I'm not great at predictions under normal conditions, but there's no way I'd be making any bold predictions for this year. The shortened MLB draft last spring and NCAA eligibility waivers mean that there will be lots of talent returning everywhere that would normally have gone pro. Predicting the winners and losers from that process is darn near impossible.

One thing I do worry about is that I'm not sure the SEC will get the respect is deserves this year. With inter-conference action being adversely impacted by covid, I'm not sure that we'll get the RPI bump that we normally do. So, while being just one or two games over .500 in SEC play can sometimes get you in the discussion for hosing a regional, I'm not sure that will be the case this year. Without a reliable RPI (and it will be absolutely useless for the Big 10, since they aren't playing any non-conference games), I'm not sure how the committee will evaluate teams this year. In football, the lack of inter-conference play probably caused the committee to over value the ACC. We might see something similar in baseball.

I think you'll see a couple new additions to the line up provide some missing power from the last few years. Have to rely on RC making up the pitching required that was lost...that's normally his forte obviously.

Knowing a couple current players...they hope RC is extended soon, myself included. Had there been a full draft...I think we probably only lose 1-2 freshmen, this will be a great class to build on - even though it may not have had the draftees (who leave anyway)

One thing to keep in mind - we will face 7 Pre-season All American pitchers on the mound this year. 7! And that doesnt include Vandy who has 2 more.

9 SEC teams ranked in the preseason top 25. We aren't one of them.

twk said:

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I'm not great at predictions under normal conditions, but there's no way I'd be making any bold predictions for this year. The shortened MLB draft last spring and NCAA eligibility waivers mean that there will be lots of talent returning everywhere that would normally have gone pro. Predicting the winners and losers from that process is darn near impossible.

One thing I do worry about is that I'm not sure the SEC will get the respect is deserves this year. With inter-conference action being adversely impacted by covid, I'm not sure that we'll get the RPI bump that we normally do. So, while being just one or two games over .500 in SEC play can sometimes get you in the discussion for hosing a regional, I'm not sure that will be the case this year. Without a reliable RPI (and it will be absolutely useless for the Big 10, since they aren't playing any non-conference games), I'm not sure how the committee will evaluate teams this year. In football, the lack of inter-conference play probably caused the committee to over value the ACC. We might see something similar in baseball.

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I agree and will continue the NCAA's desire to shift to more "regional" regionals...placing more hosting sites in non-typical geographies. In baseball they say tie goes to the runner. In baseball selection, tie will go to the northern schools.

Luke The Drifter said:

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twk said:

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I'm not great at predictions under normal conditions, but there's no way I'd be making any bold predictions for this year. The shortened MLB draft last spring and NCAA eligibility waivers mean that there will be lots of talent returning everywhere that would normally have gone pro. Predicting the winners and losers from that process is darn near impossible.

One thing I do worry about is that I'm not sure the SEC will get the respect is deserves this year. With inter-conference action being adversely impacted by covid, I'm not sure that we'll get the RPI bump that we normally do. So, while being just one or two games over .500 in SEC play can sometimes get you in the discussion for hosing a regional, I'm not sure that will be the case this year. Without a reliable RPI (and it will be absolutely useless for the Big 10, since they aren't playing any non-conference games), I'm not sure how the committee will evaluate teams this year. In football, the lack of inter-conference play probably caused the committee to over value the ACC. We might see something similar in baseball.

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I agree and will continue the NCAA's desire to shift to more "regional" regionals...placing more hosting sites in non-typical geographies. In baseball they say tie goes to the runner. In baseball selection, tie will go to the northern schools.

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Except this year the ncaa will be looking for the cheap route. They have bunch of revenue that's not coming in from MBB

Quote:

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Except this year the ncaa will be looking for the cheap route. They have bunch of revenue that's not coming in from MBB

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And I think they will accomplish that by sending the at large and auto bids to nearby host sites. I'm guessing you'll see a lot of regionals that look like this...

Texas, Rice, Texas A&M, Texas State

Florida, Florida State, UCF, Stetson

UCLA, UC-Irvine, Fullerton, UNLV

Ohio State, Kentucky, Louisville, Akron

How about a coach that can win something meaningful more than every once in a while for 16 years.

Hop said:

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jja79 said:

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How about a coach that can win something meaningful more than every once in a while for 16 years.

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Sure, but we were discussing Blue Bell Park.

