re: Listen up Folks.. LSU baseball team will be fine

I think we all hope that is going to happen. And you are right at some point there is more than enough talent on this team that they are going to get hot it just depends on if its too late by the time they get hot.

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"if you build your team on potential you will soon be unemployed."

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I had a coach that often spoke of "potential". His exact words were, "Potential means you haven't done shite yet."

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sneak into a regional as a 2/3 seed

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Possible

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then get hot at the right time

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Also possible but they haven’t shown the ability to get hot and stay that way.

There's positive thinking, then there's delusion.

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Back half of season schedule is lighter than first half

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This is true. But I think they have had a couple games they should have won, and to get back in it, they will probably need to steal a couple games they should have lost.

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This baseball team is high on potential

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Maybe the expectations are just too ridiculous?

If you listen to Johnson you can tell he's aggravated about everything right now. He seems like a meticulous control freak that it just isn't working out like he originally planned. I think the problem is too much faith in an assistant along with over evaluation on a few players. At this point we just hope our freshmen/sophomores continue to develop to give us a reliable core for both the end of this year and into next season.

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Maybe that's the risk you take when filling your roster full of non Louisiana kids.

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This will be kind of long so if you don't want to read it move along.

You cannot be competitive with a roster full of kids from Louisiana. This isn't football. You do need to try and get more than half the top 10 in the state each year and hope that most of them can get to campus. The talent in Louisiana just hasn't been very good, but I think that will be changing. Seems like some very good Louisiana talent classes are in the near future.

The biggest issue seems to be mismanagement of the roster the last 5 years. Transfer portal does not help this situation at all. Players do not want to sit around and wait to be developed and the last few classes had plenty guys that weren't good enough early to get playing time up and leave. They had some really nice pieces for Johnson to work with and also adding pieces through the portal last season. A lot of that is gone and the poor roster management from the last 5 years is now showing it's face. You can't build a majority of the team from transfers. That will not work. Below is a list of the last 5 years recruiting classes. Can see many of them transferred out, especially the Louisiana kids that weren't good enough to play at LSU. Projects work on the recruiting board is where this list comes from.

2023 Incoming recruits
Mac Bingham OF
Michael Braswell INF
Kade Woods RHP
Fidel Ulloa RHP
Luke Holman RHP
Justin Loer LHP
Gage Jump LHP
Austen Roellig INF
MJ Seo RHP
Kade Anderson LHP
Derrick Mitchell OF
Steven Milam INF
Ryan Kucherak INF
Cameron Johnson LHP
Jake Brown LHP
Dylan Thompson INF/RHP
Ashton Larson OF
Trenton Lape RHP
Griffin Cooley OF
Dallas Dale OF

2022 Incoming Recruits
Ben Nippolt INF
Nate Ackenhausen LHP
Paul Skenes RHP/C
Thatcher Hurd RHP
Kaleb Applebey RHP
Tommy White INF
Griffin Herring LHP
Paxton Kling OF
Christian Little RHP
Gavin Guidry INF
Jared Jones C
Micah Bucknam RHP
Jaden Noot RHP
Nic Bronzini LHP
Zeb Ruddell OF
Aiden Moffett RHP
Ethan Frey C
DJ Primeaux LHP
Chase Shores RHP
Brady Neal C
Mic Paul OF

2021 Incoming Recruits
Trey Shaffer LHP
Dawson Gause RHP
Jack Merrifield INF
Jason Bollman RHP
Paul Gervase RHP
Bryce Collins RHP
Brayden Jobert INF
Jacob Berry INF/OF
Eric Reyzelman RHP
Riley Cooper LHP
Josh Stevenson OF
Grant Taylor RHP
Connor Simon INF
Josh Pearson OF
Brant Smith INF
Cale Lansville RHP
Luke Leto INF
Blaise Priester C
Samuel Dutton RHP
Grant Fontenot RHP
Brennan Holt INF
Tyler McManus C
Tripp Haddad OF

2020 Incoming Recruits
Jacob Wyeth C
Ty Floyd RHPew Baptist -
Brooks Rice RHP
Zachary Murray RHP
Blake Money RHP
Javen Coleman LHP
Jordan Thompson INF
Theo Millas RHP
Dylan Crews OF
Tre Morgan INF
Brody Drost OF
Michael Fowler RHP
Alex Brady LHP
Gus Milligan OF
Will Safford INF
Will Hellmers RHP
Garrett Edwards RHP

2019 Incoming Recruits
Zack Mathis INF
Brandon Kaminer LHP
Tommy Biggs INF
Alex Milazzo C
Farmer Abendroth RHP
Hayden Travinski C
Mitchell Sanford OF
Cade Doughty INF
Wes Toups OF
Jacob Hasty LHP
Collier Cranford INF
Zach Arnold INF R/R 6'2"
Maurice Hampton OF
Kendall Burnett LHP

FINE LINE BETWEEN OPTOMISTIC, AND DELUSIONAL.

Good point on your end. Just like anything else, I guess the talent out of state will come in waves. There will always be some years that will be an outlier. That year was obviously one of them. I also think the near future can have an exception to that as well. I believe Louisiana has a lot of really good talent in high school right now.