Baseball vs. FSU Game Thread (Winner-Take-All)

[ellitor 33,062]

Just now, auburn4ever said:

Another great hire Jay Jacobs.

It is a great hire so far. He didn't have much talent left from the previous regime when the team struggled mightily last year. We go from that to 1 strike away from a Super Regional in 1 season & doing so with 20 new players that consisted of a recruiting class he had 1 month to glue together. 

[AuburnNTexas 7,127]

I am amazed at the negativity of some of our so called fans. This team over achieved yes we seemed to die at end of the season but then when we got to the NCAA's we played well won 2 games and almost beat FSU in an earlier game to go to the Supers. When you look at the talent we should be congratulating these kids for how well they did instead of bad mouthing them. This is a group to build on that showed a lot of heart.

War Eagle and I am proud of this team.

[80Tiger 899]

19 minutes ago, ellitor said:

You can hate to lose and play in a game that was fun to play in that turns out to be a loss. They aren't mutually exclusive. It was fun to watch as a fan so I imagine it was fun to play in even though it ended as a loss. I could see saying 1 sentence about it being fun in an interview but not beyond that because then the game being fun could over shadow IMO the hurt of the loss in the coach's message.

I am going to disagree somewhat. Later on you may recognize the game was fun, but at the time there should be nothing fun about losing a game that was so close to winning and giving the team a chance to advance to the CWS.

[AU64 10,122]

 

Problem I see going forward is that unless BT can manage to keep both Mize and Thompson..pitching next year is going to be a big mystery ....young guys who have a long way to go...and losing Cole Lipscomb who was a VERY valuable guy due to his experience.    On the offensive side...which was weak enough, we are losing some good players too.  BT has already done most of the recruiting for the coming season and looks to be heavy on pitching....so I'm wondering if he will be able to address the speed and power deficits that has been an issue all year.

And to address comments about the team doing better than we thought.   Guess I don't make much out of that since we had no idea what the team would do because of the many new players..  The issue to me is what we did the second third of the season when the team should have gelled and played solid baseball...instead of losing about 75% of our games.  Pitchers who should have improved during the season did not...and our guys never figured out how to hit a curve....the entire team it seems, not just a couple hitters.

CBT has a lot of work to do....getting to a regional as a #3 seed is a start....

[ellitor 33,062]

8 minutes ago, 80Tiger said:

I am going to disagree somewhat. Later on you may recognize the game was fun, but at the time there should be nothing fun about losing a game that was so close to winning and giving the team a chance to advance to the CWS.

Playing the game was still fun. There can be enough awareness to realize that even in sickening losses. I was apart of a very successful program at Prattville in the 90s. Daphne was our nemesis & knocked us out of the playoffs a couple of times in the semifinal round. Those hurt like crazy and that definitely overshadowed anything else but I definitely was aware enough to have fun in a great game being played by 2 state heavyweights.

[ellitor 33,062]

3 minutes ago, AU64 said:

And to address comments about the team doing better than we thought.   Guess I don't make much out of that since we had no idea what the team would do

Come on 64. People had an idea what we would do. We were picked to finish last in the West & 12th overall.

[oracle79 3,569]

There is nothing fun about a loss, sorry.

Having said that, it looks like all 3 major men's sports are on the precipice of success.  They have to produce of course, but it does look encouraging.

[ellitor 33,062]

2 minutes ago, oracle79 said:

There is nothing fun about a loss, sorry.

Absolutely not but playing in the game before you know it's a loss can be fun.

[AU64 10,122]

4 minutes ago, ellitor said:

Come on 64. People had an idea what we would do. We were picked to finish last in the West & 12th overall.

Sure..because nobody knew what the line-up would be and the jury was still out on KT.   How could you pick us ahead of any SEC West team when they all brought back more established rosters.?

 I thought we had accepted on this forum that preseason polls mean nothing...since most are done by people who don't study the facts and in the case of AU baseball this season, could not have named more than one or two starters before the season got under way. 

 

[ellitor 33,062]

2 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Sure..because nobody knew what the line-up would be and the jury was still out on KT.   How could you pick us ahead of any SEC West team when they all brought back more established rosters.?

 I thought we had accepted on this forum that preseason polls mean nothing...since most are done by people who don't study the facts and in the case of AU baseball this season, could not have named more than one or two starters before the season got under way. 