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We are losing the arms race that Aggies have become famous for in the last 5 years for winning.

Hell look at what they've done at tu... the same sort of situation as Olsen, where UFCU DF is an old stadium and they did a similar thing that A&M did... they just gave an old stadium a facelift and added suites and a few other amenities.

However, now they've made extremely significant upgrades to all of their player facilities. That new indoor facility is top notch and makes our indoor facility look exactly what it is... just a shelter with cages.

It's getting painful to watch the other teams in the SEC build new things to attract top tier talent when we are stuck in coast mode.

TKNR_Ags said:

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We are losing the arms race that Aggies have become famous for in the last 5 years for winning.

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Man, I have tried to stay out of this, but I just can't. In what circles are we famous for winning an arms race in baseball? (Unless you mean our pitching staff where it is literal arms and not figurative ones).

We can't say that we are going to negatively impact our winning by not investing infacilities, then talk about five years of winning while being famous in the "arms race", then talk about firing the coach because we aren't winning (enough), and all the while try to correlate wins and losses to facilities in a sport where there are many examples of the correlation not existing. The positions become so circuitous that they end up contradicting each other.

I realize it's the internet, but there are so many things conflated into a discussion of this program that it's not even actually discussion but a smattering of random thoughts and "move the goal posts" positions.

(Is it Opening Day yet? We need some games to start up.)

jja79 said:

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Hop said:

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jja79 said:

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How about a coach that can win something meaningful more than every once in a while for 16 years.

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Sure, but we were discussing Blue Bell Park.

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Isn't this the "Set the Bar" thread which began discussing expectations for the season?

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Yeah that's what I thought too

Cmon, Hop!

The 1st post on this thread about the season, not the stadium, mentioned RC.

Being confrontational with the paying customers isn't how most businesses operate.

The thread topic is setting the bar and the discussion was about the season and expectations. Down the page the facility was introduced. I'll just avoid threads you participate in going forward so as not to annoy you.

I'm predicting we win right around 30 games. Fewest wins since RC's first year. Losing record in conference. Looking for a new guy this summer. I hope I'm wrong.

CampingAg said:

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Baseball is so hard because it's so random by nature. Was RC a bad coach because Gideon threw the ball away at 2 in the morning in Fort Worth and we didn't make it to Omaha? I think there's no way that team goes two and out if they make it.

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Because of that one play? No. But because of a history of ill-timed mental lapses and errors over the Childress years? Yes. We have usually been a mediocre to bad fielding team. It's almost like we play expecting something bad to go wrong at the worst possible time. How many times during the BDF did we have a better team than tu, but still lost the series? (I would say half.)

I firmly believe a team takes on the personality of its head coach. Just look at the culture change in the football program over the past three seasons. It's stark.

Childress is a good coach, and I think he's been very good as of late. I don't think he's a great coach, but he's making "great coach" money.

Bullpen Chias said:

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I'm predicting we win right around 30 games. Fewest wins since RC's first year. Losing record in conference. Looking for a new guy this summer. I hope I'm wrong.

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What is the rationale in this prediction? We have a lot of talent coming back

tjack16 said:

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Bullpen Chias said:

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I'm predicting we win right around 30 games. Fewest wins since RC's first year. Losing record in conference. Looking for a new guy this summer. I hope I'm wrong.

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What is the rationale in this prediction? We have a lot of talent coming back

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What's the rationale for any other prediction?

Do other programs have talent?

10 SEC series. 4 against Top 10 teams - Florida, LSU, Ole Miss and Miss St. I can legitimately see us getting swept two of those. I could see us going something like 13-17 in conference.

Bullpen Chias said:

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10 SEC series. 4 against Top 10 teams - Florida, LSU, Ole Miss and Miss St. I can legitimately see us getting swept two of those. I could see us going something like 13-17 in conference.

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First. Preseason rankings don't indicate as much as people think.

And on the other hand I can see us sweeping Alabama, Missouri and Tennessee if we play up to our potential. Also there are no non conference teams that scare me on our schedule besides maybe going 1-2 in round rock

A prediction saying we struggle to get 30 wins doesn't make much sense given our easy non conference schedule

I didn't say we'd "struggle" to win 30, but I think we come up short of RCs second worst year of 34 wins.
Non conference: 20-6
SEC 13-17

So, I'm going to call 33-23

tjack16 said:

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Bullpen Chias said:

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10 SEC series. 4 against Top 10 teams - Florida, LSU, Ole Miss and Miss St. I can legitimately see us getting swept two of those. I could see us going something like 13-17 in conference.

