With 2 Weeks Until Opening Day of MSU Baseball

[Dinkle]

what is your realistic prediction for this team?

 

[Moonlight Graham]

nt

 

[engie]

They are two very different things. It's hard to put a number on this team, because of the youth and unknowns in the field.

prediction - 35-22, win 2 in Hoover, #2 in away regional.

goal - 40-17, make the finals in Hoover, host and win a regional, make another Super.

The major thing is, with baseball, you can get hot at the right time, and ride the wave all the way to Omaha. It takes a different mindset to win the big games in the postseason. Thusfar, Cohen and the players he's recruited, appear to have the right mindset for success in this environment. If we can peak at the right time, Omaha is NOT out of the question. We have the pitching depth and experience to do it this year(last yr we didnt). We just need our young hitters to really step up...

 

[Todd4State]

I think we'll win 36 games or so. I'd like for us to improve our SEC record a little bit- go from 14 to 17 wins. I think we have a shot to maybe host a regional, and I'd like to go back to a SR and then to Omaha and build on last year.

I think we'll probably finish third in the West.

Our pitching will be strong, and our defense should be pretty good- and that's going to give us a good chance to win a lot of games. I don't think we have the firepower offensively quite yet to do anything grand mainly because of youth and inexperience. We have a chance to hit with more power than last year, but that's also somewhat of a question mark in my mind because the guys with power are young in general. Ultimately, I think we will be OK offensively, but I also think we will have some rough stretches because of our youth that we will have to kind of have to work through.

I think we might win more non-conference games early on than last year because our pitching is going to be a little bit more settled than last year early in the year. We have more guys that know what their role is and we won't have to experiment as much, plus Routt should be 100% to start the year. We're going to have to figure out who fits where and whether we need to go with a platoon at first and second or if someone will emerge and we'll have to see if a freshman does better than expected- like a Philip Casey or Matthew Britton- and where we can fit them in.

Really, figuring out that sort of thing- I don't think we have any major glaring needs- first base was an issue to me last year because Ryan Collins was kind of out of position there and his bat didn't really profile there either- but he was one of our best nine players in general and we had to find a place for him. The biggest thing to me is getting guys at bats and experience throughout the year and continue to build on our success. Guys like Wes Rea, Hunter Renfroe, Demarcus Henderson, Brandon Woodruff in particular. I'd like to see what Nick Flair could do, but he has been banged up.

 

[hotdigitydog]

this club.......Said it was the deepest pitching staff he'd ever had.........Was very complimentary of Will Cox as well..........Said he consistently pounds the strike zone and keeps his pitches down in the strike zone.....Sounds like Stratton could learn a thing or two from the freshman......In the end, just too many position players and sticks to replace so I'm going with .500 in SEC play and 37 wins......It's the next year where we could be VERY good.....

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

..so our record is not so marred by ******, inexcusable losses, we can't host a regional.


My expectation is to see this team not lose to Tiny Tech & Little Sister State in March & then get swept by somebody like Kentucky in April.


That has happened every year for the last 3-4 years.


Then when we finally get hot, we find ourselves a #3 seed in somebody else's regional.


So my expectation to to not 17 up early, & not 17 up against inferior competition.

 

[Todd4State]

Has performed the best of the freshmen pitchers so far to be honest with you. He's a good example of a guy that scouts didn't pay attention to him because he doesn't throw 94, but all he does is get the job done and get outs.

As long as he stays healthy, he will get drafted after his junior year though.

 

[hotdigitydog]

nt