Come on TODD! WE WANT ANSWERS! Why do we suck so bad?
- Thread starter DowntownDawg
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pitching has a chance to be pretty good in the coming years assuming they stay healthy but what Polkie left is just not SEC caliber talent........It starts and ends there.....Simple as that...........
Adkins, Freeman, Duffy, and Collins off a team that hit .307 in conference and averaged over 6.5 runs a game in conference.
The inability to score and hit is just mindboggling. We were hitting .282 going into today.
The future of our staff is very bright, however. We gave ourselves a chance to win each game this weekend and never threw anyone older than soph. except for Houston.
The inability to score and hit is just mindboggling. We were hitting .282 going into today.
The future of our staff is very bright, however. We gave ourselves a chance to win each game this weekend and never threw anyone older than soph. except for Houston.
Polk left no talent, but at the end of the game, this was our line up.
Polk players:
Luke Adkins- batting .328 with 1 homerun
Connor Powers- batting .416 with 8 homeruns
Jet Butler- batting .333
Cody Freeman- batting .309 with 2 homeruns
Average of .347 with 11 total homeruns between 3 seniors and 1 junior
Cohen players:
Nick Vickerson- batting .319 with 2 homeruns
Wes Thigpen- batting .195 with 2 homeruns
Trey Johnson- batting .231
Jonathan Ogden- batting .261with 1 homerun
Sam Frost- batting .182
Average of .238 with 5 total homeruns. between 4 juniors and 1 freshman
The numbers would seem to indicate that in all actuality, these "no talent" Polk players are the only reason we are even close to a .500 record at this point, not the players that Cohen has brought in. I will grant you that Cohen has brought in some very promising freshmen pitchers, but the hitting he has brought in is struggling.
Our problem in scoring runs is our lack of power. I believe we are last in the SEC in slugging percentage at .431 (before today). This is with Powers insane .792 slugging percentage (again, before today). We are getting on base and getting hits. The problem is that most of these hits are singles.
...early in the year. Now, we are hitting balls to the warning track. We really needed this one today and couldn't get the clutch hit.
Never bring facts to this board... never... Cohen is GOD and Polk never won a single game in his career.
I only wonder if we'll be able to fire Cohen before he has as long as Croom was given to totally destroy our football program.
I only wonder if we'll be able to fire Cohen before he has as long as Croom was given to totally destroy our football program.
I used the interweb thing to look at John Cohen's career record. He won his conference in two out of four seasons at Northwestern State. Not too shabby. In 5 seasons at lowly UK, he posted winning records in 4 of them. One of those winning seasons was just by the narrowest of margins. He had two monster seasons out of 5 though with over 40 victories. I had hoped he would turn State around in year two, but things don't look too rosy at the moment. He still may have us squeak out a winning season though. It's early. I do expect him to do great things for State within the next 2 years. If he can do it at Northwestern and at Kentucky, why should I think he won't do it at State?
8Dog said:
I've said the same thing recently, that our bats are really struggling, and all I heard was "but we're really hitting the ball hard, and eventually we will find some holes". That's ********, we had chances throughout this entire game, and everytime with the bases loaded it was strikeout after stikeout after strikeout. If this team loses this week against Memphis and can't win two out of three against a bad UGA team, then 17 the rest of this season.
I know he came in after the season of 2008 so those players, while he recruited and signed them, he didn't really have a lot of time. Maybe I am wrongly applying football standards - having time to develop recruiting relationships - to baseball. If you can do that then the freshmen are his first full fledged class with the sophomores being a throw together class. I'd give him another recruiting class before I judge him successful or not.
Polk's players may be able to hit, but none of those guys except for Powers can play defense. If they could, I guarantee you our lineup would be a lot better. The whole reason why Sam Frost is out there is because of his defense simply because Jet Butler "can't see well from that side of the infield".
All of the guys you listed for Cohen except for Frost are JUCO guys. In baseball, if you're JUCO, you're JUCO for a reason. The one guy that is hitting over .300 not coincidentally came in from FSU. As I mentioned, the other guy is a walk-on that in all likelihood will not start next year, and at the very least will have to earn his job back because as you can see he can't hit. The whole reason they were brought in was to try to bridge the gap between Polk's group and Cohen's group. I highly doubt you will see that again from Cohen, and indeed we only have three JUCO's- one was a guy that was in the last class and was injured, and one of those one JUCO signees was an academic casualty.
That's the problem in a nutshell- we have to many 1-2 tool players. That goes for Polk and Cohen's guys. If Cohen made a mistake, it was not going after more freshmen position players and going after so many JUCO's. I've never been a fan of JUCO's in baseball.
