Lemon gets 2nd portal position player

[basedog]

As far as the future with any college baseball team, you don't have to have 8 or or 9 superstars, u do need leaders who want to work hard and get better. Making the regionals is the goal, once you get in regional play, anything can happen. In baseball, the most talented team doesn't always win, our Natty team and Ole Dixie Natty team got hot at the right time. Pitching is the most important position in baseball, they can control the outcome more than not.

[Mjoelner34]

As long as Downs, Frei and House play like their first names are their last names, we'll be good.

[PMDawg]

No kidding!!!!

We act like G5 is so far off. As a team, usually but individual players?.nah.

Yeah, it doesn't worry me too bad. I'm in no position to say whether these guys can be successful at the next level or not, but if you can play baseball you can play baseball. I don't mind hitting for average either. As a matter of fact, stringing together a bunch of singles and doubles is what I like to see moreso than 3 strike outs sandwiched around a solo HR or just praying for a walk and a HR. That said, we could definitely use a bit more power in the lineup. I think a good balance is important.

[maroonmania]

As far as the future with any college baseball team, you don't have to have 8 or or 9 superstars, u do need leaders who want to work hard and get better. Making the regionals is the goal, once you get in regional play, anything can happen. In baseball, the most talented team doesn't always win, our Natty team and Ole Dixie Natty team got hot at the right time. Pitching is the most important position in baseball, they can control the outcome more than not.

You don't need a team full of superstars but you definitely need 1 or 2. Florida and Georgia probably wouldn't have even been regional teams without Caglione and Condin. Those type hitters totally change a team. We lose our 2 big bats in DJ and Hines and we have to get at least one big time bat to be what we need to be offensively next season. Offense is going to be a real challenge at this point with what we have available next year.

[Bdawg]

Yeah, it doesn't worry me too bad. I'm in no position to say whether these guys can be successful at the next level or not, but if you can play baseball you can play baseball. I don't mind hitting for average either. As a matter of fact, stringing together a bunch of singles and doubles is what I like to see moreso than 3 strike outs sandwiched around a solo HR or just praying for a walk and a HR. That said, we could definitely use a bit more power in the lineup. I think a good balance is important.

Stringing together some hits and extending inning can definitely run pitch counts up too. We put a lot of zeros on the board the year. It seems a lot of times we would have a good inning and that would be it. Hope we put together a more complete lineup because the voids were real this year.

[TheLostDawg]

Yeah, it doesn't worry me too bad. I'm in no position to say whether these guys can be successful at the next level or not, but if you can play baseball you can play baseball. I don't mind hitting for average either. As a matter of fact, stringing together a bunch of singles and doubles is what I like to see moreso than 3 strike outs sandwiched around a solo HR or just praying for a walk and a HR. That said, we could definitely use a bit more power in the lineup. I think a good balance is important.

Lsu just signed the Wofford pitcher and they have money to pull power 5 guys as people on here constantly bring up

[Cooterpoot]

Stringing together some hits and extending inning can definitely run pitch counts up too. We put a lot of zeros on the board the year. It seems a lot of times we would have a good inning and that would be it. Hope we put together a more complete lineup because the voids were real this year.

Stringing together hits is the hard part of run scoring. Our power numbers hurt us this year and we need power numbers, not just HRs.

[WSOPdawg]

You don't need a team full of superstars but you definitely need 1 or 2. Florida and Georgia probably wouldn't have even been regional teams without Caglione and Condin. Those type hitters totally change a team. We lose our 2 big bats in DJ and Hines and we have to get at least one big time bat to be what we need to be offensively next season. Offense is going to be a real challenge at this point with what we have available next year.

Yep, 1 or 2 alpha dogs. Mershon and Hujsak emerged as the year went on. Hopefully, these alpha dogs show up earlier in the season next year.

[Santiago]

If Parker keeps improving our staff, and bringing in his evaluations over what he inherited, then these position players that are dirtbags make it a fun team. Speed, running on contact, putting pressure on other defenses, distracting the other pitchers. Meanwhile our pitchers are lock down guys. My favorite brand of baseball. We do need those couple of stars that take over games.

[confucius say]

And we have to Moneyball with the portal. We arent going to get the high end guys commanding big money. We arent that team. We are literally the Oakland A's

LSU, Florida, A&M, UPig, etc- they all have that booster they can go to for a big check for someone. We dont have that like they do

KY spends way less than us and is making it work.

We didn't lose Holman and Montgomery because of money last year. We lost them because they didn't want to play here.

I do agree we are middle of the pack in baseball NIL, but we had more money to spend last year and the guys worth big money didn't want to play here with our situation.

[confucius say]

I'm more interested in replacing arms right now.

