mainly from two recent interviews Scott Stricklin gave on the Bulldog Roundtable on AM 680 (which I really enjoy) and this past Wednesday on AM 960. I know that the latter interview has been podcast. Not sure about the former.
-Robert Tyler being the Friday night guy is a no brainer. I was a bit surprised to hear that it appears that Connor Jones and Heath Holder are the leaders to nail down the final two spots in the rotation. I was taking it as a given that Bo Tucker would move into the rotation. I like Tucker out of the bullpen and it's certainly to our advantage to keep him in that role, but I figured that he would start out of necessity. Jones has as much ability as anyone on the staff. Control has obviously been an issue he's fought since he's been here, but from a raw talent point of view, he's off the charts. Starting may actually be better for him. Some guys just do better getting into a rhythm that way. I understand that Jones had a terrific fall. I can't emphasize enough how much he can help this year.
-I'm really excited about Heath Holder. Talk about a guy who has had some ups and downs. Heath was highly decorated and heavily recruited out of high school. He could have gone directly into the pros and gotten a good bonus to do so, I'm sure. 2012 was a tough year to show up as a position player. We already had the IF set. In the OF, we had Conor Welton in CF, Peter Verdin in RF, and Hunter Cole was always slated to slide right in for Zack Cone. Then you had Kevin Ruiz as a 4th OF. Justin Bryan started getting more time given that he was more of a long ball threat. It was a tough year to break into that lineup as a gaps hitter. Heath got some chances though. He got the nod at DH Friday night up in Nashville against Kevin Ziomek, who nobody not named Curt Powell could hit. The following fall it looked like Heath had a great chance to win a job in the OF, but he struggled tremendously at the plate. Before the season, he was converted to pitcher, and into the season, was converted to a side arm delivery... And you look at that guy's numbers from 2013 with THAT transition and no pitching coach. 2013 was such a weird, taxing season... I look back on it, with all the injuries, all the turnover, it wasn't a very close knit team, we had the debacle in the rubber game against Belmont on Sunday, Perno apparently was resigned to his fate before the weather warmed up, we beat tech by 17 runs at Turner, etc etc.... One of the many things that stands out when I think about the weirdness of that season was the finale at Auburn, which was played as part of a DH on Saturday given a rain forecast Sunday. Jared Walsh was going to pitch, so we were going to need another OF. Some other things happened, I understand, between the games, and Perno, surprisingly penciled Health Holder into the lineup as the starting LF. So we're sitting there down the first base line. I'd missed the announcement of the starting lineups while I was rehydrating in the parking lot. Anyway, we take the field in the bottom of the 1st, and there goes #28 running out to LF. I remember saying aloud "why in the world is Heath Holder going out to LF?" Then sure enough the guy gets on base twice, scores a couple of runs, and we card a surprisingly good feeling win. That was the first time in months, literally, that Heath had seen live pitching.
2014 he was our Opening Day 1B and collected the first base hit of the Scott Stricklin administration. That was his only hit on the day where we split a double header, though, and he was just wasn't able to pull up his average (although his defense improved tremendously over where it had been before). And he got back on the mound, throwing overhead, and did a fantastic job there too. This guy is a baseball player, through and through. It's hard for to imagine too many people could have made the transitions that he did in his career and put up anything approaching a respectable performance. Heath Holder did.
I know he wanted to be a hitter. A lot of guys do. Being healthy, being as tough as he is, as smart as he is on the baseball field, he's going to help our staff tremendously.
One other thing too.... He'll be a leader. It won't surprise me if he is named one of the captains. I still remember an incident at Ole Miss in 2014 when Heath got in a guy's face, somewhat uncharacteristically, after he didn't appreciate the effort the player was giving during batting practice. It caught the attention a lot of number of people, I think. The player on the receiving end of the chewing went on to pick up a couple of base hits in the game and made some solid defensive plays too... That was the Robert Tyler 2-0 gem. I thought that part was a big loss that we had last year, although I was really happy to see that they took Heath on some road trips to serve as the bullpen catcher.
Long and the short of it is, this guy has been through an awful lot here. This is his last season and I am very optimistic that he is going have a great one. He's earned it.
-I'm still interested to see in what we do with RF when Skyler Weber catches. A lot of guys got looks out there in the fall, but I don't know that any were really capable of being every day starters there just yet. I suspect that one of Michael Bell or LJ Talley will wind up there. Mitchell Webb played some OF last year and could be another candidate, although Webb is so good defensively at 3B that I imagine he'll stay there when he's in the lineup. Trevor Kieboom, if he's healthy (I don't know either way) may be another candidate. Hopefully Stricklin will discuss a lineup in a radio interview here soon.
