and this is more about the short term than anything. If we're going to keep Demarcus Henderson in the outfield, we need another middle infielder because Frost, Britton, and Casey have all struggled at the plate, and Britton has stuggled at times defensively.
Look at his fielding percentage- .981. I think the hope is that he can come in and compete and play second base and give us an upgrade offensively and defensively for a couple of years. He plays second base, so this tells me that we're going to keep Frazier at SS for the next two years or so.
To me, this was more of a need than a power hitter. I expect Rea, Renfroe, Norris if he comes back, Porter, and maybe even Slauter to be improved as far as power goes next year. Rea, Renfroe, and Porter could all very easily hit 10 apiece next year. And we'll see if they decide to let Woodruff hit some next year as well.
As far as power hitters and John Cohen- I think that is the biggest misnomer about him out there. He didn't have a problem at Kentucky with them hitting home runs- and his teams there still got plunked, tried to get on base and bunted as much as anyone. And you look at our recruiting at MSU- Daniel Garner is a freshman that will be a power hitter, Rea, Reid Humphries, Nick Flair, Woodruff, Renfroe, Porter, and now we are getting Cort Brinson from Oak Grove to walk-on and is a guy that a lot of people think is the top power hitter in Mississippi.
Now, we're getting some contact hitters, like Detz, CT, Frazier, and etc. but that's not how we're building our team for the long term. Personally, I do suspect that the fences will come in. That's just my gut feeling- I haven't heard any rumors or anything like that.
Also, something else I like about this- he's from California. That's a state that we need to try to pull a recruit or two from a year. California is one of the top states as far as producing MLB talent- it's up there with Florida and Texas. And college baseball is not a big deal out west. Those are the kind of players that facilities and things like that have an impact on.