The State of State Athletics...

[DowntownDawg]

...like most, I was disappointed that we put up 3 against Sacred Heart in baseball. I think the jury is out on this season, but it's safe to say that we're not going to set the world on fire, and that we are going to struggle offensively.

We're also coming off probably the worst basketball season under Stansbury, when you factor in the wasted potential and embarrassment factor.

When multiple programs have long term struggles, the administration has to be examined. Obviously, Scott hasn't been there long enough to do much, but I wonder if he didn't need to put a little more pressure on our coaches in the offseason, most specifically when Kirby announced his departure. It seems like Stricklin just let Rick go hire another yes man, instead of stepping in and demanding input and forcing him to hire a coach who could, you know, contribute to the program.

In baseball, if we can't do anything this year, something will have to give, at least from an assistant coaching standpoint. And as I pointed out last year, there's no way Cohen gets more than 4 years at this rate of success. And the time for a new pitching coach was last year, so you are not bringing somebody into a lame duck situation.

I think Scott is a charismatic guy and probably a strong fundraiser, but it looks like there are some tough decisions coming with two coaches who have big egos. I hope he's up to it. The genius of the ninja was that he was obviously unafraid to make the tough call..

 

[DowntownDawg]

...like most, I was disappointed that we put up 3 against Sacred Heart in baseball. I think the jury is out on this season, but it's safe to say that we're not going to set the world on fire, and that we are going to struggle offensively.

We're also coming off probably the worst basketball season under Stansbury, when you factor in the wasted potential and embarrassment factor.

When multiple programs have long term struggles, the administration has to be examined. Obviously, Scott hasn't been there long enough to do much, but I wonder if he didn't need to put a little more pressure on our coaches in the offseason, most specifically when Kirby announced his departure. It seems like Stricklin just let Rick go hire another yes man, instead of stepping in and demanding input and forcing him to hire a coach who could, you know, contribute to the program.

In baseball, if we can't do anything this year, something will have to give, at least from an assistant coaching standpoint. And as I pointed out last year, there's no way Cohen gets more than 4 years at this rate of success. And the time for a new pitching coach was last year, so you are not bringing somebody into a lame duck situation.

I think Scott is a charismatic guy and probably a strong fundraiser, but it looks like there are some tough decisions coming with two coaches who have big egos. I hope he's up to it. The genius of the ninja was that he was obviously unafraid to make the tough call..

 

[maroonmania]

so if JC doesn't work it will definitely be the one black eye on Byrne's tenure. Could be an interesting situation in baseball too because we have moaned and groaned about Butch Thompson for a couple of years but right now the pitching and defense is the strength of the team and the offense is sucking wind. If we lay an egg this year due to no run production whereas the last 2 years have been because we couldn't keep people from scoring then what do you do?

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

Well the Ninja is solely responsible for Cohen, so if JC doesn't work it will definitely be the one black eye on Byrne's tenure.

 

[patdog]

Yes, I'm still bitter about what he did to our baseball program.</p>

 

[maroonmania]

he's still the reason this baseball program went off in the ditch. Whether or not JC can pull it out of the ditch doesn't change that fact. And unless Raffo had great and wonderful ideas on running a program that Polk repeatedly squashed I don't think TR would have been the answer either. I'm still willing to give Cohen this year and next before final judgment but I know some will be ready after this year if our team doesn't produce significantly improved results.

 

[Rabbitt]

...you have to put blame on Larry Templeton for hiring him back. I, along with many others were totally pissed and predicted what would happen! At that time, we could have any great coach in the nation! The coach we should have taken is now at LSU!

 

[patdog]

but I was pretty pissed when we re-hired Polk.

 

[Frances Drebin]

...it's a little too early to sound the alarm over baseball. It's still early in the year. The offense may come around.

Basketball, yeah, it's time for Striklin to step in and fix that.

 

[Todd4State]

...you have to put blame on Larry Templeton for hiring him back. I, along with many others were totally pissed and predicted what would happen! At that time, we could have any great coach in the nation! The coach we should have taken is now at LSU!

I said at the time it would set MSU baseball back 10 years. We're now in year 10.

When I made the prediction, people on Genespage told me- "His batteries are re-charged like never before".

People didn't listen.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...at least relative to the rise of SEC baseball was probably the most harmful thing that anybody could do to an athletic program at State, including the NCAA. I think that the shape that he, McNickle, and Raffo left the program in was so far beyond what Croom inherited from Jackie or what Mullen inherited from Croom.