-This March will be my first trip to Starkville (although I'll only be able to make the Friday and Saturday games). With that, I will have seen every campus in the SEC. I'm proud of that.
-Sounds like Nick King is healing up nicely and should be good to go by Opening Day. I wasn't at the scrimmage when he broke his leg... I remember getting a text shortly after it happened and thinking (as did everyone I'm sure) that that was it for him and he'd be on the shelf 10 or 12 months. I understand that they cancelled the scrimmage after it happened. We (and he, obviously) dodged a huge bullet there. Nick had a good season last year. He looked a bit overmatched against Florida State, but to his credit he made some adjustments and showed that he can hang offensively (defense was never an issue at all).
-It's time to start winning. It's hard for me to really wrap my head around 3 losing seasons in a row. 3 seasons of finishing last, 12th, and 13th in the conference. I thought that we had enough talent to get to a regional each of the last two seasons, also. I know some will disagree with me on that, and it's fine... I'm not suggesting we had the team to be a national seed, but we should have been able to get up to 14 or 15 conference wins each time and get ourselves into June. Putting it bluntly, I don't know if we have enough bullets for that this year. Some of the freshman, especially on the mound, are going to need to have big years for us. Trevor Tinder, Kevin Smith, Addison Albright, Shane Tucker, Adam Goodman.... Those guys are good. And I think all will have good careers here. They don't need to be All Americans for us, but they'll need to get some big outs this year. And we have to stay healthy. The number of injuries over the last two seasons in general, and back injuries specifically, are bothersome. I hope that we'll work a little bit smarter this year once we get in-season.
We have to protect the home field. We did a good job of that in 2014 for the most part and a not so good job with it last year. Going 2-4 over those consecutive @ Florida @ Vanderbilt weekends would be a great outcome. Both of those programs are going to, assuming nothing crazy happens, cement themselves as dynasties over the next 5 years or so, they way they're recruiting and developing. Texas A&M will be a tough road trip. You can bet Miss State wasn't very amused about finishing in last place in the SEC last season. Winning out there, in front of 10,000 people, is going to be a tall order. We can't go 2-12 (or 2-13) in SEC home games again or we are going to finish in last, and probably by a sizable margin.
If we pitch to our capabilities and take care of the baseball around the field, we'll have a chance. I do think that this will be a fun team to watch and a likable group. I can't wait to start to getting a better feel for the 2016 team over the next few weeks and to watch this thing really start to evolve come February.
I know one thing too.... We really need to get that series against Georgia Southern College out of the gate.
-Robert Tyler being the Friday night guy is a no brainer. I was a bit surprised to hear that it appears that Connor Jones and Heath Holder are the leaders to nail down the final two spots in the rotation. I was taking it as a given that Bo Tucker would move into the rotation. I like Tucker out of the bullpen and it's certainly to our advantage to keep him in that role, but I figured that he would start out of necessity. Jones has as much ability as anyone on the staff. Control has obviously been an issue he's fought since he's been here, but from a raw talent point of view, he's off the charts. Starting may actually be better for him. Some guys just do better getting into a rhythm that way. I understand that Jones had a terrific fall. I can't emphasize enough how much he can help this year.
-I'm really excited about Heath Holder. Talk about a guy who has had some ups and downs. Heath was highly decorated and heavily recruited out of high school. He could have gone directly into the pros and gotten a good bonus to do so, I'm sure. 2012 was a tough year to show up as a position player. We already had the IF set. In the OF, we had Conor Welton in CF, Peter Verdin in RF, and Hunter Cole was always slated to slide right in for Zack Cone. Then you had Kevin Ruiz as a 4th OF. Justin Bryan started getting more time given that he was more of a long ball threat. It was a tough year to break into that lineup as a gaps hitter. Heath got some chances though. He got the nod at DH Friday night up in Nashville against Kevin Ziomek, who nobody not named Curt Powell could hit. The following fall it looked like Heath had a great chance to win a job in the OF, but he struggled tremendously at the plate. Before the season, he was converted to pitcher, and into the season, was converted to a side arm delivery... And you look at that guy's numbers from 2013 with THAT transition and no pitching coach. 2013 was such a weird, taxing season... I look back on it, with all the injuries, all the turnover, it wasn't a very close knit team, we had the debacle in the rubber game against Belmont on Sunday, Perno apparently was resigned to his fate before the weather warmed up, we beat tech by 17 runs at Turner, etc etc.... One of the many things that stands out when I think about the weirdness of that season was the finale at Auburn, which was played as part of a DH on Saturday given a rain forecast Sunday. Jared Walsh was going to pitch, so we were going to need another OF. Some other things happened, I understand, between the games, and Perno, surprisingly penciled Health Holder into the lineup as the starting LF. So we're sitting there down the first base line. I'd missed the announcement of the starting lineups while I was rehydrating in the parking lot. Anyway, we take the field in the bottom of the 1st, and there goes #28 running out to LF. I remember saying aloud "why in the world is Heath Holder going out to LF?" Then sure enough the guy gets on base twice, scores a couple of runs, and we card a surprisingly good feeling win. That was the first time in months, literally, that Heath had seen live pitching.
