re: Baseball Talk, what’s your starting lineup?

Cranford you mean?

Whatever CJJ is cool with works for me!

Fielding % is obviously
Important but if your pitchers are giving up line drives into the gap im you can give up tons of runs and still have a perfect fielding %

We had poor probably a below average defensive field, our catchers once Milazzo went down were really bad defensively. A TON of passes balls.

And our pitchers weren’t great on top of that. gervase was by far our best pitcher and he was good for 2 innings at a time

Too many guys out of position last year.

Merrifield is a 2B that had to play 3B. Berry was better at 3B than OF. Doughty was a better 3B than 2B. Thompson came in without alot of spring reps. Just a bad recipe. I thought they settled down some, but it was still just not a good defense. McManus and Travinski were both playing hurt. With Dugas out, guys that weren't use to LF had to fill in there.

We got outpitched down the stretch - just not enough ammo. But, defense stung us some in regionals.

Meatball worked really hard on pitchers holding runners.

Pitchers battled, just faded down the stretch. I credit them fading to depth, which created some overuse, and having to throw extra pitches (errors and plays not ruled as errors that should hav ebeen made). We all know Hilliard doesn't look like a Friday guy, but he did fine. The rest of the weekend was practically TBD then use a handful of the same guys over and over. You aren't going to make the stretch like that.

I'm hoping he can keep guys fresher this year.

I've heard Jay in multiple interviews or public appearances say that the pitching will be less complicated this year.

More tested/proven starters going more than 5 innings or more than 2x through the order will help tremendously.

Adding a second iteration of Riley Cooper helps.

I think we have guys that could go multiple innings out of the pen if they want them to with Collins, Little, and potentially Taylor.

He also mentioned that there are guys that will be able to be used in more limited roles than they were in the past that should improve because of it. I think Money and Dutton fit there, as well as someone like Garrett Edwards.

And that's not even considering the contributions of the freshmen.

Didn’t he mention Collins as someone who has really made a jump?

I'm pretty sure he did single out Collins saying he made great strides in the offseason and will be a contributor on the mound. I believe that was mentioned when someone asked a question about the closer role. SO I took it as Collins may be a closer option.