notbilly

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Is the portal open yet?

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No. Players can't enter the portal until June 1.

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Shay Kleinpeter. Dean of students (male)

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Is this an assumption or something you know?

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I don’t feel like anything was off other than the talent level. We just weren’t very good.

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The talent on this team isn’t good enough to win a natty, but it certainly exceeds their record. That part is undeniable. We can argue all day about how far this talent should have gone, but no one can honestly think that 9-21 is an acceptable SEC record with these guys.

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Id rather be watching them, but to each their own

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This is how real fans feel.

John Pearson hates John Pearson‘s foot

I’m starting to like this ABS a lot right now!

It’s an advantage I didn’t think we’d have by not getting a bye. Bide learned a lot in one game.

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Pearson stop taking so many hops.

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Can Pearson throw without hopping?

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When you are in a shift, you pitch to that.

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In theory, yes. But Yeskie hasn’t always been on the same page as our defense. And that isn’t just this year.

Context matters. The MLB ABS strike zone is smaller than the tradional zone.

From mlb.com

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The data shows us that the umpire-called zone has had a maximum height of 55.6% and a 24.2% minimum at the bottom. So be it by umpire adjustment or challenges on close calls, we can expect a slightly tighter zone.

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And I’ve seen many references to the fact that the MLB’s ABS zone is also smaller than the zone by definition.

So yes, the SEC zone is bigger but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Personally, the height seems fine. I don’t like the inclusion of the black of the plate even though I know a lot of umps include it

With all that said, the bigger zone favors LSU since our pitchers struggle to hit their mark.

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Which other pitchers have regressed? Most of our returners were pretty bad at this last year and haven’t improved.

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Cowan was first-team All-SEC last year. Evans was on the ALL-SEC freshmen team. We had 10 pitchers returning this year, and 7 of them are statiscally worse than before with an ERA up by at least 2.50 from before.

Williams - 1.80 ERA in 2025 up to 7.94
Evans - 2.05 ERA in 2025 up to 6.27
Guidry - 2.59 ERA in 2024 up to 6.39
Cowan - 2.94 ERA in 2025 up to 5.49
Primeaux - 3.86 ERA in 2025 up to 7.71
Noot - 4.13 ERA in 2025 up to 6.75
Benge - 6.75 ERA in 2025 up to 9.00

Fontenot - 7.20 ERA in 2025 down to 4.18
Schmidt - 4.73 ERA in 2025 down to 4.22
Rizy - 4.74 ERA in 2025 down to 4.22

If you compare their stats from last year to this year (use Guidry's 2024), their combined ERA went from 3.45 to 5.55. Same guys, over 2 full runs worse.

Evans wasn't hurt until recently, and he was struggling before then. Sure, it's a different role from last year, but that's how most pitchers begin their careers. He started a few games last year, so it wasn't like this was completely new to him.

The best ERA on the team this season is Moore's 3.38. Four of the guys above beat that last year or in 2024. Back to my original point, that "talent" isn't the biggest problem. These guys were talented before, and they still have talent.

Fontenot and Schmidt look better than a year ago, but the improvement isn't enough to offset the others.

Rizy's ERA is better, but I'm not sure I'd call him improved. He's given up more free passes in fewer innings.

The other seven have had a significant dropoff. If it were a couple, it wouldn't be expected. But none of us could have expected the returning guys to perform like this.

I'm not posting this to shite on the players; quite the opposite. I find it bothersome when fans are saying we don't have talent. We may not have Anderson and Eyanson, but we also don't have 9-21 SEC level talent.