Cohen has basically had to start a baseball program over from nothing. And he's had 2 full recruiting classes. His first was full of pitching, and they appear to be starting to pull it together and perform as sophomores, and his second was full of position guys who are contributing, but not swinging the bats well. His first short class was full of juco guys and they have not helped. I tend to give him more leniency based on the above. But we need a regional this year. Period.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...Cohen has proven he is a hitting coach and I expect the bats to come around.

That said, he has got to make the right personnel decisions, and it is hard to see why Collins is out there, Thigpen is playing so much, Frost, etc.

 

[Todd4State]

the one with position players- to also get better as they get older- similar to what has happened with our pitchers.

It's a huge jump from high school baseball to college- some are able to make it more easily than others- such as Norris, Stark, Bradford, and last year with Stratton. But most are more like Demarcus Henderson and Adam Frazier.

Hunter Renfroe has disappointed me as a hitter- I would say that he might be a bust except for the fact that it looks like he can at least be a pretty good relief pitcher.

Polk had lost touch with how to recruit and that to me, is what hurt him. Along with the fact that he seemed to care more about what the NCAA was doing rather than MSU baseball. At least Cohen is 100% committed to MSU baseball and not "other" things like trying to save the college baseball universe. Russ McNickle didn't know what he was doing- that killed our pitching from a recruiting and health standpoint. Raffo was a yes man. He had some good ideas, but Polk wouldn't let him do some of the things he wanted to do. I'm not sure how much better his ideas would have been because I don't think he was as good a recruiter as most of the other people in the SEC, and certainly not as good as Cohen - or rather I should say Burroughs and Thompson.

 

[Todd4State]

How many 17 times does he have to prove that he still can't get the job done? Victor Diaz should have been redshirted.

And yet, we have Taylor Stark, CT Bradford, Daryl Norris- they have been lights out. I know that they are dual position, but that's a fairly solid looking bullpen right there. And even Hunter Renfroe has looked more promising than Statz and Diaz.

The only thing I'll defend Cohen on here is it seems like Frost is playing a lot less to me lately. I might be wrong about that, but it seems that way. Collins needs to play less for sure. Thigpen is better defensively than Freeman, and he handles the pitching staff better. But it's also not like Freeman is horrible behind the plate.

Our lineup SHOULD look like this:

C- Freeman
1B- Norris
2B- Vickerson
3B- Parks
SS- Ogden
RF- Brownlee
CF- Jaron
LF- Bradford
DH- Freshman du jour- Taylor Stark, Demarcus Henderson, Hunter Renfroe- we need to get these guys at bats.

 

[patdog]

and has actually managed to make it worse and at the same time call for Stans to be fired. I agree that Stans needs to be feeling some heat next year, but he never lost to a Sacred Heart (almost lost 2 of 3, but won the 2nd game by 1 run that scored on a wild pitch) or a Jackson State.

 

[VinceVega70]

Hiring John Cohen made sense. It's been discussed on this board a million times. Of the available candidates who wanted the job, he met all the right criteria (success as HC, MSU alum with strong desire to be here, etc.) and had arguably the best resume. There was no fault in hiring him.
There seem to be two schools of thoughton this. Those who recognize that the Cohen hire was a no-brainer (whether he succeeds or not) and those who side with Coach Polk and think we made a mistake by deviating fromthe Polkagenda. The latter group tended to support Tommy Raffo.
Tommy Raffo, though a very nice guy, was under Coach Polk's thumb and would not likelyhave brought about the change in direction that our program needed. Also,many of us believe thathead coachingexperience and successare prerequisitefor consideration for ourHC job.

Whether Cohen ultimately succeeds or not, the hire wassound thinking.
</p>

 

[futaba.79]

already?? I think I'll give him more than 16 games.

 

[Todd4State]

And even worse- he lost to teams with much more talent than our baseball team has(d).

It's not like Stans has beat everyone that he should non-conference either.

 

[Todd4State]

he has looked completely overmatched when he had an at bat.

I do agree- it's too early to tell, though.

 

[patdog]

In fact, he's the first baseball coach at MSU to post 2 straight losing seasons since before WW II. And now he's looking real strong to post a 3rd straight losing season.

 

[Todd4State]

That doesn't change the fact that Stansbury has lost to crap teams as well. That was what you were talking about right?

