Quote Originally Posted by Todd4State View Post
When Cohen took over in 2009 we were so far behind in recruiting the best way for our program to get to what we wanted it to be was to recruit hard nosed players who were scrappy. Butch was good for us at the time because he can recruit and he can take guys who weren't all world and teach them how to succeed using different arm angles. Lane Burroughs was a great recruiter as well. We just didn't have enough to work with to succeed in the SEC in 2009-2010. Once we had some turnover we were able to get back to a SR, and then win the SEC Tournament in 2012 and then make it to the CWS Finals in 2013. We had a "pat on the back" year in 2014 and then 2015 some of our pitching recruiting caught up to us and the baseball changed. 2015 was just a disaster of a year.

But then things got straightened out by 2016. We brought in the number 2 recruiting class in the country and started to add more and more power arms. That team was built more like a MLB team. The bullpen was average though. 2017 was a good year despite a coaching change and tons of Tommy John which ended up killing us in the end with the SR. CWS run started the next year and culminated with a National Title this year. And Lemonis is just starting to build his program.

I think we're going to add more power arms- remember how everyone in the media was talking about all of the guys that we had throwing 95+ in the preseason and I warned people that we wouldn't see as many of them because they were freshmen. Well, now those guys are going to start to develop into viable SEC pitchers and we're adding more younger players behind them which eventually will stock our staff. Remember- Foxhall built NC State's staff which is full of flamethrowers as well. That's what we are going to look like in a couple of years.

On offense we're already adding longer more projectable guys like Kellum Clark and Kam James. That's going to result in a more powerful lineup and at the same time I think we will be able to still do things in the running game.

The biggest thing is Lemonis has showed that he knows how to manage a team. He's smart enough to know that losing a game to Kent State early in the year may drop us for a short time but by resting our main guys in the bullpen and allowing guys to have a chance to succeed or fail is the only way we can find out who can perform. That's how you put your best team on the field in the postseason. Bednar throwing 125+ against Kent State would not have allowed us to find guys like Parker Stinnett, Preston Johnson, and maybe even Landon Sims. I think he has some more National Titles in him as a coach but we'll see.
Good stuff, Todd.