Looks like a solid add. Not sure he’s a Friday Night starter, but definitely going to compete for innings.
New Portal Pitcher Add
- Thread starter 57stratdawg
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That’s a really nice add. Pen guy but can give you a lot of IP
are we allowed to be happy about something that happens with baseball?
I’m still doing a wait and see for next year. It does seem to be the best portal year for Lemonis so far
Fire Lem? Or is it disband this club sport that nobody in the country cares about?
Hard to keep these days.
Hard to keep these days.
This is a really great get on our part. He is gonna love Dudy Noble.
I have to say, Lemonis is doing a good job in the portal this summer.
I suspect this guy could have landed just about anywhere he wanted to. I'd say that's a very solid addition.
Have we picked up anybody that could even sniff, let's say, maybe at least a .250 batting average because losing Dakota, Mershon, Hujsak, Hines??, Johnny Long (I kid, I kid) all gone, who the hell is gonna maybe hit a ball occasionally? We know from experience that hitters never develop with our present hitting instructor, they can either hit when they get here or get worse, or that's been the pattern of late
We’ll struggle offensively. But this pitching staff is shaping up to be pretty good.
Hungate, a 6’1” righthander, pitched in 30 games for Virginia in the 2024 season, compiling a 7-2 record with two saves, a 3.74 ERA and 1.17 WHIP in 52 innings of work.
We needed this, I believe.
We needed this, I believe.
Everyone assumes we’ll be bad because we lose a lot of production, but in this new era of college sports, losing production means freeing up cap space.
We lost some power production, but those same bats let us down in "win the game" situations that could have propel State to a Regional Host and eventual Super Regional. Their HRs may not be replaced but their lack of clutch hitting in high leverage spots CAN be replaced by productive at bats instead of K's.
Good pitching plus traditional baseball (moving runners over, put the ball in play, good situational hitting etc.) is my preferred kind of team over the swing for the fences and hope you hit it style, so I’m pretty optimistic at this point.
Jordan and Hines had 8 hits and 5 RBIs (all 5 runs we scored) in the 2 games vs Virginia. They didn't let us down. The other 7 guys in the order did.
And off the top of my head, I can think of at least 2 SEC games we absolutely lose without some Hines heroics.
They won't be replaced easily.
Since I'm sure that I'm one of the ones that people think has it out for Lemonis, let me get this outta the way first. I'm not optimistic about next year, but pitching is not my concern. Yeah, we've got to replace some big arms, but we had a lot of bullpen guys really start to improve towards the end of the year, we had some young talent that we didn't even really see, and simply put... Parker more than earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to being able to give us a chance to win games. We'll be fine on the mound.
Hitting, on the other hand, was a big problem last season, we've lost 70% of the lineup that we had, and we didn't exactly see much from the younger crowd to give us any hope that those guys are ready to take over an everyday job. Worse yet, we brought Gautreau back for some inexplicable reason, so even with the right talent, I don't have any faith whatsoever in them being properly prepared to hit.
All that said, we knew coming into the offseason that we needed a LOT of portal guys, and I have to give credit to the coaching staff for not wasting any time there. I think we had 4-5 guys committed this year prior to the time that we got even one commit last year, so we're at least getting guys. Now it's just a matter of what we can do with them, and again... there's just one main area that I'm deeply concerned about, and I think rightfully so.
Hitting, on the other hand, was a big problem last season, we've lost 70% of the lineup that we had, and we didn't exactly see much from the younger crowd to give us any hope that those guys are ready to take over an everyday job. Worse yet, we brought Gautreau back for some inexplicable reason, so even with the right talent, I don't have any faith whatsoever in them being properly prepared to hit.
All that said, we knew coming into the offseason that we needed a LOT of portal guys, and I have to give credit to the coaching staff for not wasting any time there. I think we had 4-5 guys committed this year prior to the time that we got even one commit last year, so we're at least getting guys. Now it's just a matter of what we can do with them, and again... there's just one main area that I'm deeply concerned about, and I think rightfully so.
I don't know, but I suspect recruiting is much easier after a season in which you've re-established that you are indeed a good baseball program.
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