February 22, 2018
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Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High
Have we learned our lesson from the start of the Saints season? Of course not. Making conclusions about the quality of your team after less than 7% of the season has been played is not usually very accurate, but that won’t stop fans from doing it.
Naturally, LSU fans have not learned that lesson, and are freaking out about this year’s baseball team. To be fair to those freaking out, not much has gone right so far this year. Two of the three catchers have been injured. Two of the best incoming pitchers have been injured. The starting shortstop is now injured. Before the injuries, LSU was already breaking in an entirely new weekend rotation.
Then nothing went right this weekend. All three starters struggled. So rather than easing in the bullpen of new faces, the bullpen was thrust into major innings of relief. The returning starters, except for Beau Jordan, were completely unproductive. The new, talented position players were not very productive either.
The good news is that the starting pitching cannot be less productive. The lineup could have worse weekends against great SEC pitching, but it couldn’t be much worse. Of course, there always could be more injuries, but LSU has already had injuries to the two most important defensive positions on the field (catcher and shortstop).
Will LSU have a terrible season? They certainly could. If Caleb Gilbert, Todd Peterson, Zack Hess, and anyone else the coaches try can’t consistently give quality starts then nothing else matters. And that is where Tiger fans could and should be worried.
Reading the Paul Mainieri tea leaves, you can tell he is not counting on Zack Hess as a starter. Many Tiger fans bash Mainieri for speaking openly about the performance of his players, but history shows how well his players play for him. The reason is he is honest with them and gives them a chance. The exact thing he is doing with Zack Hess.
I am not going to get deep into the breaking down the different pitchers and their talents. Instead, I am going to paint the most realistic picture as I can. From reading Mainieri’s quotes, I think he is just trying to survive the beginning of the season with this pitching staff. Gilbert, Hess, and Peterson were on the staff last year and get the first shot at being weekend starters.
But Mainieri has had the most positive comments about the abilities of Cam Sanders, AJ Labas, and Nick Storz. He cautiously compares Sanders to Aaron Nola. Labas and Storz have been consistently referred to as the most talented freshmen. If Sanders pitches well against UNO and Peterson struggles again this weekend, I would expect Sanders to get a weekend start the third weekend.
My guess is Mainieri will give Hess 3-4 weekends to show he is a starting pitcher. If Hess shows he can pitch into the 7th, then we can all do flips. If not, then he might as well start someone else who only goes 4-5 innings and have Hess as the best closer in college baseball.
Keep in mind, that LSU only had three true weekend starters last year when Eric Walker came on halfway through the season. In most other years, LSU has pieced together the Sunday inning with 5-7 different pitchers (the Johnny Wholestaff line is so tired). It is not hard to imagine Gilbert and Sanders giving quality starts on Friday and Saturday, while Sunday is left to Peterson, Labas, Hilliard, Storz, and Hess if LSU is winning. That method can win a lot of games, but two pitchers stepping into the Friday and Saturday roles are the key.
The fact is this pitching staff was never going to be great in February and March this year. The hope is that LSU survives until April, and by then all the new faces have found their roles.
LSU has quality hitters and good speed. The outfield of Watson, Duplantis, and Cabrera with Webre and Jordan as backups is excellent.
The infield looks a little shaky without Smith in the lineup at shortstop. Defensively, the Tigers should be fine. Slaughter at third, Hughes at shortstop, and Broussard at second base are solid.
The question is at the plate. Slaughter struggled last year despite great talent, and was supposed to be improved this year. A week ago, his progress was a bonus. With Smith out, his progress is a must.
Broussard actually was one of the few Tigers to swing the bat well last weekend. Since he is an experienced player coming from Delgado there is reason to think he can keep it up. Hughes was not supposed to be needed offensively this year, so there has to be for a reason. Hopefully, he can be scrappy, draw walks, get bunts down, and execute the hit and run effectively. If not, Chris Reid has been waiting his turn and hopefully he can produce if called upon.
Most Tiger fans look at the Notre Dame weekend and point out that LSU should have been swept. Baseball is not the Olympics and style points don’t matter. Tiger fans need to approach the next six weeks of baseball with the Al Davis, “Just Win Baby” attitude. Don’t try and figure out if this team can get a topo 8 seed or make a Super Regional. What you see now is nothing like what LSU will be in May. LSU is very young and hopefully, like the Saints this year, get better and better each week (shouldn’t be hard after last week).
