this conference is the most loaded of any conference once again. even moreso than usual. while its no longer as top-heavy due to title ix as in the past, the sec still gets most all the major players in the south. after looking over some other previews, the only weak links this year seem to be Auburn and Kentucky. Auburn is at least a year away while kentucky should just fold their program. Everyone else has a puncher's chance at worst. West Surprisingly, I thought the most talent returning was Ole Myth yet soon discovered it is Moo U. shows what I know after doing a little homework. projected finish: 1 Miss St-- last year they finished 42-22 losing only ONE position player-- OF Brad Corley (their best hitter) to the draft. every other starting position player returns which is pretty scary for a ron polk coached team. they lost 2 pitchers from the rotation but it should be improved overall since they gained some much needed experience to a talented young staff. look for them to win the west by more than 2 games. key returners: thomas berkery, brad jones, joseph hunter key losses: brad corley 2. Arkansas--young team last year now more experience. should have a great rotation if they recover from injuries since all 4 starters return. Boyce had bone spurs removed and Land had tj sugery but their ace is LHP Nick Schmidt who pitched for Team USA last year and was a fresh all-american. key returners:1b danny hamblin, of craig gentry & the entire starting rotation. key losses: ss scott hode, 3b clay goodwin 3. Ole Myth--lost their TOP 5 starters and 500 ks from their pitching staff. thats pretty impossible to replace. their likely ace will eventually be a freshman, cody satterwhite who should be dominant in time. their other stud is a freshman as well who will likely be their closer, lance lynn. lynn was drafted in the 6th round out of HS last year but for some reason decided to enter college. HS stats his sr year: 16-0, 0.71 with 180 strikeouts in 99 innings. strength of this team is the left side of the infield, junior 3B chris coghlan and soph SS zack cozart. coghlan is the SECs top returning hitter and won the cape cod League batting title in 2005. Bianco said hes the best hitter he has ever coached so that says a lot plus is also great defensively. OF mark wright also returns after hitting 13 homers last year. this team will rely on their offense more than most to win games while leaning on their young arms. key returners: coghlan, wright and cozart. key losses: stephen head (thank god) and bryan pettway. these 2 had about 40 homers combined last year while head was the ace closer as well. 4. LSU--for LSU to have any success on offense, they need their seniors to have big years. unfortunately the main 2 were the ones that slumped all of '05 in will harris and matt liuzza. quinn stewart is the other one who must play a prominent role. q-man led the alaska league in homers last summer and also rbi. He is vital to this lineup imo. Dirks is the ace of the staff who needs to lead this rotation. Bonura has great stuff but needs to be consistent. Olvey should be a solid #2 guy in the weekend rotation. Need lhp Daniel Forrer who ive heard nothing about and rhp Louis Coleman to step up and push bonura for the 3 spot. jt wise and bogany should make immediate impacts as true freshmen. I look for wise to be the best pure hitter of the new class while bogany will amaze defensively and on the bases. key returners: chris jackson and jordan mayer til injuries. mayer rehabbing well and cj is still there leading the team even though he cant play. he is pushing mayer in rehab while catching for him in his training. key losses: skip bertman 5. Gumps-- bama has some good arms for the postseason if they can make it but they lost most all their offense to graduation. junior LHP Wade LeBlanc should be their friday starter with southeastern LA transfer Bernard Robert somwhere in the mix. key freshman is another lefty starter Miers Quigley who will be special sooner than later plus he has a cool name. key returners: wade leblanc key losses: one of the nation's top young SS's cale iorg (brother of vol star Eli Iorg whom the astros drafted in the first round last year) decided to go on a mormon mission after his freshman year, they also lost 5 other position players to graduation for a total of 6 of 8. 6. Barners--they had the 10th top recruiting class mostly due to landing justin bristow who will play SS. He was an expected 1st round pick but fell to the 22nd rd for some reason so he decided to up his stock and go to college for 3 years. next to bristow at 3b is another true freshman in mike bianucci who crushed the ball in summer league. bristow should be freshman of the year. another nice addition was Luke Greinke (younger brother of 22 yr old zack who is a starting pitcher for the royals) who can pitch and hit. likely a utility do it all type of player for AU. similar to brad wilkerson id guess, who played at uf. key returners: tuberville key losses: obamanu and hiroshima West teams to make the NCAA: Moo U, LSU, Arkansas, Ole Myth and the gumps. barners will be the odd ears out.
no but he's there rallying the team getting everyone ready to go. he's out the whole year but he's at all the practices and meetings pushing them i hear.
Pretty good analysis, but I think it is FORTUNATE that Will Harris and Matt Liuzza slacked off last season...it primes them for great SR. years. Our team is pretty solid. We have QS and BS in the outfield (2 guys who've been in the program and know the system,) and Boggany is supposed to be impressive. Infield is kind of scary without CJ and Mayer, but Hollander and Harris know the positions and Jason Ogata is supposed to be quite a player... Pitching will be as good as last year (at worst...) I think this team is capable of doing GREAT things. On the other hand, the SEC is loaded this year. Provided that LSU loses NO ONE the rest of the season, I say we make a regional without much work at all. Remember that LSU, in the past few years, has lived or died on power-hitting. This year we have something that LSU seems to have always lacked--a pretty balanced team.
