re: who will be our starting shortstop this year?

We can only hope so.Can we let the pitcher bat 9th and have the ss set out at the plate, lol ?

I think our hitting approach will be much improved with Eddie on board.

I do know Paul typically don't over-teach incoming freshman at the plate. Cade will be a baller before his time is up (at LSU).

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His glove is golden

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I honestly have no idea how some people can think this.
We just watched Nola, Bregman and KRob play shortstop for us for several years, and if you think Hughes glove is anywhere in the vicinity of theirs, i don't know what you're watching.
Hal Hughes is a decent shortstop. His first step/instinct isn't at the level you need for a shortstop at the level LSU plays. There have been tons of balls hit up the middle that off the bat you assume base hit, and somehow Bregman or KRob would get to them and sometimes actually get the guy out. I've never seen Hughes do that. Yeah if you hit it to him he's going to scoop it up and make the play more often than not, but i have zero faith in him getting to the hard hit balls in the hole the way our previous shortstops did.

and before anyone says don't compare him to MLB players, this is LSU. I expect our shortstop to be elite, either being an elite fielder, or elite at the plate, and he is no where near elite at anything.
Hal's high schools stats as a hitter would have had him batting 9th on my high school state championship team playing 2nd base. Go look at what KRob and Bregman did in high school and compare it to Hughes. KRob was better as a freshman than Hughes was as a senior, and i'd bet he played against tougher competition. I honestly have no idea why we would use an out of state scholarship on someone like him. If he was a LA kid, where you can give him partial scholarship or none at all, then i could see it, but with the way scholarships work with college baseball, if you recruit outside the state for LSU, that kid better be worth it.



All that being said, i would love to be wrong about Hughes and he be a great contributor to our Tigers this year.

Watch Hal hit .280 this year somehow

He is pretty good defensivley IMO. I do agree i have little faith he develops as a hitter. He hasnt been a great hitter at any level of baseball.