re: Rate Jay Johnson’s first season

From a team that won 13 SEC games the previous season, he brought them to 17, he swept Vandy and Mississippi State the teams who played for the Championship the previous year and earned us the 4 seed in the SEC Tourney. We were very good with the bats and hit a lot of HRs. He tried to mix and match the pitching staff to make us competitive it just didn't work at the end of the year. He earned a B+

I would like to honestly get some feed back with this statement may be lengthy but I’ll shut up afterwards. For instance the last two tournaments we played. Lsu hitting in the sec tourney combined to go 21 hits -100 ab. First game Kentucky crews Pearson mcmanus had 12 of those hits. Kentucky bottom end of bullpen no hit us thru Six in second game and tenn I believe we tied with them at 6 hits each. Regional if you take away the two eight inning rallies and the ninth against usm where does this leave this team in all those other innings played leaving runners on base with several missed opportunities? Would you rather be a team that can erupt one big inning or hit the ball hard all nine in play and give yourself a chance with timely hits? Johnson philosophy is to get base on balls and get hit by pitch. But what good is that when you have hitters that can’t take advantage of those opportunities.

B. Needs starting pitching.

B.

I am excited about the future. I think Jay makes us a consistent power for a long time.

D+

Poor pitching !!!

To be fair, his AZ team that he left was a good team.


He gets a B. Not his fauld Pawl was left in charge for a year(s) too many... pantry was empty

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A+ For the pitching staff he inherited and the fact he
brought in BERRY ,RILEY,RESILMAN,GERVAIS, without whom
this team doesn`t make the playoffs,he overachieved.

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Couldn't agree with you more. Looking forward to how he goes about revamping this pitching staff. Can't wait until February 2023 to see what we take to the mound. Will not pay attention to Fall Ball stories.....they don't count for much.

Perhaps his first year is sort of like making an initial pot of gumbo for a group of guests coming to our house. We go by recipes at times when we are somewhat restricted to what we can add, but then we have to go to the store and find some. When we return home, we start mixing the ingredients and take taste tests to ensure it is right. As we are cooking, we observe that the roux has turned pitch black, but we serve it anyway. After thinking about it, we realize that the crabmeat should have been drained before adding it. We learn from the first batch. Similarly, Coach Johnson is learning to make Louisiana-brand gumbo; perhaps we need to not judge our chef on the first batch.

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Probably right based on inflated preseason/early season expectations but the evidence was there early that pitching would be iffy and fielding needed to improve.

I think in hindsight, a realistic assessment would have meant slightly lower expectations and I would probably say he deserves a B- or even a B.

The team never put a consistent run together.

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Yep.

Offseason optimism ALWAYS breeds inflated expectations. That was the case here.

Before the season started there were big concerns regarding the starting pitching...and those concerns proved to be accurate.

On the flip-side, until the postseason, the bullpen was better than expected.

The team was expected to be a very good hitting team...and they were

Unfortunately, the defense was much worse than expected.

There were concerns in preseason that this wasn't a "complete" team. That proved to be true. The regular season performance was an improvement from last year. The postseason performance wasn't. So the ultimate grade is probably a "C". Not a failure by any means. But not significantly better, on average, than 2018-2021