I would call him a team leader!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :tigbas: :tigbas: :tigbas: :tigbas: :tigbas:
I think that our Tigers are going to suprise a few people this season. I am not saying that we will be nat'l champs or anything but I think that we can make a strong run through the regionals and into the super regionals. what does everyone else think?
I will always believe in the Tigers :tigbas: :tigbas: :tigbas: :tigbas: :tigbas: It won't matter what LSU! does, I will still be their fan :tigbas: :tigbas: :tigbas: :tigbas: :tigbas:
brilliant analysis as usual....looks like we're starting out strong, that's always a good sign. We won't win them all, but it'll be a hell of a ride!
Bogany and Olvey are nominees for sec players of the week. I must say that North Florida has some pretty impressive arms. their bullpen is suspect but they arent bad at all. nfla lost in the title game for the 1-aa championship last year in then moved up to 1-a this year. they're probably as good as appalachian state was in football. good athletes but probably lack test scores to play for the hgher schools. LSU was pretty impressive. bogany-- what else can be said. exactly as advertised and more. a humble kid who can do it all. got a hit in his first ever at-bat then got picked off. growing pains as expected. bogany went 8 of 11, 1 stolen base, 2 runs and 2 rbi with a great catch on saturday. Wise had 4 hits on the weekend i believe. he batted in the 3 hole which was good to see smoke allow him to get in the mix early putting liuzza 6th. he has a great swing and both of these kids play with great confidence for true freshmen. lost in the hype for bogany is jc transfer steven waguespack. filling in for jordan mayer at 1b, I figured he'd be a much more consistent hitter with much less power. However, he consistently drove the ball in the gaps and gets good wood, err aluminum on the ball. he went 7 for 11 and had key hits each game. he will stay in the lineup even when mayer returns if he continues hitting half this well. he will also have to be moved up in the order. our problem this weekend surely wasnt pitching. it was our seniors not hitting the ball. liuzza looked a lot better than his stats show. he had a couple of good hits in key situation but still pressed at times. will harris killed us in the 4 spot. he went something like 2 for 12 and continually left guys on base after bogany and wise set the table. he will be moved down in the order if he doesnt improve. he doesnt have to necessarily get hits but he has to get better hacks. as i thought, it looks to be mental with him and is gonna be a struggle. derick olvey looked in complete command from his first pitch. the guy which gave him the most trouble was his former teammate grogan who led off for n florida. walking zero batters in his debut was the most impressive thing. his control was excellent. as advertised, he has a great curve and was probably hitting low 90s with his fastball. kept their hitters off-balance all day. was good for smoke to march him out in the 9th allowing him to record an out and get a standing ovation from the crowd. 90 pitches through 8.1 and only surrendered 4 hits. ramirez looked a bit shaky closing but he can bring it. his control was a bit off but he worked his way out of it. its good he's a little wild so the hitters are a bit uneasy but he will have to be able to throw strikes when needed. this is where determan excelled and where big taco needs to improve. chase dardar looked good closing out the continued game 1 from friday where dirks was excellent. chase threw hard, located well and faced the minimum in the 9th allowing nolan cain to get the win. cain was very impressive striking out a lot of batters early and pitched well in big situations with runners on. its much easier to pitch with a big lead that he had but he still looked good til he tired in the 7th and 8th when dardar was called in to end the game. the biggest shock was not that we didn't hit a homerun all weekend in that crazy wind...it was the fact I saw us attempt about 10 bunts or so and many sacrifices. never thought Id see that many in a year much less in a series. we even had the #3 hitter bunt which is really weird. But, johnson, the saturday lefty for n florida was throwing as well as olvey for most of the game and we needed to get a runner in scoring position. Most all looked comfortable bunting which cant be said for past squads. although we made three errors (2 sunday) this group is fundamentally much more sound than any i can remember potential-wise. the wind was so bad all weekend I expected more errors than that. ogata is going to be fine. he had some bad luck in some at bats. a couple balls he hit really well...one down the 3b line just foul that woulda went for extra bases. look for haydel and nicholas pontiff to play sundays at 2b and as a late replacement in other games for ogata for defensive purposes. Was good to see our new pontiff get some playing time. you can tell ogata is simply trying too hard but will be fine once he's comfortable. the ump screwed him on a few calls as well. sunday, daniel forrer (our other jc transfer pitcher) was shaky to start the game yet struck out the side in the 2nd when he settled down. he then gave up a couple hits in the 3rd and struck out the last 2 to retire the side. it was impressive. he seemed to get himself in trouble then pitch his best when under pressure. he has the mindset of a closer it seems. bares down when he's up against it. bonura still needs to throw more pitches for strikes. had problems locating but still has electric stuff. he's gonna be the wildcard of this staff so it seems. struck out 3 of the 5 batters he faced but threw almost 40 pitches in less than 2 innings. oh and liuzza threw out 2 batters already this season. that's 200% more than all of last year. the biggest disappointment was the end of the game yesterday. I dont have any idea why quinn stewart attempted a steal. just cuz hes black dont mean he can run. he was out by like 89 feet.