HEY REF
And the circus that goes by the name the National Basketball Association has come down hard on one of its owners for exercising his right to free speech, well kinda. So let’s go directly to the center of the “BIG TOP” and here we go! The NBA has fined Mark Cuban the owner of the Dallas franchise $600,000.00 because he told his players and confirmed it to reporters that since the Mavs season is basically trashed he feels the best thing they can do is not compete for the remainder of the season and not play to win another game in the 2017 – 2018 season.
Cuban acknowledged tanking as it’s called “brutal” but playing out the rest of this current season with the intention of losing all remaining games would be in their best interest simply because it would better their position in the annual draft of college players. But NBA Commissioner Adam Silver released a comment spelling out that Cuban’s remarks and subsequent fine was for publically saying something that’s detrimental to the NBA. REALLY, Mr. Commish?
Yes, commissioner I also believe that honesty is the best policy. Admitting you’ve got a team that’s intentionally losing games would be very detrimental to anybusiness and/or league. Cuban was a guest on Julius Erving’s podcast “House Call with Dr. J” and admitted to telling his players that going out for the rest of the season without wanting or trying to win any games this season would be the best business decision that they could make.
Excuse Mr. Cuban run that by me again…
Cuban explained himself this way “I just had dinner with a bunch of our guys the other night, and here we are, you know, we weren’t competing for the playoffs. I was like, look, losing is our best option”. He also offered this insight “Being transparent, I think that’s the key to being kind of a player’s owner and having stability”. Say what?
When I first read about the only thing I could think of was this has to be fake news. I just couldn’t believe anyone in his position as an owner would even think this way much less let the ‘ole cat out of the bag. So I did some searching and found this story being reported by the likes of ESPN and Fox Sports so unless today is April first then there’s got to be something to it.
So what’s Hey Ref’s position on this type of story? Again “IF” all is true on what Cuban said either to his players or to Dr. J it just doesn’t sit well with me. The NBA has its prestige on the line here. Can fans believe a franchise would intentionally throw games? Would season ticket holders start turning in their tickets? I heard one reporter say that if this is true then the NBA would be just like professional wrestling in that games are scripted and winners are chosen before anyone sits down to eat breakfast. He went on to say “we’d just be another WWE” referring to professional wrestling where all the matches are scripted and winners and losers are determined days or if not weeks ahead of time.
And I don’t believe Cuban would be on the hot seat if it weren’t for the gambling industry. What has the NBA elite so riled up is the Dallas owner admitted they were “tanking” for a season and a half. Holy Poo-Poo Batman you meant to admit your franchise has been throwing games for that long? How can that be? I don’t think and I hope Cuban was misquoted about that time line. His admission to “tanking” has Vegas sport’s books looking for some where to land. There’s plenty of outrage simply because players could’ve been shaving points for that year and a half and it cost the gambling industry billions.
When asked to go into more detail all Cuban would say is “I earned it, I got excited talking to Dr. J and said something I shouldn’t have”. Oh no Mark being honest comes with a price and you just cost the Vegas bookies billions because nobody will touch another one of your games. And I don’t understand why some people are up in arms about this admission to losing. There was a purpose to it and back in May Cuban admitted the Mavs wanted to lose as many games as they could to better their position in the upcoming draft. Well that plan failed too since the Mavs didn’t get a better position after all was said and done.
If the NBA does some hard investigation they probably will uncover this as a common thing to do once your team is out of the playoff hunt. And where else could this type of thing be going on? History has taught us the World Series was rigged over a hundred years ago. I’m one that refuses to be shocked at this behavior and do think it’s something that goes on in every level of play. NCAA basketball was shocked by a player’s admission to fixing games and there’s no reason to think it’s been stopped.
No my friends, the games have so much riding on the outcomes and money talks. If FBI decides to start “looking” into this admission we might see an end to sport’s betting. Who am I trying to kid, placing a bet on the outcome of a game will remain one of the biggest if not THE BIGGEST industry in the USA. Probably the only thing bigger than gambling is prostitution!
Till next week…
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