cold day in hell before I waste my time traveling 9 hours round trip to watch this shit show if we dont win 2/3 against Georgia.

Agree.

Series like this is what makes baseball so frustrating. You can have a stretch where it seems like the entire team forgets how to play, then turn around and play like the '27 Yankees for a week. It always baffled me as a player, and baffles me as a fan. It's like a contagion - and it morphs and spreads.

Somes teams handle it better mentally than others. LSU got beat down by Florida- and then came back and beat Florida down. Had the roles been reversed we probably would have gotten swept.

I’ll be curious to see how they perform next weekend. That will tell me more of their mental makeup than anything. I agree they were mentally weak this weekend, though. When the umpire kept calling outside pitches as strikes, they kept turning around to him and to our bench crying about it. How about growing a pair and dealing with it? We kept pouting and nothing changed.

They'll turn it around when people tell them that they suck again. Not much you can do when the strike zone is bad. Lemonis again needs to get off his ass and do more about it than just sit there and let the chips fall where they may.

When Small keeps you in the game like he did Game 1, you have to throw your best pen guys even if you are down. As it turned out, we were only down 1 run in the 8th, and we may have pulled that game out to set the tone for the series.

Hayden Jones needs to DH vs righties. He got the start in Game 3 vs Bama. Got 2 AB's, lined out to LF and reached on an error that would have been ruled a hit if his name was Jake Mangum. Then he doesn't get any AB's in the midweek game-ridiculous. We let him pinch hit twice this weekend and he went 1-2. This guy can swing the bat. If Hayden Jones had 100 AB's by now, we would be a better team.

Pitching: We should be able to get back to Ginn being the Game 2 starter this week. If Small and Ginn can give us 6-7 each, then that will make things easier on our pen and give us a plan for Sunday's. Sunday's is just a matter of Plumlee stepping up. We are at his mercy b/c we don't really have anywhere else to go. Maybe Egan.

I think Jake wanted to break the record at Pearl this week so he was pressing a little. Not worried about him. Among many other things, we did a poor job with 2 outs this weekend. Couldn't ever get the big hit early in the game to get some momentum.

Agree about the bullpen. We could have very easily pitched Leibelt Thursday and today. And Self wasn't bad until we overextended him and didn't get him out.


I think Hatcher should be the DH going forward. I'd go with this lineup I think.


1. Mangum- CF
2. MacNamee- RF
3. Allen- 1B
4. Foscue- 2B
5. Westburg- SS
6. Skelton- C
7. Gilbert- 3B
8. Hatcher- DH
9 Rowdey- LF


Ginn probably goes back to Saturday against Georgia if I had to guess. Jake doesn't need to worry about the record- if he really is. That's coming. Just needs to relax and play.

[FriarsPoint]

I stopped reading after the second sentence. What we now know is we’ve made our bones versus this weak conference teams on our schedule and fall apart against a team with a pulse, save auburn. Football season all over again.

[Bothrops]

Our best series was on the road in Knoxville. I thought the team showed it was different when faced with momentum changes we had. Now I don't know what to think. Some if what Todd stated is true in most team sports at MSU.

[Bothrops]

Our best series was on the road in Knoxville. I thought the team showed it was different when faced with momentum changes we had. Now I don't know what to think. Some if what Todd stated is true in most team sports at MSU.

Eta - I would be feeling much better about everything if we had shown up today.

[MarketingBully]

Eta - I would be feeling much better about everything if we had shown up today.

Agree. We had everything in our favor today: Ginn going against a shit pitcher, had our best bullpen arms ready. We set the tone early by Mangum swinging at the first pitch with weak contact and then Mac striking out in the first inning. If we had had even a 3-4 run lead by the sixth, we’d of easily pulled this one out. We didn’t give our pitchers a chance today with the way we swung the bat. The Alabama Sunday starter was better then that shit stain they pitched today and we made him look like a Friday night ace. Our tone is set by Mangum and aside from the one pitch hit to start the series, he had one more hit over the next 26 innings. That’s really really bad.

[MarketingBully]

“The potential to win one is absolutely there- but the mental attitude isn't.”

We know it’s 100% mental because that was the worst pitcher we have faced on the year in the SEC and we had a shit approach. Seriously, his fastball was topping out at 87-88 mph and we weren’t swinging at it. We’d just let it go by and then swing at his curveball in the dirt. We allowed him to shut us out for his seven innings he was in there. He pitched 17 pitches the previous weekend and gave up 7 runs. He had his first win against Pine Bluff this week and got his first ever SEC win today. The ironic thing is had we just put 3-4 runs on him early we would have knocked him out and we would have won the game easily with how Ginn was pitching. Of course we also allowed that Texas Southern kid to shut us down as well on Tuesday. Who knew it was a harbinger of things to come this weekend. We better get our head’s out of our asses quick because with Ole Miss and UGA coming up we could go on a big losing streak. With Ole Miss’ noted struggles against LHP, I’d start Egan Tuesday.

[Todd4State]

I stopped reading after the second sentence. What we now know is we’ve made our bones versus this weak conference teams on our schedule and fall apart against a team with a pulse, save auburn. Football season all over again.

Not true. USM is 14-4 in C-USA and could make the regionals. They are 57 in RPI. Texas Tech is number 18 in the country and East Carolina is in the top 10. We've won four out of six SEC series. While Florida is not what they were last year they are top 25 in RPI and we beat them on the road. If they are as down as MSU fans like to say- at least we took care of business on the road against them. Auburn and Tennessee are both top 25 teams. You can say well, we beat Auburn without Jack Owen but we also hit their ace who is better than Owen and had the lead until the bullpen blew it. And Tennessee we beat them on the road essentially without pitching JT Ginn. Samford only has one loss in their conference and we beat them on the road. Alabama is not good but we beat them badly in all three games. Bad teams don't do that to other bad teams. They are also top 50 in RPI as well.

