We've seen marked improvement as a team. Let's not forget- in the pre-season, we were picked to finish last in the SEC West. We were one game away from winning the West.
And now, we are in the SEC Tournament, and pretty much a lock for a regional- we are also likely a two seed, and certainly no worse than a three.
Despite some on here who told me that Butch Thompson was "our problem", our pitching has improved. Is it where it needs to be? No. But it's much better than last year. From 6.87 to 4.31 as of right now. The biggest problem right now is our starting pitching getting us deep into games. That is something that I expect to get better next year- Stratton, a healthy Nick Routt, and then guys like Daryl Norris and Evan Mitchell, and maybe even a couple of true freshmen like Trevor Fitts and Jacob Lindgren or some wild cards such as Kendall Graveman or Luis Pollerena. Even if it doesn't, our bullpen should be very, very strong with Caleb Reed and Ben Bracewell coming back, and hopefully the return of Pollerena to the bullpen.
As far as the hitting, that went down from .296 to .284. That's fairly comparable especially when you consider the new bats this year. One other encouraging thing to me as far as the hitting- of the players that were juniors last year, only three primary starters did not improve- and that was Nick Vickerson who dropped from .328 to .305 and Cody Freeman who dropped from .301 to .294, and Ryan Collins who went from .271 to .266. We also have the SEC's leader in hitting as of right now in Jarrod Parks. Jonathan Ogden, Wes Thigpen made big improvements in their hitting, we had some freshmen that were pretty solid for freshmen in Daryl Norris, CT Bradford and Adam Frazier, who all hit over .250 for MSU.
Also, we improved our team fielding percentage from .958 to .969- and that's with Ogden struggling because of an abdominal strain. We also do a much better job of getting to balls and limiting bloop hits. That has been huge all year long- see Jaron's diving catch last night as an example. We really don't make a lot of mistakes on defense- like missing the cut off man, and etc.
Another interesting fact- our stolen base totals last year- 57 and this year- 82. This is another sign of increasing team speed, and also in part because of the fact that we are in the lead more.
And here's one that really jumped out at me- Last year, we struck out 431 times. This year 363 times- or 68 fewer times than last year. The home run totals went down, obviously, and I do think that is a place for improvement in the future- we need to recruit more power hitters to try ot balance out the lineup.
Finally, one thing I talked about in the preseaon was that the team's attitude would be noticably better. I don't think anyone will debate me on that. This team has a bunch of players that have come together and they bust their *** for MSU. One of the players from a couple of seasons ago is sueing Cohen essentially because he is a *****. OK, now that was what Cohen was trying to win with for a large part of the previous two seasons. No, not all the players were like Forrest Moore, but there was enough and if you have 10-15 guys like Moore on your team, there are going to be problems unless we have a coach that will coddle them. Of course, coaches that coddle players usually don't win. I think it's pretty evident that we've purged most- I'll even go ahead and say all of that from our system. Thank God. And at the same time, we're adding to our talent base. We've now taken the step from bad SEC team to average SEC team. We all want to be an elite SEC team, and the only way to do that is to add legit SEC talent until eventually we have a team that is like South Carolina, Vandy, Florida, etc. I feel like we are on that track. Part of that track is going to postseason play, and doing well in postseason play. That is the next thing that our players will get to experience, and once we get that experience, hopefully that translates into a team that will do well in the Regionals, and the future teams that will do well in the Super Regionals, and then go to Omaha, and then hopefully someday have a chance to win the National Championship. But as for the present, we'll see how our team does in the postseason and what kind of a draw that they get. I wish them well!
And now, we are in the SEC Tournament, and pretty much a lock for a regional- we are also likely a two seed, and certainly no worse than a three.
Despite some on here who told me that Butch Thompson was "our problem", our pitching has improved. Is it where it needs to be? No. But it's much better than last year. From 6.87 to 4.31 as of right now. The biggest problem right now is our starting pitching getting us deep into games. That is something that I expect to get better next year- Stratton, a healthy Nick Routt, and then guys like Daryl Norris and Evan Mitchell, and maybe even a couple of true freshmen like Trevor Fitts and Jacob Lindgren or some wild cards such as Kendall Graveman or Luis Pollerena. Even if it doesn't, our bullpen should be very, very strong with Caleb Reed and Ben Bracewell coming back, and hopefully the return of Pollerena to the bullpen.
As far as the hitting, that went down from .296 to .284. That's fairly comparable especially when you consider the new bats this year. One other encouraging thing to me as far as the hitting- of the players that were juniors last year, only three primary starters did not improve- and that was Nick Vickerson who dropped from .328 to .305 and Cody Freeman who dropped from .301 to .294, and Ryan Collins who went from .271 to .266. We also have the SEC's leader in hitting as of right now in Jarrod Parks. Jonathan Ogden, Wes Thigpen made big improvements in their hitting, we had some freshmen that were pretty solid for freshmen in Daryl Norris, CT Bradford and Adam Frazier, who all hit over .250 for MSU.
Also, we improved our team fielding percentage from .958 to .969- and that's with Ogden struggling because of an abdominal strain. We also do a much better job of getting to balls and limiting bloop hits. That has been huge all year long- see Jaron's diving catch last night as an example. We really don't make a lot of mistakes on defense- like missing the cut off man, and etc.
Another interesting fact- our stolen base totals last year- 57 and this year- 82. This is another sign of increasing team speed, and also in part because of the fact that we are in the lead more.
And here's one that really jumped out at me- Last year, we struck out 431 times. This year 363 times- or 68 fewer times than last year. The home run totals went down, obviously, and I do think that is a place for improvement in the future- we need to recruit more power hitters to try ot balance out the lineup.
Finally, one thing I talked about in the preseaon was that the team's attitude would be noticably better. I don't think anyone will debate me on that. This team has a bunch of players that have come together and they bust their *** for MSU. One of the players from a couple of seasons ago is sueing Cohen essentially because he is a *****. OK, now that was what Cohen was trying to win with for a large part of the previous two seasons. No, not all the players were like Forrest Moore, but there was enough and if you have 10-15 guys like Moore on your team, there are going to be problems unless we have a coach that will coddle them. Of course, coaches that coddle players usually don't win. I think it's pretty evident that we've purged most- I'll even go ahead and say all of that from our system. Thank God. And at the same time, we're adding to our talent base. We've now taken the step from bad SEC team to average SEC team. We all want to be an elite SEC team, and the only way to do that is to add legit SEC talent until eventually we have a team that is like South Carolina, Vandy, Florida, etc. I feel like we are on that track. Part of that track is going to postseason play, and doing well in postseason play. That is the next thing that our players will get to experience, and once we get that experience, hopefully that translates into a team that will do well in the Regionals, and the future teams that will do well in the Super Regionals, and then go to Omaha, and then hopefully someday have a chance to win the National Championship. But as for the present, we'll see how our team does in the postseason and what kind of a draw that they get. I wish them well!
