1. Ryan and Tasmin: OK these are the two studs in LA. The outcome of these recruiting battles in football and basketball will be a good measuring stick as to the current strength of our in state recruiting abilities. Anybody know any valid inside scoop? Should I be nervous? Or is either of the two a lock? 2. How should Smoke and his assistants recruit? People forget that we routinely have the basically the most talented recruiting classes each year, but lose out on some potential stars to the MLB draft. How do we adapt? Should we recruit players with a lower level of potential to have a staff of good pitchers and a steady lineup. Or do we keep wasting time on the chance to have that great staff only to see it diminish into a thin, underachieving one?
I don't think the baseball team underachieves. They were clearly not the best of the 8 teams in Omaha. I would say we were only stronger than Arizona and maybe Arkansas or Georgia. That's about it. Miami and SC were both favorites to beat us (not heavy favorites, but favorites nonetheless). I would like to finally see LSU land another Ben McDonald type pitcher. You need a horse you can count on to ride all the way to the title. Having 3 or 4 good/decent pitchers just doesn't do it unless you play gorilla ball like we did in the 90s.
When I say underachieve I don't mean they dont play with heart and don't do a good job. Rather, I am referring to the failure to live up to expectations people place on them. I am referring to the fact that they weren't one of the best of the 8 teams. A dominant pitching staff would have made us the number 1 out of 8. But we have lost out on many pitchers who could have been the final pieces for that dominating staff. Perhaps if we had found guys that were really good that would not have been drafted then we could have added some quality depth behind the talented pitchers we did have, who although were talented and good guys, could not get the job done by themselves. We have got to recruit the guys that are 8/10's - not the guys that are 9 and 10/10s. They all get drafted, and we get screwed. We need to get the best of the 2nd tier. The top of the 2nd tier are the best college pitchers. Thats who we need. JMO
Baseball Recruiting LSU needs to reassess the type of hitters it is recruiting as well. LSU recruits, or coaches its players to be, primarily pull hitters instead of contact hitters. Pull hitters are a high risk high reward proposition. When they make contact they score runs in bunches. They can make average and below pitching look silly, but they tend to come up empty against good pitching. As LSU advances from Regional to Super Regional to Omaha it will likely continue to face more good pitchers and struggle to score runs.
They need to recruit more hitters with decent speed and the fundamental ability to lay down a decent bunt when asked to. This team has hit into far too many double plays in the last two years...often killing rallies or squelching big innings. With the new "dead" bats, "Gorilla ball" has gone the way of the dinosaur. To keep up, we're going to have to become more adept at fundamental things like the bunt, the hit-and-run (a real lost art) and stealing bases. The popular term for such is "small ball", but I like to refer to it as good, solid strategic baseball.
Good post G_MAN. Agreed. But we definitely need a dominant strikeout pitcher both as starter and closer as well. The problem with having good pitchers who are not strikeout pitchers is that they have too many great hitters at the CWS. When you don't have the ability to strike them out, then they put the ball in play much more often, and you get hit hard eventually or give up bloop hits and seeing eye hits, much like what happened to Mestepay. LSU has not successfully recruited that type of pitcher lately.
