Todd4State's thoughts- Make MSU Baseball Great Again

[CadaverDawg]

We do not have everything we need. Facilities and fan support are our strengths, but are very very small parts of a very big equation. Glossing over the scholarship issue like its a small hurdle is whistling past the graveyard. Its about the biggest hurdle there is and there is no immediate solution to solve it. And that's not a "poor old MSU statement", it's a "poor old college baseball" statement because it is a drastically unlevel playing field.

And saying we still bring in top ranked classes is not accurate either. Baseball classes are ranked at signing day then never really assessed again. You lose guys to the draft, you lose guys to injury, you lose guys to the draft again after they are Jr's when they have just recently started contributing (think Zac Houston) and then you have guys that don't pan out. Way more variation and overall inaccuracy with college baseball recruiting rankings than with football and basketball. They aren't worth the paper they are printed on, and even if they were, our 2015 class was the only one we have signed recently that was even Top 10.



I don't think anyone is saying we can't expect to be very good and occasionally elite in baseball. The problem is people think we should be good exclusively because of big crowds and a nice stadium atmosphere. There's way more to it than that, namely getting and retaining talented players. A kid from Georgia isn't gonna pay $50k in tuition instead of getting $500k in signing bonus money because he can smell ribs smoking when he's standing in LF. And the other problem is that college baseball as a whole isn't structured well enough for any team to become perrenielly dominant like Alabama football. There is way too much variation and roster turnover with the draft (and now, with an increasing number of pitching injuries due to travel ball, etc.) for teams to just stay at the top forever. It just isn't feasible.

But again, none of that means we can't strive to be better and identify improvement areas. And I think we are doing that.

I once again counter your argument with "how is Ole Miss doing it so consistently under the same set of rules"? Plus, these days kids go to college where they want to go for the most part. Student loans are so common, and big time talent will have the funds to pay it off in 3 years anyway. I'm not saying the scholly issue isn't an issue...and I'm not saying stadium and crowd support are all that matters...I'm saying we have to get our heads out of the sand and realize that a school 100 miles from us is dealing with the same issues while consistently making, and usually hosting, a regional Year after year after year. So don't sit there and tell me it's not possible or it's too hard to do, when I witness it yearly happening with our instate rival.

You put our program in Regionals 14 of the next 16 years like OM has been doing...we'll win a National Title or multiple. And they'll do it too...at this rate before us, bc they are a model of consistency whereas we're a lightning in a bottle crapshoot yearly that is dependent on Jucos as to how good or bad we'll be. We CAN and SHOULD go to Regionals every single year...but it's going to take a better approach in order to achieve it. Gotta work smarter and harder, like Todd said in the OP.

That's my opinion. I respect yours. I just fail to accept that we can't be a yearly regional team with a CWS appearance every 2-3 years or so. We should be a reload team in baseball. Not a "wait til we are Junior laden" team like football.