Sebaseball.com's weekly "bubble wrap"...

[8dog]

has a pic of Nick Routt on the cover. I don't subscribe, but Im guessing that losing 6 of 7 SEC series has us squarely on the bubble finally.

We really need 2 of these last 3 series and avoiding a sweep in the third. That puts us at 13 wins and gets us in.

Just went to see how Iowa is doing--Last place in the Big Ten. Wow. Just wow.

 

[OMlawdog]

and I think he is right.

The SEC has had more bad mid week losses than I can remember in recent years. Throw in the fact that the SEC west is just nothing but bad baseball teams from top to bottom. Arkansas may be the best team, but they are very inconsistent. If Bama is the best team in the West, than the SEC West really is down.

Just bad baseball. I know Ole Miss sucks and Im actually at the point where I don't want us to make a regional as 3 seedjust so Bianco is forced to make some changes to his staff. Either that or MSU make it to a regional and somehow win it. That would also help us make some staff changes.

Im still really surprised how bad the SEC West is this year.

 

[8dog]

as for the other 5 teams--State, AU, and Bama have been average or worse more than good the majority of the last several years. Plus AU and Bama lost a ton from last year's teams.

With Ark and OM, I think its just a matter of you can't keep losing lots of good talent and keep chugging along without having a down year. It was bound to happen.

I think I'd put Georgia in as a above average. What happened to them in the first half of the year is remarkable.

But yeah, the other teams are average. Im not even sure State is average. We are just getting by on 4 arms getting us 1 win a weekend and the fact that we have played Vandy, SC, and Florida.

I don't know what staff changes will do for ya'll-- Bianco is a pitching guru so there is no need for a pitching coach. Ya'll are recruiting as well as you possibly can. Im just not sure what a hitting coach is going to do for you. Its like with Cohen, having a hitting head coach doesn't do a ton for you. Kids can generally hit or they can't. Im not saying you can't teach hitting, but most of the really good ones were born to hit---Rea, Wren, Tatum...guys like that.

 

[JacksonDevilDog]

Starting with South Alabama tonight. We could go 3-1 over the next 4 with MVSU coming in for 2 games. That would put us at 30-19 after the Valley series with an RPI probably in the low 30's. We don't need to sh*t the bed this weekend.

 

[OMlawdog]

They are really struggling adjusting to the new bats. A good friend of mine who is a die hard LSU fan has told me that he has seen more warning track outs this year than any year he can remember.

Bama and AU were good last year, but Bama losing pitching and AU losing a ton of talent has hurt them, and they really aren't good baseball teams. Watching MSU and Ole Miss is just really frustrating for both fan bases. It seems both schools struggle at hitting with men in scoring position and MSU doesn't have any power and Ole Miss can't play defense.

I don't have a problem with Bianco's development of pitching, and overall pitching hasn't been our problem. We are striking way too much, and at times our baserunning is T-Ball level at times. I just think he has too much on his plate and can use some qualified help.

I think he has corrected the recruiting problem but people aren't too happy to find out that we are in complete rebuilding mode in year 11. Problem is that our recruiting has improved, but compared to the SEC it really hasn't. Its turning out like Football Recruiting where a top 25 class don't mean **** when you are 8th in the SEC.</p>

 

[8dog]

you can't stop other teams from recruiting well.

A rebuilding mode after a pretty damn good run of 7 seasons isn't anything to be upset about. Most schools have rebuilding years more often.

 

[OMlawdog]

They don't see any positives to Bianco. None. They think he has destroyed the program and needs to be fired immediately. I understand the frustration, but I don't agree with the firing of Bianco talk. First off, it ain't going to happen. Secondly, I think he has earned the right to turn it around.

My biggest concern is that his freshman aren't really producing. Overbey, Allen and Wahl all had big accolades before arriving on campus, and to me only Wahl has shown flashes. Now next year's class on paper is pretty damn strong, at least according to Perfect Game, but if they don't come in and contribute, I think Bianco will be in trouble. He has built the monster, and it needs to be fed. This year ain't gonna cut it. If he has another bad year, he will have a hard time justifying his salary and more importantly tickets won't be bought and the banker will not be happy.</p>

 

[patdog]

We're at #29 now. South Alabama is #109, 3 against #87 Tennessee and 2 agaisnt #267MVSU. We should probably hope for 2 days of a downpour in Starkville next Tuesday/Wednesday.