[Commercecomet24]

If Parker keeps improving our staff, and bringing in his evaluations over what he inherited, then these position players that are dirtbags make it a fun team. Speed, running on contact, putting pressure on other defenses, distracting the other pitchers. Meanwhile our pitchers are lock down guys. My favorite brand of baseball. We do need those couple of stars that take over games.

Yes, this! This is how I built my teams! And it's fun for everyone, coaches, players, fans! Other teams hate it because there's always pressure!! You can drive other teams crazy! Run, run and run some more!

I hate station to station baseball and waiting on hrs. I learned a lot from Whitey Herzog the few times I was able to visit with him.

[CaptainObvious]

Yeah, it doesn't worry me too bad. I'm in no position to say whether these guys can be successful at the next level or not, but if you can play baseball you can play baseball. I don't mind hitting for average either. As a matter of fact, stringing together a bunch of singles and doubles is what I like to see moreso than 3 strike outs sandwiched around a solo HR or just praying for a walk and a HR. That said, we could definitely use a bit more power in the lineup. I think a good balance is important.

This is exactly what we had this year with DJ and Hines in SEC play but also in the midweek games we lost. Too many times they were non productive outs in kep situations. Rarely were they in the middle of a big inning with a big extra base hit if a HR. Usually in a big inning, they walked or singled with no one on or only a runner in first. And way too many times in games that mattered, they both k's 3 times in big situations. And don't get me started on the number of times our 9 hole hitter led off an inning with an easy out. Which means our 8 hole hitter continued to make the last out of the previous inning. So when your 1, 3, 4, 8, and 9 hitters are constantly making outs. How can you build big innings or even spread the scoring out?

[basedog]

KY spends way less than us and is making it work.

We didn't lose Holman and Montgomery because of money last year. We lost them because they didn't want to play here.

I do agree we are middle of the pack in baseball NIL, but we had more money to spend last year and the guys worth big money didn't want to play here with our situation.

You are exactly right, money was never the issuse with many, it was the players and them not wanting to play for our coach or Msu.

[Cooterpoot]

If Parker keeps improving our staff, and bringing in his evaluations over what he inherited, then these position players that are dirtbags make it a fun team. Speed, running on contact, putting pressure on other defenses, distracting the other pitchers. Meanwhile our pitchers are lock down guys. My favorite brand of baseball. We do need those couple of stars that take over games.

If we don't improve our slugging numbers we aren't getting better. We don't have a bunch of speed and dirt bags either at this point. We're bottom half of the conference in talent right now. Agree about Parker though.

[Coach34]

KY spends way less than us and is making it work.

Link?? Show me where this published?

NIL started 3 years ago- look how good Kentucky has been since. Kentucky missed the NCAA's from 2018-2022. NIL kicks in? Kentucky has made a Super and now a CWS

[Bdawg]

Stringing together hits is the hard part of run scoring. Our power numbers hurt us this year and we need power numbers, not just HRs.

No doubt. I hope our doubles go up significantly. I just want a more complete lineup. Too many voids this year in the lineup to go along with some rough slumps

[Cooterpoot]

No doubt. I hope our doubles go up significantly. I just want a more complete lineup. Too many voids this year in the lineup to go along with some rough slumps

We were two real good lineup pieces and closer from hosting. Lots of inconsistency with our better players killed us too. Next year we've got tons of holes all over until we fill them. We're getting killed in the portal early. Hope some rumors are true and hope we win some battles for good position players. So far we have one.

[basedog]

I would think after CWS things will pick up, but now days it doesn't seem to be a rush to enroll in school.

[PMDawg]

If we don't improve our slugging numbers we aren't getting better. We don't have a bunch of speed and dirt bags either at this point. We're bottom half of the conference in talent right now. Agree about Parker though.

I get it. I'm not advocating for a line-up full of .300 hitters with NO power. We need a good balance. But people are complaining about signing a couple of guys that hit over .300 last year, and I think we need them too. We have to go find some power bats too, but here's a few people we had in the lineup last year and their BA at the end of the season.

Hunter Hines - .257
Amani Larry - .252
Logan Kohler - .244
Dylan Cupp - .258
Ethan Pulliam - .227
Nate Chester - .208
Johnny Long - .188

If the top 4 listed are all around .300, it's a much different team/season. The bottom 3, all hovering around .200 (or below), should never be major pieces in an SEC lineup. That's just pathetic. Pullium, at least he's a FR that showed some potential, so I guess I take that back on him, but Chester as a JR and Long as a super SR....that's just embarrassing. I understand why we had to play him, but geez that's bad. I'm in my mid 40s now, and I never played past age 20, but I'd put a healthy wager that I could bat higher than that if given the same amount of ABs as he got against D1 pitching.