We have another top 10 class in all likelihood coming in next year, and many of them are position players that fit Cohen's style better- guys like Chase Luwallen, Brayden Jones, CT Bradford, Cody Abraham and DeMarcus Henderson. Some of them will start next year to. If we keep bringing in good classes, they will eventually do well. To me, that's the first key is bringing in good players and recruiting well. A big reason we've been in most of these games is because of the freshmen pitchers doing a darn good job so far. We've actually have enough pitching, that I really feel that we can actually for maybe a year or so really start to focus on bringing in good position players more, which I think is a good thing. Because pitching is so hard to find, and of course, you don't want to neglect it too much because it will be gone before long.
That said, let's look at who we're losing to. 3 times to #30 SELU who has one loss this year, 1 time to #10 UCLA a team that kicked Vandy's ***, 1 time to #16 Oklahoma, and three times on the road to #8 Florida, and then our one bad loss to Texas A&M Corpus Christi. That's 3 on the road, 3 at a neutral site, and 3 times at Dudy-Noble. We may not be hitting the ball well, but some of it is who we're facing. If we were going up agianst Arkansas-Little Rock and getting beat down I would be very worried. But while we have lost those games, we have been in a position to win most of them- the exeption being to Oklahoma where Routt completely fell apart.
Now, that said, this week is huge for MSU. We go back home and play a 8-11 Memphis team on Weds., and then we play an 8-11 Georgia team- records off the top of my head, someone can correct me for semantics. At any rate, they're teams we can beat, especially at home. If we go something like 1-3 this week, or worse then I would be extremely concerned. Not that that won't happen, I'm definately on "worry alert" right now, but so far aside from the Texas A&M CC game, we have beaten everyone that we're "supposed to". On top of that, our schedule does lighten up. It's not easy, but we only have one more top 10 team left on the schedule based on the rankings today and that's LSU. Alabama might get there if they keep playing well, though. We do have some top 25 teams, but we play some of those people at home, and I don't think we play them in a two week stretch like we have.
But again, playing like this can really hurt a team's confidence, even though we've been playing really good teams. And that's why we really need to play well this week to try to have something to build on for the rest of the season so that we can move forward and improve.
Finally, I disagree to an extent about Polk's players being the "only reason that we are in these games"- and the reason I say to an extent is because Conner Powers is a Polk recruit. Cohen's pitching is why we are in these games. Look at last year as exhibit A. And again, you failed to mention the collective fielding percentage of Polk's guys like Jet Butler, Ryan Collins who managed to have four errors as an OF in one weekend I believe, the fact that Cody Freeman has yet to throw out a runner from behind the plate, the fact that Luke Adkins was actually booted from USM's team because of his defense and I won't even talk about Russ Sneed. The fact of the matter is if his recruits could field at a halfway respectable clip, we don't have to start guys that can't hit like Sam Frost.
All of the guys you listed for Cohen except for Frost are JUCO guys. In baseball, if you're JUCO, you're JUCO for a reason. The one guy that is hitting over .300 not coincidentally came in from FSU. As I mentioned, the other guy is a walk-on that in all likelihood will not start next year, and at the very least will have to earn his job back because as you can see he can't hit. The whole reason they were brought in was to try to bridge the gap between Polk's group and Cohen's group. I highly doubt you will see that again from Cohen, and indeed we only have three JUCO's- one was a guy that was in the last class and was injured, and one of those one JUCO signees was an academic casualty.
That's the problem in a nutshell- we have to many 1-2 tool players. That goes for Polk and Cohen's guys. If Cohen made a mistake, it was not going after more freshmen position players and going after so many JUCO's. I've never been a fan of JUCO's in baseball.
We have another top 10 class in all likelihood coming in next year, and many of them are position players that fit Cohen's style better- guys like Chase Luwallen, Brayden Jones, CT Bradford, Cody Abraham and DeMarcus Henderson. Some of them will start next year to. If we keep bringing in good classes, they will eventually do well. To me, that's the first key is bringing in good players and recruiting well. A big reason we've been in most of these games is because of the freshmen pitchers doing a darn good job so far. We've actually have enough pitching, that I really feel that we can actually for maybe a year or so really start to focus on bringing in good position players more, which I think is a good thing. Because pitching is so hard to find, and of course, you don't want to neglect it too much because it will be gone before long.
