vanillacandle

quote:

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Y’all fricking complain when we swing at a first pitch and now complaining that we take pitches.

Working the count is the proper way to approach. GTFO

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taking away first pitch strikes is not "working the count" for the next batter and philosophy of your approach in future at bats? Lol. Your elementary bro. Peace.

I don't know where to even start. I don't want to be banned for saying what I really want to say about my personal opinions about the coaches being from Cali and players not being representative of LSU, so I'll try my best to make sense. The team's chemistry is non existent. I've watched LSU baseball closely for many years. I, like many here, never miss a game. I've also been around baseball I guess you can say(grin) for 30 yrs or so and what I see is a lack of team cohesion and some selfishness going on here by all involved. This is not LSU South and LSU West. This is "LSU". Say what you want but the team feels it, the parents see it and the fans see it. First off, the chemistry of the players finishing last year should have been "held together" again this year hitting wise and on defense. It wasn't. Lineup tinkering and changes hasn't helped this team at all. It's all out of whack. When something works, you don't change it. This is not I, it's WE. Didn't you do your homework on last year's team? They should be improving not digressing.

This should be the line up and where cjj made a mistake coming in. Say what you will but this should have been fixed early on for "this year".

Crews rf
Morgan 1st
Doughty 3rd
Dugas lf
Berry dh(put him here)
Gio cf
Mcmanus c(we just weak here)
Thompson ss(we got nobody else)
Bianco 2b (Merrifield?)
Bianco did play majority last yr at 2nd and did fine on defense!

Say what you want but this is LSU first, not Zona. So many west coast coaches and players here taking presidence over what lsu had to build on from last year. Ill get downvoted but facts don't lie. I'm not about being woke. Yeah I said it. What we have witnessed this year is ridiculous. If this is a coach's way of feeling out his team then this is horrible. I wanna say I'm pulling for Johnson to be successful and the team to be successful but dam. I along with 1000s of others wanna see lsu shine. All the excuses people make about its the coaches first year this and that can suck a big fat one, there are no excuses for the kind output thus far. We look terrible even when we beat cupcakes. And we are 2-5 against teams we should have been playing all along. Atm hasn't played anyone either until I guess lsu, see their schedule. At least they have improved greatly with a even more depleted team than last year and we took 2 of 3 over there last year. Scholssnagle(sp)ran circles around jj so far the whole weekend.

So many make excuses. This team is very dysfunctional especially defensively as we all know. This isn't because we got a new coach, this is not being done correctly in practice period. So many mechanical flaws in our guys behind the plate( MIT down instead of up and not cradling balls in the dirt that get by, you know, "blocking" the baseball and not giving up a stupid run on a past ball or a old arse veteran pitcher throwing 4 balls straight with game on the line), infield miscues and poor reads in the outfield. Too many issues to name but I'll talk about 1 thing. Our approach at the plate. All lsu batters are taking that 1st pitch strike 99 percent of the time. I dont care if coach has them taking or not, yeah yeah we don't wanna run ourselves out of an "at bat" but when we do this, we are beat already at the plate. I'm not saying we cant be successful in an at bat after "strike 1" but when a pitcher knows he getting forst pitch strike 1 with no resistance from the batter, there is no respect there. The averages of hitters after strike 1 is less that 15/20 percent. A pitcher needs to know that at the beginning of an at bat, I cant just throw a pitch over the middle for a strike. As a batter, a pitcher has to respect me on all counts. Most pitchers never throw ball 1 against lsu on first pitch because they don't respect/fear us on that pitch because we just "take". How many times does an lsu player get a ball on first pitch? Hardly ever. That's because we don't make the opponent respect us on first pitch strikes. Skip Bertamn once told a bunch of coaches at a clinic a thousand years ago and everyone knows this. "In an at bat, you may only get 1 good pitch in that at bat if your lucky, don't miss it"....we miss it. I don't care of its coaching, we are not approaching the plate correctly as a whole season wise. I could talk about poor mechanics at catcher, infield, slow jumps in OF and improper reads on the base path but we all see the miscues. We can talk about that we were bad last yr or whatever but there is a noticeable digession here this year. Last year, this team played together and got better. This year is the same team and we are getting worse. No excuses can make this team better.

Team pitching...well I'll just say , we are a staff of "common pitchers". Batters are reading the ball(window release point) and the pitch count(mainly because we get behind in the count) to easily against this bunch. Our staff is too "hittable". No awkwardness anywhere if you can understand my point. We got one guy imo who has a legitimate next level(mlb potential)potential written all over him in the future and that's Taylor. We can't continue to run a "fb only" pitcher out there and a lefty out of shape pitcher who too has too many bb's, hbp's, can't field a bunt correctly, extremely slow on regular pfp because of physical reasons or gives up too many hits in the role he is used for. Why he continues to play seems like a selfish move to me. Then again maybe that's all we got? We can easily say certain players should not even be at a place like LSU but that's on jj and pm also. LSU should never be in a position where we have so many holes defensively in the field and at pitcher PERIOD.

The discipline on the field and off needs to be cleaned up. The appearance of the team needs to be cleaned up. Jmo. West coast(woke) approach? Not working. I only imagine what a coach like Auggie Garrido would have done if he saw this crap continuing to go on here. We need "strong leadership" by coaches and players, not this. Jmo.