[MarketingBully]

Not true. USM is 14-4 in C-USA and could make the regionals. They are 57 in RPI. Texas Tech is number 18 in the country and East Carolina is in the top 10. We've won four out of six SEC series. While Florida is not what they were last year they are top 25 in RPI and we beat them on the road. If they are as down as MSU fans like to say- at least we took care of business on the road against them. Auburn and Tennessee are both top 25 teams. You can say well, we beat Auburn without Jack Owen but we also hit their ace who is better than Owen and had the lead until the bullpen blew it. And Tennessee we beat them on the road essentially without pitching JT Ginn. Samford only has one loss in their conference and we beat them on the road. Alabama is not good but we beat them badly in all three games. Bad teams don't do that to other bad teams. They are also top 50 in RPI as well.

Alabama beat this Conner Noland pitcher from Arkansas 10-0. Just an FYI.

[AlSwearengen]

I am going to remind myself that last year we swept Arkansas and they went to the finals. That is the only good that i see right now.

A trend that I am seeing is that we are good against inferior opponents and terrible against even or better competition right now. We laid down on the road in a tough environment. We prided ourselves on being tougher and fighting harder than the opponent coming into the season and early in the season. Right now, that isn’t the case.

I have not been as high on the pitching staff as some have. I see a lot of guys with fragile psyches and a bunch of guys that are good when they are 100% on but they either don’t have the talent or the “fight” to get it done if things aren’t going their way and they aren’t razor sharp. There is no margin for error with most of them.

We have a good offense but good pitching shuts down good hitting. Once you get to the supers and Omaha, you usually have to win 2-1, 3-2 games. I don’t like how our park plays now (it might help recruiting hitters though). We like to hit homeruns now and that won’t work in Omaha. We need to get back to stringing hits together and hitting the gaps and running.

I have more thoughts, but am on vacation and have to leave for a tour.

[Todd4State]

Agree. We had everything in our favor today: Ginn going against a shit pitcher, had our best bullpen arms ready. We set the tone early by Mangum swinging at the first pitch with weak contact and then Mac striking out in the first inning. If we had had even a 3-4 run lead by the sixth, we’d of easily pulled this one out. We didn’t give our pitchers a chance today with the way we swung the bat. The Alabama Sunday starter was better then that shit stain they pitched today and we made him look like a Friday night ace. Our tone is set by Mangum and aside from the one pitch hit to start the series, he had one more hit over the next 26 innings. That’s really really bad.

“The potential to win one is absolutely there- but the mental attitude isn't.”

We know it’s 100% mental because that was the worst pitcher we have faced on the year in the SEC and we had a shit approach. Seriously, his fastball was topping out at 87-88 mph and we weren’t swinging at it. We’d just let it go by and then swing at his curveball in the dirt. We allowed him to shut us out for his seven innings he was in there. He pitched 17 pitches the previous weekend and gave up 7 runs. He had his first win against Pine Bluff this week and got his first ever SEC win today. The ironic thing is had we just put 3-4 runs on him early we would have knocked him out and we would have won the game easily with how Ginn was pitching. Of course we also allowed that Texas Southern kid to shut us down as well on Tuesday. Who knew it was a harbinger of things to come this weekend. We better get our head’s out of our asses quick because with Ole Miss and UGA coming up we could go on a big losing streak. With Ole Miss’ noted struggles against LHP, I’d start Egan Tuesday.

I agree on all accounts. I bet we start Eagan or Keegan. The thing that worries me about Eagan is he has never gone more than two IP effectively and our coaches have shown a propensity to stretch people out when they shouldn't. I question whether we have enough pitching to beat Ole Miss in a one game setting sadly. Eagan can probably only give us two- will probably get rocked in the third and give up three runs before the bullpen even gets up. Barlow can only go two innings as well. That's only four. Colby can only go one. Leibelt can go 2....maybe three. We need to find 1-2 IP from someone for Tuesday. I don't trust Gordon, Keegan, or Self right now. Although I probably trust Self more than the other two as long as he doesn't go more than one. I guess I'd try Brandon Smith for an inning.

[Todd4State]

I am going to remind myself that last year we swept Arkansas and they went to the finals. That is the only good that i see right now.

A trend that I am seeing is that we are good against inferior opponents and terrible against even or better competition right now. We laid down on the road in a tough environment. We prided ourselves on being tougher and fighting harder than the opponent coming into the season and early in the season. Right now, that isn’t the case.

I have not been as high on the pitching staff as some have. I see a lot of guys with fragile psyches and a bunch of guys that are good when they are 100% on but they either don’t have the talent or the “fight” to get it done if things aren’t going their way and they aren’t razor sharp. There is no margin for error with most of them.

We have a good offense but good pitching shuts down good hitting. Once you get to the supers and Omaha, you usually have to win 2-1, 3-2 games. I don’t like how our park plays now (it might help recruiting hitters though). We like to hit homeruns now and that won’t work in Omaha. We need to get back to stringing hits together and hitting the gaps and running.

I have more thoughts, but am on vacation and have to leave for a tour.

I wouldn't consider LSU or even Arkansas to be "better competition". LSU lost to freaking Southern among others. Their RPI is 19 compared to our 13.

[Todd4State]

Alabama beat this Conner Noland pitcher from Arkansas 10-0. Just an FYI.

Yep. And that further proves my point.

[AlSwearengen]

I wouldn't consider LSU or even Arkansas to be "better competition". LSU lost to freaking Southern among others. Their RPI is 19 compared to our 13.

You are 100% right, which is worrying. I wonder if the names on the chests are playing a factor in some of these performances, maybe. We need to find a little swagger from someplace.