Just a reminder...(talent lost from last year)

Paul Skenes - #1 overall pick, will be in the MLB within the year, was almost a guaranteed win every time he took the mound.

Ty Floyd - early 2nd round pick. Dude stuck out what, 17 or 18 Gators in the frickin CWS? He would have been a Friday guy for almost any team. He would be a Friday guy for us right now. Yet he was a complete afterthought for most of the season because of how good Skenes was.

Riley Cooper - the Rant loved to hate this guy for the majority of the 2 years he was here, but he was always a go-to guy for Jay Johnson in high leverage moments. Towards the end of the year, he peaked and was incredible during the CWS run...he's sorely missed in the middle/back half of our bullpen.

Dylan Crews - #2 overall pick, the guy hit was hitting .500 still in like May, and doing so with homers and extra base hits, not little bloop singles. We can add our 3 outfielders together this year and it won't match the production he had last year.

Gavin Dugas - Wasn't the best defensive 2B in the world, in fact, Milan is probably better already as a freshman. But, he gave us way, way more at the plate and was always incredibly clutch.

Tre Morgan - Best defensive first baseman I've seen in college baseball. No telling how many runs he saved over the course of the season. Not to mention that he was a .350 hitter who could give you occasional power.

Brayden Jobert - he wasn't a wonderful RF, but he was a great bat in the order and he was a better RF than the Brady Neal in OF experiment has turned out to be. His potential for instant runs via the long ball is something we aren't getting from Kling, Brown, Pearson, etc.

Cade Beloso - He was basically done with baseball. Johnson talked him into coming back and give it one more go...Johnson knew the team was going to need him. The fact that higher rated recruits like Jones, Kling, Frey, etc all couldn't beat this guy out for the DH spot is pretty telling considering that he was content to not play baseball anymore, came back for the heck of it, and is now out of baseball completely. He would be one of our 3 best hitters right now and he was an afterthought last year until half way through the season when he won the starting job at DH and never gave it back.

Jordan Thompson - 3 year started who undoubtedly had his struggles..but he had several big moments throughout the year. Braswell has been pretty good in his place, this might be the position with the least drop off.



I say all that to say this: it is frustrating to watch this LSU team be not very good...the pitching and hitting have both been underwhelming and the defense isn't very good. But on paper, this was never supposed to be an incredible team. You can't lose your Friday/Saturday pitchers and your best bullpen guy, then replace 6 out of the 9 guys in your starting lineup who had roughly a combined 21 years of SEC experience and expect to just get better. It doesn't work that way at this level of baseball. This team is going to struggle for the next few weeks against teams who are simply better and more experienced. Don't give up on them out of frustration early on...let them play the season out and let some of the younger guys/new starters settle in and get comfortable, and who knows. Not saying they're going to make a run to Omaha, but there's no reason they can't win enough to host a regional...make it into the supers and you never know what happens.