 

[8dog]

said "no way, Im not leaving to go to OM", would that cause OM fans to rethink their position on Bianco.

Because it doesn't matter what you pay, its hard to sway someone without a connection to your program to leave a HC job.

And on a side note, Louisville sucks this year.

 

[JacksonDevilDog]

nm

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

I think he has corrected the recruiting problem but people aren't too happy to find out that we are in complete rebuilding mode in year 11.

2-3 years of supreme overachievement notwithstanding, MSU baseball has been in rebuilding mode for the last 25 years.

 

[OMlawdog]

They are 25-18 in the freaking Big East in year 3.

Personally I don't think there is anyway McDonnell takes the job if Ole Miss just up and fires Bianco. No chance. I don't think its because he wouldn't leave Louisville, but it would be because we fired Mike. Dan is a loyal guy, and isn't going to take a job where we just fired his friend. It won't happen, and honestly it shouldn't.

The funniest coaching desires are the people that want Corbin from Vandy. What is the biggest complaint about Bianco? No Omaha. Corbin = 0 trips to Omaha with much more talented teams that Ole Miss has ever assembled. So we want to hire coach that has had more talent yet the same amount of success? Really?

Personally I think Ole Miss and MSU can hire most anyone in the country for their head coaching jobs in baseball. I really believe that. The money is simply too good for some to pass up.

I really think that Bianco is simply an easy target and after a year of sucking at anything Ole Miss sports related this year, he really is catching a lot of heat, some deserved, and some not. The way we are losing game really isn't helping. If we were losing games the way we lost against Florida that would be one thing, but some of the losses (the two against USM stand out) were just bad news bears type losses. Guys on 2nd and 3rd, no outs in the 10th inning, and we don't score a run? Against AU, guys on 1st and 3rd, no outs, and we don't score a run in the 7th while up 2? A guy failing to score from 2nd, on a double because the 3rd base coach told him to turn around 40 feet from home? Walking 12 guys in a game? Pinch hitting your 5 hole hitter for a guy hitting .180?

Like I said, the frustration is really coming from the way we are losing games, not just the state of the program. There are a few guys on this year's team that are pretty solid players, and we really won't lose a whole lot from this year's team. Our best two hitter Mathis and Yarborough are sophmores and probably will be 4 year guys. Overbey has a chance to be good if he learns how to field a hard hit grounder, and Allen and Poole have + power, but don't really make contact all that often.

It should be interesting to see what happens after another sweep this weekend. </p>

 

[RobbieRandolph]

..

 

[Todd4State]

He may be right about the SEC having 3 great teams and then 9 average ones, but really, how many conferences can say that top to bottom?

If USM was in the SEC, they would be amongst the average teams. This year, they are everyone's darlings.

Anyway, moving Pollorena is either going to make or break us, I think.

We've got to play just a little bit better- we only lost both of those games to Alabama by one run apiece. I'm not saying those games were moral victories- but they were certainly games that our players learned some lessons from. Yes, it was disappointing and we should have won, but it's not like we were blown out of the water either.

And Louisville has gradually gotten worse since McDonnell has been there. He inherited a team that had a 1st or 2nd round third baseman who was a freak of nature and a legit ace and he went to Omaha in year one.

 

[State82]

This is something that I have been harping on for years. We also discussed it this weekend after the Saturday debacle. I have always said that, at this level of baseball, D1 and the SEC especially, once you make it here out of high school, you can either hit or you can't hit. Maybe 1 in 10 come to this level mediocre hitters and coaching improves them significantly over time. But for the big majority, coaching at this level is not going to make a big difference when it comes to really smoking a baseball. You may be able to do a little tweaking here and there, but big time hitters know how to do it when they get to college. And until Cohen finds a group that can do that, we will continue to see the same old results year after year. Even with the new bats, this is still a hitter's game. Unless you have at least 2 Paul Maholms, Eric Duboses and the like. And a Thigpen or Papelbon to close. The chances of that are basically nil.

