Concering the expectation level for next year's team....

[DowntownDawg]

....I received the following from a friend of mine, who summed it up very well, I thought.


<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">I’m not going to judge next year
on wins/losses or Hoover/no Hoover. Here’s what I want to see..</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"></span></p>

<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><span style="">1)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Marked improvement/development
with the pitching staff. Preferably a new and good pitching coach. </span></p>

<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><span style="">2)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Freshman position
players that come in, take over, and show promise. Man you look at guys
like Jeffrey Rea, Steve Gendron, Travis Chapman, Ed Easley, Mitch Moreland,
Brad Corley, etc. And pitching wise Paul Maholm, etc. They day
those guys stepped on campus and played their first game you knew they could
play. You went through slumps but there was no doubt what you had in
them. We don’t have anybody like that now. We don’t have a guy on
our pitching staff that you can look at and a say yep, that’s our Friday night guy
for the next two years. </span></p>

<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><span style="">3)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">An adjustment in
effort and attitude. He better not “lose the team” next year. We
better not be sitting 5-whatever in the conference and having these same posts
about everybody hating it and transferring. </span></p>

<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><span style="">4)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Another strong
recruiting class on paper for the next year. </span></p>

<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><span style="">5)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">A team and players
that progress as the season goes on and don’t regress. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">If I see all of these and we end
up 12-18 or 11-19 in the league and miss hoover then so be it. If no
freshman come in and take over and we’re looking at Collins, Shepherd, and Trey
Johnson in the outfield, Vickerson, Ogden, Frost and whoever around the
infield, and freeman/thigpen behind the dish and we’re sitting here 5-whatever
in the league and all the same signs then I’m done. Over it. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"></span></p>

Thoughts?

 

[Xartox]

Well put.

 

[Todd4State]

1. It may or may not be fair to give Cohen four years, but considering what Butch Thompson inherited when we took over, I think I'll give him a pass for this year. Let me put it this way- last night pitching was NOT our problem. On the year, we have had some rough games for sure, but we have also improved our team ERA with six freshmen pitchers.

2-5- I agree.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...here's the deal. We don't have time to incrementally improve our ERA every year. Sometime in 2015 we'd get to the SEC average. I don't think one guy on our staff has improved over the course of the year. The injuries to Routt, Bracewell, and Watson are troubling. As much as some of these guys have pitched, they should be improving by now and they aren't. Stratton was inconsistent on day one and still is. He still has the bad inning every time out.

Plus, at Dudy Noble, you just have to pitch it well. The park plays big. You've got to have pitching because you're not going to be able to win by playing gorilla ball. When we've been successful, we've had a dominant Friday guy and a couple of other guys that were solid.

Bottom line - we should be improving, and if we are, it's not really showing up. Pitching is still our biggest problem, and if I am reading it correctly, Cohen turns all of that over to Thompson. Nobody, including Stratton, has shown the capacity to be a strong weekend SEC starter yet. We should've at least seen indications of that by now.

 

[Todd4State]

...here's the deal. We don't have time to incrementally improve our ERA every year. Sometime in 2015 we'd get to the SEC average. I don't think one guy on our staff has improved over the course of the year. The injuries to Routt, Bracewell, and Watson are troubling. As much as some of these guys have pitched, they should be improving by now and they aren't. Stratton was inconsistent on day one and still is. He still has the bad inning every time out.

Plus, at Dudy Noble, you just have to pitch it well. The park plays big. You've got to have pitching because you're not going to be able to win by playing gorilla ball. When we've been successful, we've had a dominant Friday guy and a couple of other guys that were solid.

Bottom line - we should be improving, and if we are, it's not really showing up. Pitching is still our biggest problem, and if I am reading it correctly, Cohen turns all of that over to Thompson. Nobody, including Stratton, has shown the capacity to be a strong weekend SEC starter yet. We should've at least seen indications of that by now.

and you know who they had as the top college draft prospect for Mississippi in 2012? Chris Stratton.

As far as the injuries, I agree that Routt was all on Butch and the staff. However, CC was hurt playing summer baseball, and Ben had this injury in high school as well. Most of our pitching problems in my estimation are due to two things- youth and poor defense. Stratton has that one bad inning because he is learning how to pitch. You notice that one inning usually comes in about the 4th-5th inning. That's because he is learning how to mix his pitches up when guys see him for the second or third time, and that is something that he will learn in time. Luke Bole has impressed me the two times I saw him pitch in person. The movement on his fastball is definatley SEC caliber. At the beginning of the year, he was pitching like he wasn't quite sure that he belonged out there. Now, he has started to have some more solid outings- even though his last one was not very good. I want to see what CC can do when he is healthy. An ERA of 3.4 with a bad labrum is pretty good. Ben has been solid as the closer all year long. His ERA got jacked up because he gave up a grand slam in a non-save situation. Girodo started out well, then struggled, and now he is pitching much better. I thought Graveman looked good last night- it was SWAC, but he definately has promise and what impressed me was not only his competitiveness, but the fact that he filled up the strike zone with his fastball and breaking ball- I think it was a slider.

As far as the defense, I was watching a show on John Scheurholz, the GM for the Braves in the 90's. He talked about how they knew that they had quality pitchers like Glavine and Smoltz, but when they really took off was when they shored up the defense by bringing in Terry Pendleton, Rafael Belliard, and Otis Nixon. I'm not saying that we have HOF pitchers, but the point is when we shore up our defense, these guys are going to pitch better. Errors in my opinion demoralize a pitcher as much if not more than giving up a home run a lot of times. Reason being because the pitcher did what he was supposed to do- make a pitch to get an out and then the defense screws it up. Whenever an error is made, a runner is on. You make your pitcher throw out of the stretch, and throw more pitches to get out of the inning. It's a cumulative effect that definately affects ERA's.

 

[DirtyLopez]

Hell, two of our stud freshmen came in with injuries. Stratton's problem is that he only has two pitches right now. Other than that, he has alot of upside. Give him a third pitch and he is going to be very very good. </p>

 

[War Machine Dawg]

[No message]

 

[SLUdog]

UNLESS we are #9 and sneak into a regional.