re: LSU Baseball Portal Tracker

When you go from Texas Tech to Texas, no other school had a shot.

LOL, my bad. With some of the posters on these threads it's hard to tell.

I imagine he's heading back west. Possibly UCLA, USC, or UCSB

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also could be waiting how the draft plays with milam and some of the HS infielders. Kind of like Larson last year with the Stanfield Situation.

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Larson was a 4th OFer who hit for average, but not power. We could afford to wait to see how his and Stanfield’s situations played out. We can’t afford to wait to until after the draft to find a replacement SS, the most important defensive position on the team. If there’s a stud SS willing to come and the money is right, grab him. If Milam winds up coming back, figure it out afterwards.

Can’t afford to be standing there with our dicks in our hands without a SS when the music stops. And I don’t think you can count on a true freshman being able to handle it, no matter what they are rated coming out of high school. We’ve had some good luck over the years with true freshmen being able to handle both the defensive side and the offensive side at short. But that’s still just a handful of guys over a 25-30 year period.

And I might be forgetting someone, but Bregman was probably the last true frehman who came in ready to handle both sides. And that will have been 14 years ago by the time ‘27 rolls around. It may work—there may be an outlier in this class—but you cant “count” on it.

And as good as Milam is, even he didn’t play SS as a freshman. He played 2nd. And he looked like he didn’t belong in the SEC against LSU pitching in the fall so that year and OOC pitching early in the spring. He didn’t really turn it on until the back half of SEC play his freshman year.

So Jay’s got to either grab a guy with multiple years of eligibility (like the Texas Tech freshman SS who’s 6’5” and could play 3rd) and tell him that the plan is for him to play his final 2 seasons at SS, but in the off chance Milam does come back, they’d have to pivot and move that guy to 3rd for his SO season, and then back to short for his money year. Sell him on showing his ability to play 3rd to MLB clubs in case he outgrows SS (granted, not a great selling point because almost anybody who can play SS can play 3rd), but really focus on selling him on a trip to Omaha to compete for a CWS Championship. Sell him on being part of what could be a very special team. Or lie to him and tell him there’s no way Milam comes back.

Or, try to get a guy like Cal Baptist SO SS, Chris Ramirez (I’m stealing Hunt Palmer’s notes on these guys). Ramirez was the overall WAC player of the year this season:

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Ramirez led the Lancers with a .389 average across 59 games this season. He scored a team-high 71 runs, led the team with 22 doubles, and added seven home runs and 42 RBI. He also stole a team-high 21 bases and set the school record for hits in a season with 98.

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He was also:

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named a finalist for the Brooks Wallace Award. The award, issued by the College Baseball Hall of Fame, recognizes the best shortstop in Division I baseball.

Ramirez is one of five shortstops named a finalist for the award. He is joined by Dylan Carey (Nebraska), Roch Cholowsky (UCLA), Carson Kerce (Georgia Tech), and Jake Schaffner (North Carolina). Ramirez is the only underclassman in the group. And the only non P4 player.

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He was also the WAC Defensive Player of the Year in both his freshman and sophomore seasons. You’d have to sell him on Plan A being him being the everyday SS, but if Milam comes back, Plan B becomes him moving to 2nd or 3rd, showing versatility, but really being able to focus on the 1 thing scouts still need to see from him—they know he can pick it at SS—can he consistently hit good pitching.

I just don’t see how we can wait on Milam. Not only was he BY FAR our best defensive player, he wound up 3rd on the team in home runs and hitting right around .300 after a terrible start. That’s just too much production on both sides of the ball to not aggressively try to replace at the most important position on the field after the pitcher.

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The poster was saying Clauss might be waiting to make a decision, not Jay.

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You’re right. I just used that to go off on a tangent about what I think is really important. The 2 are related, though. Some had mentioned waiting to see how the draft played out and finding our ‘27 SS from the ‘26 or ‘27 freshmen classes. And Clauss was part of that group. I just think SS is too important to not go into ‘27 without a proven one.

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Garcia to Texas.

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Is this official?

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Did we ever get a serious response to this? Because I can delete about a 1/3 of my long arse post if so.

Not really, though. He’s an archetype I was talking about, it wasn’t specifically about him. But you know he’s gonna cost out the arse.

The Cal Baptist guy seems exactly like the kind of guy Jay was talking about focusing on. With his ties to Cali, I’ll predict Jay lands this dude. And Hunt mentioned he had a teammate who was a really good pitcher. Great SO:BB and SO/9 ratios. Doesn’t throw 98, but sits in the low-mid 90s and has great command of a few pitches. (I think that’s what Hunt said). Could fill 2 huge holes from 1 school that wouldn’t be cheap, but wouldn’t take all our NIL either.

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The Cal Baptist guy seems exactly like the kind of guy Jay was talking about focusing on. With his ties to Cali, I’ll predict Jay lands this dude. And Hunt mentioned he had a teammate who was a really good pitcher.

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Both of those guys would have been recruited to CBU and coached for a year by former LSU Ops director Tyler Nordgren. He's at UCSD now, but his first on field coaching/off campus recruiting role was at Cal Baptist when he left here.

So there are real connections.

I also like the William & Mary shortstop (Laskofski) and have been touting him for several weeks now. Good fielder, performed in the clutch, hit for power and average, good speed, performed against power conference competition. I feel like he's going to be in demand from every ACC and SEC team looking for a shortstop.

A sleeper shortstop option is the second baseman from Mizzou (Blaize Ward). Hit better in SEC play than he did overall. Fielded very well at 2B, but looks like he will be playing SS this summer in the NECBL. Will be watching to see how he performs there.

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You’re right. I just used that to go off on a tangent about what I think is really important. The 2 are related, though. Some had mentioned waiting to see how the draft played out and finding our ‘27 SS from the ‘26 or ‘27 freshmen classes. And Clauss was part of that group. I just think SS is too important to not go into ‘27 without a proven one

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Oh I agree with all of what you said too btw.

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You just have to accept that you can't get in the way of a good Carl tangent.

I read ALL OF THEM.

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Thanks. That makes one of you. Hell, I don’t even read a lot of mine after I hit submit and see how gross they look.

And I obviously read all of yours.

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So Jay’s got to either grab a guy with multiple years of eligibility (like the Texas Tech freshman SS who’s 6’5” and could play 3rd) and tell him that the plan is for him to play his final 2 seasons at SS, but in the off chance Milam does come back, they’d have to pivot and move that guy to 3rd for his SO season, and then back to short for his money year. Sell him on showing his ability to play 3rd to MLB clubs in case he outgrows SS (granted, not a great selling point because almost anybody who can play SS can play 3rd), but really focus on selling him on a trip to Omaha to compete for a CWS Championship. Sell him on being part of what could be a very special team. Or lie to him and tell him there’s no way Milam comes back.

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You are 100% correct. Go get a SS i don't care who and if Milam stays move him to 3B. If Milam leaves then we got our SS in the portal. And hopefully the SS has 2 years left instead of a one and done.