 

[basedog]

You hit right on the mark with:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" Kids can generally hit or they can't. I'm not saying you can't teach hitting, but most of the really good ones were born to hit"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And this comes down to recruiting, either Cohen is gonna win with recruiting better or he will be gone very soon. I've said it many times, you either can hit or you can't, same with throwing and fielding. Yeah practice with good fundamental coaching helps, but in baseball you got to have eye and hand coordination.

I think what has surprised me most of all about Cohen (so for) is he hasn't got the "top talent" I thought he would have gotten.

 

[Todd4State]

with JUCO players- they are JUCO for a reason. Often times the reason that they are JUCO is because they can't hit. That's what we are playing with for the most part right now.

I do agree that talent has a lot to do with hitting. For an example, many players are taught the same hitting approach as Albert Pujols- look for fastballs and adjust off of that, try to hit the ball up the middle and go gap to gap. However, they are no Albert Pujols. I remember ESPN did a segment where they had Pujols talking about hitting, and naturally I was interested, only to find out that he was saying the exact same thing that my Dad taught me as a child. It wasn't anything Earth shattering. It all comes down to hand eye coordination and being able to generate bat speed.

That said, experience helps a lot as well. The fact of the matter is, most hitters get better over time in the SEC. Not very many freshmen are able to hit .300 like CT Bradford is doing right now. You can go back and look at guys throughout their careers and usually their worst year was their freshman year. A lot of it is because they aren't used to seeing as many good pitchers in high school as they get to see in the SEC. Even Will Clark and Rafael Palmeiro were not the hitters that they would be as juniors when they were freshmen.

But back to JUCO hitters- another problem is when they get to MSU or wherever as juniors, they have to make that adjustment again, and then they have one year left. So, you're hoping to get one good year out of those players, as opposed to two or three.

Based on what I have seen out of the freshmen and some of the guys that we have coming in, we are getting good talent, it's just that we have to wait until they become a little more experienced at this point.

 

[basedog]

being good SEC hitters for the future. But just watching Frazier who has a good glove and puts the ball into play, but he really isn't gonna be a star or nor do I think he will hit close to.300, Stark looks to be more of a closer although he hasn't really played the field much to really know. Not really sure about any others especially Sophs, time will tell.
I think Cohen has done a better job so for in recruiting pitchers, but yet again I don't see any sure fire stars.

I agree with you it takes time, but we need some major recruiting as for as hitters go, not even sure we have any in the incoming recruits we signed. But let me say this, I have seen major improvement in this year team, but we got a ways to go to get to the top 4 teams in the SEC.

 

[independencebowlmainstay]

with JUCO players- they are JUCO for a reason. Often times the reason that they are JUCO is because they can't hit. That's what we are playing with for the most part right now.

I do agree that talent has a lot to do with hitting. For an example, many players are taught the same hitting approach as Albert Pujols- look for fastballs and adjust off of that, try to hit the ball up the middle and go gap to gap. However, they are no Albert Pujols. I remember ESPN did a segment where they had Pujols talking about hitting, and naturally I was interested, only to find out that he was saying the exact same thing that my Dad taught me as a child. It wasn't anything Earth shattering. It all comes down to hand eye coordination and being able to generate bat speed.

That said, experience helps a lot as well. The fact of the matter is, most hitters get better over time in the SEC. Not very many freshmen are able to hit .300 like CT Bradford is doing right now. You can go back and look at guys throughout their careers and usually their worst year was their freshman year. A lot of it is because they aren't used to seeing as many good pitchers in high school as they get to see in the SEC. Even Will Clark and Rafael Palmeiro were not the hitters that they would be as juniors when they were freshmen.

But back to JUCO hitters- another problem is when they get to MSU or wherever as juniors, they have to make that adjustment again, and then they have one year left. So, you're hoping to get one good year out of those players, as opposed to two or three.

Based on what I have seen out of the freshmen and some of the guys that we have coming in, we are getting good talent, it's just that we have to wait until they become a little more experienced at this point.

In fact, I think this is the year that the SEC doesn't get all 8 tourney teams in. The last three in will be in trouble if they are out in 2. This will be the perfect year for the NCAA to take some teams from the Northeast or smaller conferences, because quite frankly, the SEC doesn't deserve more than 5, at the most, 6.