Point being when you have so much turnover & very few in house Sophs & JRs that started in your program (which are typically vital to success in college baseball) that left with the previous regime teams are expected to perform poorly the first couple of years given the turnover in that kind of manner. Even though we didn't get where we wanted to go yet we clearly passed expectations given those obstacles.

[AU64 10,122]

12 hours ago, Tigerbelle said:

It's not like the guy was untalented. He clearly has some great stuff.

 

His primary talent was that he could get his curve ball over.

The "book" on AU by mid season and beyond was pretty short.

Page 1....they can't hit the curve so feed 'em curves and don't give them any good fast balls.

Page 2.. .if you can get to their bull pen you have them ...

And that was pretty much how it went for us the last part of the season.

[AU64 10,122]

21 minutes ago, ellitor said:

Point being when you have so much turnover & very few in house Sophs & JRs that started in your program (which are typically vital to success in college baseball) that left with the previous regime teams are expected to perform poorly the first couple of years given the turnover in that kind of manner. Even though we didn't get where we wanted to go yet we clearly passed expectations given those obstacles.

I hear you..but to me the key word is "expectations"....which to me means achieving what your talent and abilities should enable....not what someone thought about you before you showed up.  That's a dynamic word....and expectations are subject to change when you learn more. 

Just saying, that once we saw what the team was capable of...the expectations should have risen...which mine did at least.

I never felt we were lucky to win those 16 or so SEC games or to sweep Florida, etc........instead i looked at the losses later on where the team did not play to the level of it's capabilities and lost to inferior teams....and did not meet expectations.

But as I suggested elsewhere...the team had some fatal flaws that the opposition found out about.

[PowerOfDixieland 3,225]

4 hours ago, AU64 said:

Problem I see going forward is that unless BT can manage to keep both Mize and Thompson..pitching next year is going to be a big mystery ....young guys who have a long way to go...and losing Cole Lipscomb who was a VERY valuable guy due to his experience.    On the offensive side...which was weak enough, we are losing some good players too.  BT has already done most of the recruiting for the coming season and looks to be heavy on pitching....so I'm wondering if he will be able to address the speed and power deficits that has been an issue all year.

This might be true if it were a static situation.  The team will be very different come next February.  All of these guys coming back will have at least another 50 games under their belts by way of Cape Cod, Alaska and the like, plus all of the fall of '17.  Add to that mix the influx of serious talent in this next freshman class and you'll be amazed at how much better the program gets.  Just look at the huge jump from May of '16 til now.  You're right, Thompson is likely gone, but Mize will be here next season (he's only a sophomore).  There is a ton of talent in that pitching staff already and I'm convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that Butch will move these guys forward by leaps and bounds.  I don't believe we will lose Anthony or Jarvis, which would leave the infield intact and it's damn good defensively.  It will be interesting to see where Jonah Todd gets taken in the draft next week, I think it may be lower than some think and that another year in the program would be good for him.  That said, the only major holes we may have to fill are Thompson and Lipscomb.  I love Daniel Robert, but his absence will be far less significant than the first two.  Blake Logan was a coach's dream, but he was not an all american in anything other than consistency.  I like what we've got going forward and I am certain that Butch Thompson will re-write the coaching record book by the time he retires to Sauguahatchee or Reeltown or wherever Auburn coaches go to pasture.  

[mustache eagle 2,388]

Mize was (I did not research this - memory only) not nearly as productive last year.  He really made a significant improvement this year by adding the split finger which he didn't throw last year.  

I assume that was butch thompson's coaching.  If that is the case, then think what he can do with some of these others.  That's why I hope people like burns will see

[autigeremt 6,569]

8 hours ago, AuburnNTexas said:

I am amazed at the negativity of some of our so called fans. This team over achieved yes we seemed to die at end of the season but then when we got to the NCAA's we played well won 2 games and almost beat FSU in an earlier game to go to the Supers. When you look at the talent we should be congratulating these kids for how well they did instead of bad mouthing them. This is a group to build on that showed a lot of heart.

War Eagle and I am proud of this team.

The negativity is boil over from football and basketball. This was our best men's team this year outside of golf. 

[augolf1716 21,096]

23 minutes ago, autigeremt said:

The negativity is boil over from football and basketball. This was our best men's team this year outside of golf. 

