re: LSU Baseball 2026 (and beyond) Recruiting Thread

I just read that thread and I couldn't help but laugh.

Kind of digging in on Landon Hood a little bit.

Some things that stand out to me at first glance:

16 appearances with 4 starts and 10 games finished. So only twice on the season he didn't start or finish the game. He only had two appearances less than 2 innings.

He didn't give up a run in 11/16 appearances.

He had a bad 3 game stretch in March when he was starting games, but it was really just one terrible game bookended by 2 decent games.

6 times he got to the third time through the order. 4 times he threw over 90 pitches.

I track a wildness stat that combines BB, HBP, and WP divided by IP. His was .64 instances per IP. That's out of context because I haven't done the same calculations on our pitchers last year, but it felt like we had a lot of guys north of 1 instance per IP. (ETA: That would have put him 2nd on the team behind Cowan and Moore, and just ahead of Fontenot.)

I've talked a bunch about how we aren't asking any of the three returning weekend starters to do anything more than improve in the role they were already in. I think if we're able to keep Hood in a similar role to what he had at Gonzaga and only ask him to adjust to an increased competition level we're going to have a bullpen ace that can close out games entering in the 6th inning. That's incredibly valuable.

ETA: Back on the Wildness stat: LSU's team number was .920 per inning, for comparison.

Just did a quick calc on Diego Velazquez, he would have led LSU in the wildness stat last season at .379, slightly ahead of Cowan's .386.

It's pretty clear what we were targeting with our two early pitcher commits.

ETA: Kaden Smith at .940 would have been 10th on the team. We only had 9 guys on the team under 1.

Passed balls aren't included in his wildness stat, so no.

Thanks Project, good stuff

Theoretically, those 5 guys could start or serve an extended stopper/closer role pretty interchangeably. I like the strategy. It gives some role versatility, and some cushion for unknowns.

The Underclass Area Code Games have a decent amount of Louisiana representation.

The teams are made geographically (except for the MLB Breakthrough team), so the Louisiana kids are on the Royals for this event.

The positions aren't listed but here are the players that will probably be worth watching for over the next couple years:

Cole Albert - Vermillion Catholic
Brock Blessington - Sam Houston
Tanner Conley - Fountainbleau
Paul Dufrene V - John Curtis
Lane Holubec - West Monroe
Chance Pecoraro - Brother Martin

If they're invited to the Underclass Area Code games, they're all under at least some consideration by our staff. It's too early to tell who will be primary targets, I haven't even really dug in on which 2028s we're already following.

Even though the official recruiting period opens tomorrow, I don't think we will see a flurry of activity like there was last year at the same time because there were a bunch of guys already committed that could re-affirm officially last year.

That's not the case this year. This is the first class with pretty much no commitments anywhere at the start of the official contact period. I think the way it's handled now is better for the coaches and the players.

Cooper Templet from St Amant is 2028 keep an eye on.

He was recently named MVP of the Louisiana Future games and registered a 103.8 exit velo.

quote:

---

Asking bc I don’t know, but if Schmidt went to Juco and sucked would scouts look past that or would they hold it against him? If he went to LSU and sucked they could atleast say “well it’s the SEC”

I thought I remember the draft is more about projection, just wasn’t sure how performance could affect it.

---

I think it depends on why he sucked. If he sucks because he didn't do anything to change his fastball shape, it's going to be looked at poorly because it means he's not working on what he needs to work on.

If he sucks because he's making adjustments and hasn't fully fine tuned them, I think that would be excused away.

They already know he has a big arm and can find the zone. Now that he's not going pro, he needs to prove he can make adjustments and develop, even if the results don't necessarily follow right away.

From the outside looking in, if he goes to JUCO and sucks, we won't know the why because it will all be based on what the Trackman type stuff is saying. I hope Golden West is properly equipped.

We also wouldn't really know that stuff if he came to LSU, but we'd at least know for certain every pitch he throws here is being tracked.