I apologize to the board

Not a problem. Most of us make bold predictions or express strong opinions from time to time and then things turn out differently. It's all good. Our Team BA is next to last in the SEC and our team ERA is next to last as well. Right now we're a mediocre team. Just the way it is with a bunch of games left to turn it around - although the upcoming schedule is brutal.

 

Baseball may be the most fickle sport there is.

 

I’m asking for an honest response from you .Please list the talent on this team that gets good vibes from you .
I have one player that could start for Arkansas, FSU , Kentucky, S Carolina

Maybe 2

 

Yep. Besides golf!

 

This can definitely be referred to as a true statement. All the things that you’ve ever heard about the game apply….

The game is played through peaks and valleys. The key is to realize everyone is successful during their peak times—but you have to stay mentally tough and focused as you play through the valleys.

What I mean there is if at the end of the year you are hitting .300 you’re considered to have had a successful season. Simple math tells us that 7 times out of 10 you made an out. The take on this HAS TO BE be a tough out—hit it on the screws, stay intense and fight the entire AB every AB.

It’s not that much different for pitchers. Truth is you actually go to the mound around 1 time out of 4 times with your best stuff—the rest of the time you have to figure out a way to win (or at least give your team a chance to win) without your best stuff. In other words you have to have the ability to compete your tail off—that’s the mark of a true winner. Never let the other team see you without fire in your eyes.

Unless it’s a true bad hop or extremely windy conditions defensive errors come from one thing and one thing alone—mentally the player was not ready for the ball to be hit to him. This practice goes back to the player’s earliest days when he mentally tells himself EVERY PITCH what he’s going to do if the ball is hit his way.

If you are mentally prepared and ready every pitch on defense—you make your plays.

Our guys are capable of playing the game this way whether they will start or not remains to be seen. This is the hard way to play the game and in my eyes the only way to play the game.

We don’t get better when things are easy—we get better when we face challenges.
Let’s get to it Gators!

 

LOL—now we’re talking team sport vs stand alone competition.

 

One concern is how some solid players have regressed: Heyman, Kurland, Robertson and Fisher to an extent. I agree our talent level is not close to last year but it is not as poor as we've shown our or our record to date. Lots of fundamentals of baseball being ignored and seemingly not coached up. I noted after the MSU series win (Cags two out two run HR walf-off) that we were playing with fire in relying on late innings heroics and in COMO we were exposed big time.

 

Of course they’re not going to start with how they’ve been playing this year. That’s the whole point of this discussion. Guys like Heyman, Shelton, and Kurland have been seriously underperforming despite showing how talented they were as freshmen last year.

 

Pretty sure Kurland is playing with a broken bone in his hand.

 

Yeah he’s still swinging with 9 fingers I think. He’s the player I’m most optimistic about improving as the season goes on for that reason.

 

Evans numbers are dramatically better than last year and Cags is a much more disciplined hitter this year, has cut way down on strikeouts and has his average a good bit higher than 2023. Shelton played 3rd base at Alabama and made a ton of errors, so there was concern about his fielding this season, although his natural position is shortstop and has been pretty good for4 the most part, IMO. Hitting wise, he hit .300 last year with 25 HR, 10 doubles and 51 RBI. This year he's hitting .270 with 15 HR and 32 RBI, so not too far off from 2023. Heyman has definitely taken a step back, though, and has really struggled at the plate. With these sophomores, teams now have a year's worth of film on these guys and have made adjustments on how to pitch them. Some guys have adjusted better than others, for sure. The bottom 1/3 of our order has been atrocious and the pitching woes are a real mystery to me, as on the whole we've been awful.

 

He looked really solid for a while but has been slumping big time as of late. Lots of strikeouts and the batting average is way down. Too much of a three true outcome hitter for my comfort. Should be temporary though, I expect he’ll be back soon enough.

 

No arguments about this—throughout our lineup obviously we are a much better club when we hit it where it’s pitched. Early in the year we were much better at this than our current efforts.


We need to get back to what’s proven and what works!

 

Kurland's bat is coming around I believe. Still not a big fan of him at leadoff due to all the Ks, but don't see a better choice.
To me, the negative on Kurland is those sidearm throws to first.

 

Amen to that

 

Talent or current form haha? I mean talent wise I'd cags, kurland, Evans, Shelton, and shelnut would all start for the teams you mentioned. Current form, 2 is probably right, unfortunately.