2014 he was our Opening Day 1B and collected the first base hit of the Scott Stricklin administration. That was his only hit on the day where we split a double header, though, and he was just wasn't able to pull up his average (although his defense improved tremendously over where it had been before). And he got back on the mound, throwing overhead, and did a fantastic job there too. This guy is a baseball player, through and through. It's hard for to imagine too many people could have made the transitions that he did in his career and put up anything approaching a respectable performance. Heath Holder did.
I know he wanted to be a hitter. A lot of guys do. Being healthy, being as tough as he is, as smart as he is on the baseball field, he's going to help our staff tremendously.
One other thing too.... He'll be a leader. It won't surprise me if he is named one of the captains. I still remember an incident at Ole Miss in 2014 when Heath got in a guy's face, somewhat uncharacteristically, after he didn't appreciate the effort the player was giving during batting practice. It caught the attention a lot of number of people, I think. The player on the receiving end of the chewing went on to pick up a couple of base hits in the game and made some solid defensive plays too... That was the Robert Tyler 2-0 gem. I thought that part was a big loss that we had last year, although I was really happy to see that they took Heath on some road trips to serve as the bullpen catcher.
Long and the short of it is, this guy has been through an awful lot here. This is his last season and I am very optimistic that he is going have a great one. He's earned it.
-I'm still interested to see in what we do with RF when Skyler Weber catches. A lot of guys got looks out there in the fall, but I don't know that any were really capable of being every day starters there just yet. I suspect that one of Michael Bell or LJ Talley will wind up there. Mitchell Webb played some OF last year and could be another candidate, although Webb is so good defensively at 3B that I imagine he'll stay there when he's in the lineup. Trevor Kieboom, if he's healthy (I don't know either way) may be another candidate. Hopefully Stricklin will discuss a lineup in a radio interview here soon.
-This March will be my first trip to Starkville (although I'll only be able to make the Friday and Saturday games). With that, I will have seen every campus in the SEC. I'm proud of that.
-Sounds like Nick King is healing up nicely and should be good to go by Opening Day. I wasn't at the scrimmage when he broke his leg... I remember getting a text shortly after it happened and thinking (as did everyone I'm sure) that that was it for him and he'd be on the shelf 10 or 12 months. I understand that they cancelled the scrimmage after it happened. We (and he, obviously) dodged a huge bullet there. Nick had a good season last year. He looked a bit overmatched against Florida State, but to his credit he made some adjustments and showed that he can hang offensively (defense was never an issue at all).
-It's time to start winning. It's hard for me to really wrap my head around 3 losing seasons in a row. 3 seasons of finishing last, 12th, and 13th in the conference. I thought that we had enough talent to get to a regional each of the last two seasons, also. I know some will disagree with me on that, and it's fine... I'm not suggesting we had the team to be a national seed, but we should have been able to get up to 14 or 15 conference wins each time and get ourselves into June. Putting it bluntly, I don't know if we have enough bullets for that this year. Some of the freshman, especially on the mound, are going to need to have big years for us. Trevor Tinder, Kevin Smith, Addison Albright, Shane Tucker, Adam Goodman.... Those guys are good. And I think all will have good careers here. They don't need to be All Americans for us, but they'll need to get some big outs this year. And we have to stay healthy. The number of injuries over the last two seasons in general, and back injuries specifically, are bothersome. I hope that we'll work a little bit smarter this year once we get in-season.
We have to protect the home field. We did a good job of that in 2014 for the most part and a not so good job with it last year. Going 2-4 over those consecutive @ Florida @ Vanderbilt weekends would be a great outcome. Both of those programs are going to, assuming nothing crazy happens, cement themselves as dynasties over the next 5 years or so, they way they're recruiting and developing. Texas A&M will be a tough road trip. You can bet Miss State wasn't very amused about finishing in last place in the SEC last season. Winning out there, in front of 10,000 people, is going to be a tall order. We can't go 2-12 (or 2-13) in SEC home games again or we are going to finish in last, and probably by a sizable margin.
If we pitch to our capabilities and take care of the baseball around the field, we'll have a chance. I do think that this will be a fun team to watch and a likable group. I can't wait to start to getting a better feel for the 2016 team over the next few weeks and to watch this thing really start to evolve come February.
I know one thing too.... We really need to get that series against Georgia Southern College out of the gate.
