re: 2025 Baseball Projected Starting Lineup

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Jay making everyone compete sounds good in theory. However, Neal started in the outfield over several OF that hit over 300 in the fall. It is well known by now Jay has his favorites.

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Meh. Fall counts a lot less than spring scrimmages, and even less than actual games. Neal didn’t start many games in RF. And certainly not when Milam emerged—who had an abysmal fall by the way—and took over at 2nd, and that moved Pearson back into a crowded OF. But as crowded as it was, 2 guys who wound up starting were true freshman. Brown’s got some pop and is going to grow into even more. I’m not sure Larson is ever gonna hit many home runs—he sprays the ball all over the field, similar to Tre Morgan.

So it made sense to try to get Neal’s bat in the lineup somehow. It didn’t work, and Jay moved on. But the reason he tried it was because Neal already has a lot of pop, and last year’s team had a dearth of it from the left-side. It was one of the bigger weaknesses on the team. And part of Jay’s offensive philosophy is to have as many LH bats in the lineup as he reasonably can. And some of those have to be able to hit the ball over the fence. It makes teams have burn more bullpen arms due to matchups.

But Jay doesn’t play “favorites” like you are suggesting. He doesn’t play inferior players because their parents pour a lot of money into the program or because he likes playing cards with them on the bus. That’s absurd. He may players who from our limited perspective might not be quite as productive as others more than we think he should, but it’s because he either sees something in them that we can’t that he thinks can be unlocked, or play some because of how they fit in the lineup based on his philosophy and how they affect the entire team. He’s not just putting the best RF in RF, for example. He’s trying to find the best lineup and defense to put together 1-9. Now that will usually mean the best RF starts in RF, but he’s trying to put the puzzle together where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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You do realize he could be referring to investment as in giving those two reps over a lot of other talent we have

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That doesn’t make sense but ok. That wouldn’t be an NIL investment and Kling got pulled from playing in many games

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Brown in CF and Larson in RF

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Larson is not an outfielder and, dropped fly ball at UNC aside, Brown needs to improve his range to be a CF.

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I think it’s ridiculous to suggest we didn’t offer those two solid NIL deals considering their draft stock in high school. We almost certainly freed up NIL money with those two leaving.

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Who suggested that. All I was asking was how much did he think we paid them. Posters think LSU baseball is dishing out hundreds of thousands of dollars to players which is absurd. The way he said it was like we had some “significant” amount of money invested in them.

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I don’t think anyone has access those details besides a few and given our investment and NIL budget for baseball compared to other schools it’s pretty safe to assume it was solid.

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Ok well post LSU’s NIL budget compared to other schools

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I don’t understand the argument.

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There is no argument. Do you have one?