That said, let's look at who we're losing to. 3 times to #30 SELU who has one loss this year, 1 time to #10 UCLA a team that kicked Vandy's ***, 1 time to #16 Oklahoma, and three times on the road to #8 Florida, and then our one bad loss to Texas A&M Corpus Christi. That's 3 on the road, 3 at a neutral site, and 3 times at Dudy-Noble. We may not be hitting the ball well, but some of it is who we're facing. If we were going up agianst Arkansas-Little Rock and getting beat down I would be very worried. But while we have lost those games, we have been in a position to win most of them- the exeption being to Oklahoma where Routt completely fell apart.
Now, that said, this week is huge for MSU. We go back home and play a 8-11 Memphis team on Weds., and then we play an 8-11 Georgia team- records off the top of my head, someone can correct me for semantics. At any rate, they're teams we can beat, especially at home. If we go something like 1-3 this week, or worse then I would be extremely concerned. Not that that won't happen, I'm definately on "worry alert" right now, but so far aside from the Texas A&M CC game, we have beaten everyone that we're "supposed to". On top of that, our schedule does lighten up. It's not easy, but we only have one more top 10 team left on the schedule based on the rankings today and that's LSU. Alabama might get there if they keep playing well, though. We do have some top 25 teams, but we play some of those people at home, and I don't think we play them in a two week stretch like we have.
But again, playing like this can really hurt a team's confidence, even though we've been playing really good teams. And that's why we really need to play well this week to try to have something to build on for the rest of the season so that we can move forward and improve.
Finally, I disagree to an extent about Polk's players being the "only reason that we are in these games"- and the reason I say to an extent is because Conner Powers is a Polk recruit. Cohen's pitching is why we are in these games. Look at last year as exhibit A. And again, you failed to mention the collective fielding percentage of Polk's guys like Jet Butler, Ryan Collins who managed to have four errors as an OF in one weekend I believe, the fact that Cody Freeman has yet to throw out a runner from behind the plate, the fact that Luke Adkins was actually booted from USM's team because of his defense and I won't even talk about Russ Sneed. The fact of the matter is if his recruits could field at a halfway respectable clip, we don't have to start guys that can't hit like Sam Frost.
SnakePlissken said:
The deal with baseball is all of your signing class is signed before your season is over. Cohen only had three recruits that he could call his own on last year's team. This year, most of the pitchers are his. Most of the JUCO guys are his to, and the only freshman starting again, is a walk-on. I have been impressed with the pitching recruits that he has brought in, but not so impressed with the JUCO guys.
Honestly, if we never recruit another JUCO guy, I would have no problem with that. Unless there were extenuating circumstances- like grades. It's not just MSU that has had problems with JUCO guys to.
using these examples.. a team of 9 of Polk's "1 tool hitters" at this point because I think we would have won a number of these games that we are losing because we can't hit the ball past the pitcher.
Which is galling for some of us who have been MSU BB fans for decades.
And isn't Florida in the top 10 or so?
If those two factoids have any merit, I'm somewhat pleased with how our "young" [shades of Polkie] team did on the road, although losing always sucks.
I hope #34 isn't a baseball fan, or this could be a more painful season.
And isn't Florida in the top 10 or so?
If those two factoids have any merit, I'm somewhat pleased with how our "young" [shades of Polkie] team did on the road, although losing always sucks.
I hope #34 isn't a baseball fan, or this could be a more painful season.
Todd, and you do know far more about the state of our baseball program than I do. Polk's players can't do much else besides hit, and even Sneed struggles in that department.And I truly do hope that in the next 2 years, Cohen brings in players that can restore this program to what it once was because since our trip to Omaha, Mississippi State baseball has been the third best program in Mississippi behind both southern and ole miss. Cohen has won exactly 40% of his career SEC games, so I do not have much reason to believe that he can take this team back to Omaha. I honestly hope I am wrong and have to eat my words one day.
HighPointDawg said:
We would lose games because of the defense. Remember the SELU series? That was why we lost those games. That's why we made changes. We were losing games because our offense couldn't overcome our defense. While SELU is a very good team, believe me, it would be even worse when we played SEC teams. At least now we are in the games and have a chance against even top 10 competition.
The answer is to try to get a blend of guys that can hit and field. That's why you are seeing Jet Butler in LF. To try to jumpstart the offense. I think another good thing to try would be to let Duffy DH some- especially when Cody is catching.
Heck, a team of Polk's nine one tool guys is why we have Cohen here now in the first place.