If you were saying that Stansbury was a more successful coach than Cohen at this point, I would absolutely agree with you.

Heck, at least Cohen won the series, even if it came on a wild pitch. I'd take that over losing the series or worse, being swept.

Heck, how many times did Polk lose to someone like Dallas Baptist, UAB, Jackson State (Yep, Polk lost to them too), LA TECH WITH A 6 RUN LEAD, Middle Tennessee State, and Belhaven (Yep- 1992)? Some of those came with CWS caliber teams.

And it's not just us- LSU lost to freaking Princeton with their Sunday starter, and Florida got their *** kicked by Georgia Southern. And those are better teams than we are right now. Shoot, Auburn lost to Bethune-Cookman and Radford.

 

[patdog]

Of course Stans has some bad losses. Way too many of them in the last 5 years (he actually had very few bad losses before then). And if Cohen had just the occasional bad loss, it wouldn't be a problem.But just this year, he's lost to Sacred Heart, been swept by Iowa (their other 3 wins are over Southern Utah, a split with Georgia St., and a split with Texas A&M - Corpus Christi) and lost to Belmont. That's a LOT of bad losses. When has Stans ever had 4 losses that bad in one season? BTW, Rider had an RPI of #139 the year Stans lost to them. It was a bad loss, but not a terrible one.

 

[Todd4State]

Florida Atlantic, East Tennessee State, San Diego, Hawaii? Do Auburn and LSU count as bad losses even though they are SEC teams?

Regardless, comparing a basketball coach to a baseball coach is apples and oranges. Cohen also has beaten Belmont twice and Sacred Heart twice. A basketball coach only gets one chance to beat a non-conference team unless they happen to play each other in the postseason.

Baseball is more about winning series than anything. Really, the only one that we haven't won was Iowa, and since you want to play the "luck" card for our win over Sacred Heart- Iowa was lucky to win that first game- CT falls down on a wet outfield, which gives them a triple to start the game on a routine fly ball. They got a run out of that. Then the umpire finally called the delay only after a wild pitch got another runner to third with less than two outs- a ball that either of our catchers handle in anything other than a downpour. That delay also got Devin Jones out of the game early for Iowa. And on top of that, the umpire blew a call where we were safe at home and the catcher dropped the ball.

I'll get worried if we lose one of these next two games- as you know my prediction was that we would go 16-4 these first 20 games. We are about in line with that- we should beat Valley in the make-up game, and I know that we are down to UAB by a run, but we also have two runners on and no outs when they stopped the game. That certainly could go either way- we win these next two, and we are essentially 15-5 at worst, assuming we lose to UAB.

 

[anon1751035439]

inquiringmindsandshitku

 

[Frances Drebin]

...are you really comparing a bad loss in baseball to a bad loss in basketball? Bad losses happen in baseball. That's why they play series instead of individual games. Sure we have a loss to Sacred Heart, but we won the series. Bad teams may have one great pitcher, or the weather may play a role, or whatever. But bad teams win baseball games, often against good teams. Many other SEC schools (much better ones than us, by the way) also have losses to bad teams already this year. Hell, the Kansas City Royals won 67 games last year. Like Polk used to say, "that's baseball."

You say Stans never lost to a Sacred Heart, but a loss to FAU or Hawaii or East Tennessee in basketball (and he manages to lose a couple of games like this almost every year) is a whole lot worse than a loss to Sacred Heart in baseball.

 

[Xartox]

He's added additional turds on Dudy Noble the past 2 seasons and start of this season on top of the big ole juicy turd Polk left. Some of the decisions he makes just leaves even those with any common baseball knowledge scratching their heads. I'm holding out hope that he gets it turned around, but I'm definitely not in the give him another year or 2 category. IF he doesn't get it done this year, at a minimum some major staff changes need to occur.

 

[Tds &amp; Beer]

In fact, he's the first baseball coach at MSU to post 2 straight losing seasons since before WW II. And now he's looking real strong to post a 3rd straight losing season.

The fact that Cohen has had two losing seasons is irrelevant in this discussion. He was supposed to. And comparing bad losses in basketball to bad losses inbaseball isbeyond comparing apples to oranges.One loss out of three to sacred heart is no reason to get down on a coach. Cohen is basically starting a program from scratch and getting great recruiting classes. Stansbury is having meltdowns in his 13th season. There is a huge difference. Those that can't see that are not worth arguing with.