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First. Preseason rankings don't indicate as much as people think.

And on the other hand I can see us sweeping Alabama, Missouri and Tennessee if we play up to our potential. Also there are no non conference teams that scare me on our schedule besides maybe going 1-2 in round rock

A prediction saying we struggle to get 30 wins doesn't make much sense given our easy non conference schedule

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What is your prediction?

tjack16 said:

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Bullpen Chias said:

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I'm predicting we win right around 30 games. Fewest wins since RC's first year. Losing record in conference. Looking for a new guy this summer. I hope I'm wrong.

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What is the rationale in this prediction? We have a lot of talent coming back

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We have a lot of players coming back. I'm not sure we have a lot of "talent" coming back. Hope I'm wrong, but it's hard to imagine our hitters magically getting better over the past 10 months. They struggled mightily in the few non-conference games we played in '20...but all of a sudden they're ready for SEC-level ball this year? I hope I'm wrong, but that's a lot of improvement/development that will have needed to happen since last March.

Captain Pablo said:

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tjack16 said:

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Bullpen Chias said:

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10 SEC series. 4 against Top 10 teams - Florida, LSU, Ole Miss and Miss St. I can legitimately see us getting swept two of those. I could see us going something like 13-17 in conference.

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First. Preseason rankings don't indicate as much as people think.

And on the other hand I can see us sweeping Alabama, Missouri and Tennessee if we play up to our potential. Also there are no non conference teams that scare me on our schedule besides maybe going 1-2 in round rock

A prediction saying we struggle to get 30 wins doesn't make much sense given our easy non conference schedule

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What is your prediction?

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I'm predicting we either host a regional or 2 seed.
16-14 SEC record. Maybe 15-15 if we do get swept by somebody.
37-19 record

I think the pitching staff will be solid and the offense will be very good. Getting Jonathan Childress and Saenz back is going to help a lot.

Maybe I'm too high on this team but I think we will be similar to what we were in 2019. That team finished 36-19 before the SEC tournament and got the 2 seed in Morgantown

src94 said:

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I'm picking 40-16. I think Callet has our bats going better this year.

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I'm hoping he helps

I'm curious about Georgia. Seems I remember they were ranked quite high last season but aren't getting a lot of attention going into this season.

If Georgia ain't great, Missouri, Tennessee, and Georgia make three winnable cross-over series and then you hope to take one from Florida.

Aggies2009 said:

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CampingAg said:

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Baseball is so hard because it's so random by nature. Was RC a bad coach because Gideon threw the ball away at 2 in the morning in Fort Worth and we didn't make it to Omaha? I think there's no way that team goes two and out if they make it.

I know this: we have never been bad under RC. His pitching development speaks for itself(the debate about offense can rage on). Is the lack of success in Omaha bad coaching? The randomness of baseball? Both? I also know former players swear by him as a coach and a leader. If a handful of plays go our way and we win a game in Omaha in 2016 before losing the next two, does that one game somehow mean he's a good coach instead of a bad coach?

It's tough.

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A "win in Omaha" is not really a metric to anyone other than the people who have made it their goal to get Childress fired and it's the only thing they have to hold onto.

You're right that baseball has an element of randomness (TCU needed their regional opponent to make 3 errors and a balk just to reach the Supers in 2015), but that doesn't matter to these people. They'll make a straw man argument and say, "IT'S ALL RANDOM HUH?"

You'll be better off if you ignore the "FIRE RC" posts/threads until after the season and enjoy the games.

HTH

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It's always next year isn't it. At a certain point you just need to move on.

29-27

I think we get swept by Mississippi State and Piggy, and we drop every SEC series outside of Bama. The pitching is going to be a huge question mark, and nothing has lead me to believe that the bats are going to be dramatically improved.

35-40 wins.....non-conference schedule is just too light for worse than that. I THINk 3-4 games over .500 in conf.

Back to the new coach thing....IF RC is let go, you can bet any new coach worth anything will require promises of facility upgrades. Not going to get one of the top guys to agree to take a gig that's beginning to fall behind in the arms race.

Pitching will be fine.....hitting will be better than last year.