You HAVE to have talent to compete in the SEC. That's all there is to it. You need at least three tool guys to compete at a bare minimum. For reference the five tools are- Hitting for power, hitting for average, arm strength, defense, and baserunning ability. Some people add two more- leadership ability and baseball instincts. Pitchers are a little different- Location, movement, ability to change speeds, and velocity. One to two tool guys should be playing at Delta State or be walk-ons. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm not sure that some of Polk's guys could play for Kinneson though. He demands that his players play hard, and he probably would have laughed at Jet Butler's assertion that he can't see on the right side of the infield. Or killed him.
The guy needs one more year to show improvement, and frankly two more years to be judged. This isn't basketball. It takes time to develop talent in baseball, especially pitching.
This weekend sort of screwed y'all for this year in the SEC.LSU is most likely a 1-2 or 0-3 weekend, which means even if MSU goes .500 in the rest of the SEC games it's still a season that the casual fan looks at and says "fire Cohen". Which makes no sense.</p>
This weekend sort of screwed y'all for this year in the SEC.LSU is most likely a 1-2 or 0-3 weekend, which means even if MSU goes .500 in the rest of the SEC games it's still a season that the casual fan looks at and says "fire Cohen". Which makes no sense.</p>
has some merit, as does his lack of posteason success, which are the two knocks on Cohen. But you also have to realize that Kentucky is probably the worst program in the SEC historically, and Cohen is also probably their most successful coach in their school's history. I actually saw his first UK team play MSU and they were the worst SEC team I have ever seen in terms of talent. They had nothing. But they played hard and gave it everything that they had, and that left an impression on me. Cohen almost doubled their postseason appearances in the four-five years that he was there, and him winning a SEC Championship is remarkable. Right now, they are still a strong program because of his recruiting that he did there. And they have fewer advantages than anyone else in the SEC- probably the lowest fanbase of the SEC teams, and they're in one of the worst as far as producing baseball talent in the SEC. They're the Vandy of SEC baseball.
He may have won 40% of his SEC games, but despite that, they wanted to keep him at UK. The rest of that crappy winning percentage is from taking over our mess with a team that would have been just as well forfeiting every Sunday game during his first year.
Now, I don't know if he will take us to Omaha or not. I know that he at least wants to win a NC, and that was one thing that royally pissed me off about Polk- his wanting us to be a "nice program". Polk scheduled his little camp during the CWS one year. Cohen is at least trying to do win the CWS. I think he at least has some semblance of a plan of how to do it as well. Will it work? I don't know. But bringing in good players and recruiting well is part of it, and that's a good place to start.
If he doesn't work out, whoever replaces him will at least have some good players to work with.
I remember when Polk was rehired, a lot of people on Genespage- not sure if sixpack was around- would always say "Wait till Polk gets his players in here!" I at least think that Cohen should be afforded that opportunity, especially since he wasn't left with Papelbon, Maholm, and Craig Tatum.
He may have won 40% of his SEC games, but despite that, they wanted to keep him at UK. The rest of that crappy winning percentage is from taking over our mess with a team that would have been just as well forfeiting every Sunday game during his first year.
Now, I don't know if he will take us to Omaha or not. I know that he at least wants to win a NC, and that was one thing that royally pissed me off about Polk- his wanting us to be a "nice program". Polk scheduled his little camp during the CWS one year. Cohen is at least trying to do win the CWS. I think he at least has some semblance of a plan of how to do it as well. Will it work? I don't know. But bringing in good players and recruiting well is part of it, and that's a good place to start.
If he doesn't work out, whoever replaces him will at least have some good players to work with.
I remember when Polk was rehired, a lot of people on Genespage- not sure if sixpack was around- would always say "Wait till Polk gets his players in here!" I at least think that Cohen should be afforded that opportunity, especially since he wasn't left with Papelbon, Maholm, and Craig Tatum.
