Give Patterson and Stavinoha the same metal bats those players had and they'd have close to 30 homeruns and a batting average over .400. Don't underestimate what big bats in a small ballpark did for LSU baseball in the 90s. As great as those players were at LSU, none of them made a big impact in MLB swinging wood bats. Joey Albert Belle is the only exception. And that dude Iorg from Tenn seems to be every bit as good as those players you mentioned...
The two you mentioned from LSU were the 2 I was thinking about. Hawpe is in the majors right now and Todd Walker has hit .300 a couple times and is still playing. Larson's time is not done yet hopefully. But with that said, Todd Walker was never a home run hitter. He hit .400 with doubles and singles.........wood, old aluminum, new aluminum, it wouldn't matter. Those guys can flat out hit. Iorg is a fine player and I like to see any team in the SEC with quality players cause it let's me think the good times aren't over.
I agree Walker was more of a gap hitter, but yet he is 4th all time in homeruns with 52 ... 3 more than Belle. I just think it's very difficult to compare hitters before and after the bat changes. Case in point ... the ball Hebert hit off Hochevar's foot yesterday may have injured him if he was swinging the old bat. The speed at which the ball flew off the bat was incredible, as well as dangerous, in the old days. Anyway, I do agree that we don't have as much talent, 1-9, as we did in those glory days. I do believe parity is making its way into college baseball and dynasties are a thing of the past.
For whatever reason, the talent across the country seems down to me although I haven't really seen the CSF's and the Miami's. I'm ready to see these teams in the CWS again to see what they have. I guess I think back to what I call the glory days with Boone at USC slapping homers all over the Box and those CSF teams, the UCLA team we beat....talk about good teams packed into regionals. USC had some teams that would have rivaled ours a few years......... Something's wrong when Baylor and Tulane are feared now.
I believe are deteriorating stadium is starting to hurt us in recruiting. We don't have Skip anymore as a selling point, so facilities has to play a part, and we have some of the worst in the league. Are inability to get any top line pitching has killed us. Also I think smoke goes after far too many JUCO players.
I don't know how much the stadium is hurting us but everytime I go to another school, it kinda pisses me off that our's hasn't already been built. We went to L.A. two seasons ago for the Long Beach St. series and that place is better than ours. Just makes me mad.
