re: Brady Neal to the portal

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Not sure why so many here hate his game

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You never understood why people didn’t like the game of a catcher that couldn’t catch and never came close to making up for it in the batters box? Jay gave him way more opportunities than he ever earned on the field. If he isn’t satisfied with that then see ya

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Neal .276

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Feasted on subpar midweek pitching against lower tier conference teams. Hit around .150 in SEC play and couldn’t catch. This is not a big loss at all for anything other than depth

His body language always frustrates me with this young man. He would strike out and slam the bat, not hustle to 1st, etc. He will do fine at the NAIA level….

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I'm not disappointed. Catcher which was SUPPOSED to be a position of strength was definitely not. Defensively, there wasn't a good one in the bunch unless you love batter interference and passed balls. And their averages were meh to be kind.
Travinski .271 and seems like hit into too many double plays
Neal .276
Milazzo .267 with 0 HRs.

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Neal hit 9 for 53 against SEC pitching and the postseason. That's .170. Only 2 XBH in that as well. .301 OBP and .283 slugging.

Travinski and Milazzo faced a lot more tough competition than Neal did by comparison. More than half of Neal's AB came against mid-week teams and early season OOC where he did really well but again, poor competition. When the competition ramped up, Neal plummeted severely.

Milazzo hit .270 (20 for 74) against the same competition (SEC and postseason) with 3 XBH, .361 OBP, .311 SLG

Travinski hit .257 (36 for 140) against the same competition with 16 XBH, .342 OBP and .500 SLG

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So who is our catcher lol? We better have a good transfer coming and that’s why Neal is leaving

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Scared of competing against a INCOMING FRESHMAN

Neal couldn’t be the catcher to get us to Omaha. He’s gone because of that. Jay isn’t going to miss Omaha next year..

If anyone thinks jay let him go, they are pretty dense. Not only does it waste the development time put into him, but in that 40-45 minute press conference last week, jay referred to being excited to work with certain guys again next year and mentioned neal twice. He did not expect to lose brady

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If anyone thinks jay let him go, they are pretty dense.

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i guess that depends on what you mean by “let”.

If Neal thinks he can go somewhere and be a guaranteed starter, then that’s a better opportunity than he’s not going to get at LSU.

he would definitely have a chance to earn playing time here, but he hasn’t shown enough to justify promising him anything yet.

Didn’t have time to post this today…take it as you will.

My oldest just graduated LSU and is a big baseball fan.

Was at school last year (23 season) and overheard Neal talking to a gymnast. What was heard, was Neal trashing all his teammates (seniors and juniors) and saying how much better he is than the other guys.

Now, I wrote this off as a true freshman who didn’t know how to impress the ladies. But that kind of talk gets around and certainly isn’t the way any good teammate talks about his brothers in the locker room. Thought it was small, now wondering if his attitude might have been a problem in the clubhouse?

Just an observation, and some questions I’d love to know the answer to.

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Thought it was small, now wondering if his attitude might have been a problem in the clubhouse?

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I’d assume that we had some pretty major culture issues in the clubhouse this year and that’s why so many guys didn’t develop and transferred out. If I’m being honest I thought Tommy White seemed like a really weak team leader, Milazzo and Travinski seemed to have their own thing going on socially and it was a little weird, Neal/Kling seemed to have their own crew, etc. The locker room just seemed fragmented IMO, we had too much talent to struggle the way we did all year without something bigger happening behind the scenes.