"Wildcats baseball hit bottom at the turn of the 21st century, with only one winning season from 1997 through 2004, and five straight last-place finishes in the SEC East from 2001 through 2005. In 2003, after the retirement of longtime coach <font color="#ba0000">Keith Madison</font>, Kentucky hired Florida assistant <font color="#002bb8">John Cohen</font> as head coach. Cohen was able to lead the Cats to a winning overall season in 2005, despite another SEC cellar finish.</p>
Few could have expected the <font color="#002bb8">Cinderella</font> season the Cats would have in 2006. They literally went from worst to first in the SEC, winning a regular-season conference title for the first time in three decades, and being ranked as high as fourth in the country by one major baseball poll during the season."</p>
Few could have expected the <font color="#002bb8">Cinderella</font> season the Cats would have in 2006. They literally went from worst to first in the SEC, winning a regular-season conference title for the first time in three decades, and being ranked as high as fourth in the country by one major baseball poll during the season."</p>
You keep bringing this up, but you fail to mention that he has taken over teams that finished last or next to last place when he arrived at the two schools: Kentucky and MSU. He has had to completely rebiuld both of these teams. I am so sick of sorry, whinny *** pseudo-MSU fans that can't wait to be critical of our coaches and efforts. I wanted Croom gone, but only after it became apparent that there was no progress made in the football program either on the field or in recruiting: having said that, I cut even him, a nice guy but incompetent coach, a break. I said earlier this year that our fairweather fans would be jumping on and off the baseball bandwagon and thought we would have 30-32 wins. That hasn't changed for me. Under Coach Cohen, we are going to have two straight top ten recruiting classes. Most of fans would be doing cartwheels over that in football and basketball instead of being the chronic bitchers that I see on this site.
If you were directing this at me or not, but this couldn't be further from the truth in my case. I'm just stating the numbers from Cohen's past coaching jobs, so take them for what they are. Yes Kentucky is a miserable program historically. And yes Cohen was able to have one incredible season there, along with one other nice season to go along with one other mediocre season and 2 terrible seasons. I'm not saying the guy is or isn't a good coach, because thats still yet to be determined in my eyes because this is the first time he has been at a program where success can be more than reasonably expected. I guess maybe I am just disappointed with the performance, or lack thereof, by the JUCO players we brought in. And without knowing the numbers, I really don't see much improvement in our hitting or fielding from last year to this year.
Am I glad that Polk is gone? Easy yes.
Did I want Raffo? Easy no.
Was I in favor of hiring Cohen? 100% Thought it was a great move by the Ninja.
Am I concerned by the slow start by Cohen? You bettcha.
Did I expect improvement quicker than it is showing on the field? Yes.Cohen has quickly helped his other teams get better and I have not yet seen it here.
Am I pulling for Cohen to win here? Hell yeah........I just want MSU to win.
So it comes to this.........I hope like hell Cohen is the right coach for MSu baseball , but I am cautious about believing he is.I want to see the winning return before I credit him with bringing back MSu baseball. Win first , praise second.
Did I want Raffo? Easy no.
Was I in favor of hiring Cohen? 100% Thought it was a great move by the Ninja.
Am I concerned by the slow start by Cohen? You bettcha.
Did I expect improvement quicker than it is showing on the field? Yes.Cohen has quickly helped his other teams get better and I have not yet seen it here.
Am I pulling for Cohen to win here? Hell yeah........I just want MSU to win.
So it comes to this.........I hope like hell Cohen is the right coach for MSu baseball , but I am cautious about believing he is.I want to see the winning return before I credit him with bringing back MSu baseball. Win first , praise second.
but as Todd said, we had one error this weekend. Looking over his last three years at Kentucky, he was 127-55-1. He had two players up for the Golden Spikes award, the Heisman trophy of college baseball, and one won the award, he hosted regionals two of the three years, and their fielding the last year was in the top 15 in the country. Again, give him a little time. I am a big Ron Polk fan, but in his second stint in Starkville when looking at wins and losses over all and in the conference, pitching, fielding, etc., we-the storied MSU Bulldogs- were in the bottom half of the conference. Rebuilding takes time.
the hitting improves. One thing that has impressed me with Cohen so far is that when a problem arises- such as the defense, instead of waiting on the players to figure it out on their own, he makes changes to the lineup to correct them. For example, our defense was bad a the beginning of the year. Cohen made some corrections. Routt struggles. Instead of trotting him out there time after time and hoping the light switch magically goes on, we move someone else in his spot and then attempt to try to get him to do what he was doing the year before.
As far as the hitting, I'm 100% sure that Cohen and Burroughs will try to do something about it as well. That's why God gave us video equipment. I'd be willing to bet that there are some very correctable things be it how others are pitching the players or something very minor with their swings or stances that can be fixed. I'm sure it's an individual thing. Now, they may just suck to, and there's nothing that can be done, but I know that this staff is at least going to try to fix the problems.
As far as the hitting, I'm 100% sure that Cohen and Burroughs will try to do something about it as well. That's why God gave us video equipment. I'd be willing to bet that there are some very correctable things be it how others are pitching the players or something very minor with their swings or stances that can be fixed. I'm sure it's an individual thing. Now, they may just suck to, and there's nothing that can be done, but I know that this staff is at least going to try to fix the problems.