Hummmmmmm love Coach Nic

[SCTiger2011 1,277]

12 hours ago, 80Tiger said:

Let me say what bothered me about the Sunday game and maybe I am reading to much into this. I read an article after the game (sorry I can't find it to link) about how the game on Sunday was the most fun he had in baseball in a while. Sure it was a loss but he had a lot of fun according to the article. When I read it I immediately thought we are going to lose on Monday. If this was the attitude of the coach and defacto the team, then I was concerned that the team would not be ready. It sounded somewhat like a little league coach whose team gets pounded every week. We had fun boys. I am not trying to be over critical of the coaches but IMO you have to hate to lose (more than you like to win). It has to stick in your gut where you don't want to experience that again if possible. All I could think of is  I couldn't imagine hearing Saban say after losing to AU with 1 second left " well, that was fun".

I may be over reacting to the comments but I thought it sent the wrong message to the team.

I think you're overreacting a bit as you didn't even mention the first part of the quote.  "I got my heart ripped out, but I had a blast."  I took it as nothing more than he saw this team of misfits with very few accolades fight for 4 hours at a high level against a top 10 team that has made the Super Regionals 15/18 years this century.  Im sure it was fun watching a team you lead go from the Bad News Bears of the SEC, work their ass off in the offseason, get overlooked in preseason, fight through the adversity of an SEC schedule, over perform for most of the year, underperform the last month, and still have enough fight left in them to get off the mat and come one strike away from a Super Regional.  I'd say that experience probably was a lot of fun.  Now we can contextualize quotes all day until we're blue in the face, but I'm a terrible speech analyst, so I'll just let my eyes judge CBT's desire to win.  So far, I'd say that desire is pretty dang high and his quest to satisfy that desire is off to a great start.

[AU64 10,122]

Maybe I am of the wrong era but if the guys are not having fun, they ought not to be out there . It is still a game and wanting to win does not diminish the fact that a game or series like this should also be fun . 

[FoundationEagle 637]

19 hours ago, auburn4ever said:

Another great hire Jay Jacobs.

Considering we were 1 inning away from hosting a super regional in his first year at a team that has only ever even been to 1 super regional ever...I'd say you're right!

[80Tiger 899]

9 hours ago, SCTiger2011 said:

I think you're overreacting a bit as you didn't even mention the first part of the quote.  "I got my heart ripped out, but I had a blast."  I took it as nothing more than he saw this team of misfits with very few accolades fight for 4 hours at a high level against a top 10 team that has made the Super Regionals 15/18 years this century.  Im sure it was fun watching a team you lead go from the Bad News Bears of the SEC, work their ass off in the offseason, get overlooked in preseason, fight through the adversity of an SEC schedule, over perform for most of the year, underperform the last month, and still have enough fight left in them to get off the mat and come one strike away from a Super Regional.  I'd say that experience probably was a lot of fun.  Now we can contextualize quotes all day until we're blue in the face, but I'm a terrible speech analyst, so I'll just let my eyes judge CBT's desire to win.  So far, I'd say that desire is pretty dang high and his quest to satisfy that desire is off to a great start.

The things you mention are great things, but you are talking about the totality of the season and they are the things you talk about at the end of season recap/banquet. I am talking about the immediate aftermath of the game. I just can't imagine Gus or Bruce saying they had a blast and how much fun it was after a last second field goal or a last second three pointer. Of course you can talk about the effort of your players and how you are proud of them, but again it just reminds me of little league.

[FoundationEagle 637]

I feel we will be pretty solid in pitching come next year.  Coker will be back, right?  He looked as solid as he could. I expect a very solid season from him. With a few solid incoming pitchers and possibly keeping one of our two top pitchers, we could be a great pitching team. Lose both of our top pitchers and we can still be a solid team. Maybe not excellent, but solid. 

[Mikey 16,550]

8 hours ago, FoundationEagle said:

I feel we will be pretty solid in pitching come next year.  Coker will be back, right?  He looked as solid as he could. I expect a very solid season from him. With a few solid incoming pitchers and possibly keeping one of our two top pitchers, we could be a great pitching team. Lose both of our top pitchers and we can still be a solid team. Maybe not excellent, but solid. 

Mize isn't eligible for the pro baseball draft this year. We can only lose him through some tragedy or other accidental happening.

[FoundationEagle 637]

21 hours ago, Mikey said:

Mize isn't eligible for the pro baseball draft this year. We can only lose him through some tragedy or other accidental happening.

Even better. I'm not an avid baseball fan so don't know all the details. Mix Coker with Mize and surely at least 1 or 2 of the 47 pitchers we are bringing in can contribute. We may be pretty decent.