Good luck and Go Tigers

Money traded hands and WW got black mailed by some ex fiance pos of one of the players. The NCAA are a bunch of dam hypocrites :bird: .

Personally, I wouldn't have gave that pos leach biatch a dam penny.

To all the WW(I'm not even a ww fan but) haters, check this out. Every big name coach has been in a situation where money traded hands for players but yet the ncaa looked the other way. Lots of money. With NIL now, think of the thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions that are moving from one hand to the next. This was happening before NIL no different and money was trading hands on all levels just like it "was" NIL...NCAA hypocrites only went after WW because he "pissed" somebody off. Every blue blood coach, yes, blue blood coach has moved money around for players, if they said no they didnt ,they are lying their arses off,
. The SEC, ACC, you name it, has been paying players for decades in football, basketball and baseball. Even retired hall of fame coaches paid gazillions to get players they wanted. Pre NIL and NIL today is no different in terms of money except now its legal. If money trading hands is so bad, why is it legal now...

One thing I dont get is why change the chemistry of 1 thru 4 from last year.

I read alot and think to myself I guess. Kinda long and DGAF if its too long for you to read.

I don't think JJ is far off from getting this team fully ready. There are things he doesn't know about this team, that we know simply because we've watched this team of players for a while.

...I think the Berry move to 3rd is good. Gio in right is solid and I think Gio with reps is gonna be a good thing esp since he is a lefty at the plate.

...anybody know what Gavin's stats were last year at this time? I'm sitting here wondering what has happened to him? I dont see the swagger. I realize his average was sitting around maybe 300 last year but he was crushing the ball on contact, lots of rbi's etc. He seems different this year. Maybe he needs to be where he was a staple in the line up like last year? maybe moving down altho I understand what jj is trying to get production wise from the bottom of lineup, has put him in a funk?

...I think the staff on the bump has great potential pitchers. Friday guy is set. Taylor and Dutton are special guys imo. Reyzelman is special imo. I think Hilliard being a Sunday guy would help Hilliard on day 3 to have a better edge in opponents. I dont believe floyd should be a day 2 starter, notice I said starter. I think he would make a fine closer even somewhere in the middle.

Don't bash please and I'm not judging here but as a coach, I cannot understand for the world why a fb ONLY throwing pitcher will be awarded a weekend start in the SEC. It won't end well. I know he was tinkering with something offspeed yesterday but it was not in the mix as a signature strike pitch. What is crazy is that if you take away a couple of plays he was actually still in the game against Texas. Just saying. I think he would make an excellent closer, maybe even better than the one we have now.

Hilliard is effective against high velocity hitting teams as we know who have been used to seeing higher velocity. He keeps these type teams off balance. He does not seem effective against weak swac,
southland like teams.

Seems like alot of teams lsu plays are weak bs teams until conference. You get to see your team shine but does it actually do any good other than managing a base for where you are? No, imo.

We all hate to lose. Stop taking it out on JJ.

Imo, Joubert and Merrifield are not really ready yet. They are new to this level. Sorry but jmo.

I understand JJ trying to be selective with his line up at the plate but countless times we take that first pitch fb/watered down duece strike right over the middle. We need to sit on that much more. As a coach, lsu needs to take that pitch away from opposing pitchers. Most of the line up are big fb hitters, green light them on first pitch strikes. I realize you don't wanna run yourself out of an at bat but nothing else is really working when your team is struggling at the plate. So many times since the beginning of the season we take right down the middle. I get it , but at some point you gotta open it up maybe by 3rd inning.

I understand why some are hard on Crews, Morgan, Berry etc about hitting in big games because their stats against the better competition are not as good as the powder puff comp. but again, this is why it is important we face the better competition. Acclimatization is important. Just sayin. The Tigers need many more nail biters and their shite pushed around before conference kinda thing. Many will disagree but it's true.

I'd like to see JJ jumps some umpire arse, maybe it isn't his persona but the plate guy last night was a straight arse and needed his shite pushed in. His zone was the size of a volleyball. Forget belt to knees type of thing.

Line up should be and many will disagree, I like the older line up philosophy. Some will disagree but I CHALLENGE anyone to prove to me why that first 4 from last year should change in any way? Combine the stats and production those first 4 got last year and get back to me. It's about chemistry and this is my ONLY gripe with JJ. I don't care what happened in preseason or fall. I look at last season and the chemistry was obviously there, I don't care who you brought with u from zona. JJ should think of this. Just sayin.

Crews cf
Morgan 1st
Doughty 2nd
Dugas(last year)lf
Berry 3rd
DH
Gio rf
Thompson(improving some at ss)
Millazo c



At ss, lsu has to continue to improve on defense, we lack a big stick at catcher and the fact that we changed Doughty to 2nd "changed" 2 positions from last year not one. This takes time to gel. It seemed to get somewhat better. I think Berry at 3rd will get much better, he showed he has a gun at 3rd. Jmo.

I'll get many downvotes. It's ok. The armchair coaches.

Jmo my take.

Good luck tonight against the Bears!

Bought a 23ft in last year from a boat dealer in Washington, North Carolina. This town was in northern NC. I Rented a Ford f250 power stroke and drove 15 hours from South La. Once I got boat, I did a turn around and drove it back. Had to hit a truck stop and take a 2 hour nap, then I drove that bad boy home. Overall, between the rental, gas and the mileage cost, it cost me around 800 total.