Baseball America released their preseason top 25.

[olemissbydamn]

No surprise that Florida is tops.

3 of the top 4, 6 of the top 11, and 7 of the top 25 are SEC teams.

A&M isn't SEC until July.

http://www.shreveporttime...eseason-poll?odyssey=nav|head

 

[Coach34]

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[engie]

Not surprised by State being left out. Although we return practically everything on the hill and several good position players, 8 of our projected starting 9 position players are freshmen or sophomores. They are right to be cautious about us...

I am, somewhat, surprised to see OM included. However, I'm really close to someone on staff at OM, and he says that IF they have no injuries on the mound and the young arms develop, that they could be very, very good. His personal prediction was 17 wins in the SEC, which most likely is enough to host a regional... Would love to host in Starkville and Oxford, but it will never happen, even if we both deserve it IMO...

 

[Foronce]

Who did we lose? ...Parks, Ogden, Shep

We finished ranked 15th in the country last year?
We all expect to at least do as good if not better next year.
What gives?

 

[missouridawg]

Our pitching staff wasn't "great" last year, but it was serviceable... and our offense wasn't great either.... we lost most of the production from offense (parks, vickerson). I can easily see us being left off....

 

[OMlawdog]

MSU lost most of its offensive production. Parks, Vickerson, Shepherd, Freeman, Ogden, Thigpen and Collins were big parts of MSU's offense last year.

Ole Miss lost most of its pitching production.

Looking at the schedule, MSU's is brutal. They have South Carolina, LSU and Florida all on the road. That is brutal. They miss UGA this year, which is good, because they get UT and UK.

MSU went 14-16 last year in conference. I would think expectations for this year would put MSU at least above .500 in the SEC.

Im expecting at least a regional this year, but don't have hopes of hosting unless the freshman class is everything that Baseball America thinks it is.

 

[Foronce]

link


I realize we lost 7 key parts on offense, but I would think most teams lost key parts
If pitching and defense improve, that should also factor in to the amount of run we need to score

 

[DavidKellumNicknameGenerator]

The West is going to be brutal this spring. If our freshmen are all they're cracked up to be we could be a pretty damn good team by the end of the year, but I think it'll take a little time to get the lineup worked out and see what everybody can do.

I'm excited about the future with guys like Wahl, Mayers, and freshmen like Laxer and Buchanan, but I'm not ready to say that'll happen this season.

 

[OMlawdog]

Arkansas and South Carolina return a ton too.

This is just an extremely loaded year in the SEC.

As far as offensive production, most SEC teams didn't lose 80% of their offense. Now MSU's freshman may be better than the guys they are replacing, so its really an unknown at this point.

Im sure Bianco is preaching Omaha, im sure almost every coach in the SEC says Omaha is the goal every season. I don't see it happening for us this season, but at least he is shooting in the right direction.

 

[CadaverDawg]

[No message]

 

[dawgstudent]

[No message]

 

[DavidKellumNicknameGenerator]

nm

 

[engie]

From what I hear, they've been absolute studs thusfar in practice/scrimmage. The real issue is IF they can transfer that to the game, especially in the SEC atmosphere. As they go, your team goes, and my "contact" is concerned about the level of dependence on them it'll take to carry you through the SEC. FWIW, he thinks you'll be good in the regular season(17-13ish), but says NO chance on Omaha this year regardless of final ranking, fanbase expectation, etc...primarily due to lacking enough pitching depth to carry you through adversity in the post-season tourneys(SEC/Regional). He thinks next year will be the year...

 

[Foronce]

I understand the SEC is loaded and extremely difficult.

I think we finished last year 15th and we should be preseason ranked this year, it is not a big deal just something to discuss.

Feeling around here is the season should be as good or better this year (meaning we should make a regional or might even host), yet we dropped over 10 spots... it could be unrealistic expectations, but I think we are replacing some Juco's that we missed on with better talented freshmen ...I guess they will just have to prove themselves

 

[engie]

taking a "wait-and see" approach on us. Final postseason rankings in baseball aren't the best indicator of how good a team actually is either, IMO...It's more how good they did in the the tournament. The better indicator is the final regular season rankings, and we were nowhere to be found in them.

Where we got shafted(along with the Rebs) was by not being included in the preseason top40 put out by collegiatebaseball. IMO, we don't deserve to be a preseason top 25, but there is NO WAY we aren't both in the preseason top 40. The 10th best team in the SEC is almost always one of the 40 best in the country, and we are better than 10th best....

 

[patdog]

I realize we lost 7 key parts on offense, but I would think most teams lost key parts

Hell, there's only 9 spots in the batting order. I'm not surprised at all we're not ranked. OMLawdog is right. Reasonable expectations for uswould be to finish .500+ in the SEC and a #2 seed in a regional. Not saying we could or couldn'tdo better than that, but to expect anyone to rank us isn't really reasonable.

 

[fishwater99]

[No message]

 

[CadaverDawg]

nm

 

[DAWG61]

that will make you feel better about MSU baseball. Did you know that last year was the first time in history that Vanderbilt made it to the CWS? Also MSU has been to the CWS more times than Ole Miss, Auburn, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, aTm and Mizzou. Leaving only LSU and South Carolina as the two schools in the SEC to have more CWS appearances than MSU.