re: Quit blaming Coaching..The players are middle of the pack in talent. Blame transfer portal

This is a combination of Jay’s fault and the portal era.He built the roster, but also lost guys that I still can’t figure out why they left. Guys like Mikey Ryan and Costello left before Jay even came close to making a portal move. Maybe he should have lied and told them they would be starters. He took guys that are wannabes and that’s on Jay and his scouts. I didn’t have high expectations for Simpson or Caraway. I thought Dardar would have been better. As for pitching, something is wrong there. We have a lot of guys that can’t throw a strike, and guys that are barely good for an inning. Glad to see these freshman like Ruckert, Braun, Serna, Patrick making the best of their opportunities so they stay and Jay can build on that. Take studs from the portal where needed and develop these young guys and the incoming class.

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There was a serious lack of development between last year and this year. The majority of our returning pitchers are worse than they were a year ago. That is coaching and not a talent problem. Maybe we don’t have enough talent to win the World Series this year. That’s fair. But we absolutely, positively have enough talent to be better than 6-15 in the SEC. if you guys honestly think that 14 SEC schools have more talent on their roster than we do, I don’t know what to tell you.

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While a fair point, this still doesn’t explain the extreme regression we’ve seen from some of them. Williams was a reliable rotation pitcher in Omaha and is barely functional this year. Did Yeskie break him, or is he just in a slump and can’t get out of it? Guidry is a similar story. He’s been a little better than Williams, but he’s well off his previous performance and has repeatedly given up runs in SEC play.

Even Cowan, who has still been stable and reliable, has given up several HRs and had a couple of rough outings. Some of that lower ERA is on the defense letting him down, but not all of it. He’s a fricking senior. “Development” isn’t the issue with him. As for Evans, maybe it’s partially on development, but maybe it’s just not being ready for the role. We’ve all seen what he can do. He just hasn’t done it this year. I wouldn’t put that all on coaching. Maybe 25%, but a coach can’t just flip a switch and make a player stop struggling. And it would be easy to say move him back to the pen, but who would you move up? These are compounding problems and that lowers the number of legitimate solutions.

There is no one single answer here like so many of you want there to be. The players bear a LOT of responsibility in this as well, especially our returning vets. They haven’t lead and they haven’t stepped up into the roles vacated by guys like Bear, Dickinson, Hernandez, Anderson and Eyanson. Curiel, Brown, Stanny, and Milam have all played well at times and injuries have definitely been an issue with 2 of them, but they have not been the leaders we needed in the dugout. That’s not a staff problem.

Speaking of injuries- we can’t discount how much of a toll that has taken. Losing a starter has likely resulted in several avoidable losses. That put more pressure on a staff that can’t handle that. Stanny never seemed to be at fully 100% after coming back and now he’s out. Then Caraway and Dardar. Then Brown. Then Pearson. Then Evans. Now the injury problem has pretty much ended any hope of a turnaround. That’s a lot of fricking starters and rotation guys to be without.

Yes- the staff deserves criticism. The portal class, on the heels of one that was pretty much an across the board success, was a bust. Most of the incoming freshmen weren’t ready to contribute early. The pitching staff didn’t come around by mid to late season like the previous 3. There’s been a lot of meddling and button pushing trying to spark something that just hasn’t worked. They have a lot of work to do this offseason.

But the players are well paid and the majority of them just aren’t earning it this year, either. There’s no way to get around that.

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Quit blaming Coaching

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You sound so dumb, blaming the Transfer Portal. Nobody put a gun to Jay's head and made him take the players he brought in. Go ahead and sit this one out before you give yourself a migraine.

I keep seeing this mantra - you cannot blame the "transfer portal" which is simply a group of available players - JJ is the one who got these players out of the portal - if the players are "middle of the pack in talent" then JJ is the one who mis-evaluated them - 100% coaching fault

Is there a locker room/team problem which the coaches created inadvertently? Let’s not forget these guys all have egos, and some are not equal to their talent. That’s not bad when the talent is larger, but a nightmare if they think they are better than their performances, and don’t try to put the team first.

Portal to a degree. Recruiting certainly; when top HS recruits go pro you're left with portal players to fill the void. They did not fill the void.

I remember last year or so..He came out and said he likes to build a program from within with Highschool players... It develops Leadership and team bonding.