Baseball Lineups: 2010

[bruh]

foofoo,

I did forget about Bowman so I think he and Olasin can be a very effective 1-2. Goulas, healthy, is probably our best hitter. Thad would probably be best in the 5 hole, the only problem is that he needs someone protecting him. Fontenot is a good hitter but he wont help Thad see more fastballs. I love Fontenot at the bottom turning the lineup over.

The one good thing is that there will be a lot of options with veterans. It will be a veteran heavy team, and a team that is young and soft one year can click and be a group of experienced warriors the next year.

Everything will revolve around 3 guys. Goulas, Smith and Griffen. If they can shoulder the burden and take in upon themselves to carry the team, You're looking at a group that could be a threat for the SBC title. (from a lineup standpoint)

Someone needs to step up and help the pitching staff out. (I would love to see Jut back in the closer spot but I am not sure he can get his arm ready to pitch every day) It may be better to keep him as a starter. Cook needs to decide that he is going to be a guy who is going to win every time out. He is a good pitcher, but he needs to be a killer. Bulliard is the same way. This kid has the stuff to be great out of the pen, but he is not a killer.

as far as the rotation I would go with:
Fri-Osbourne
Sat-Jut
Sun-Cook
Tues-Fuse (I'd actually like to see how good he can be strictly pitching)

Bullpen:
Lackie: I like what I've seen so far. I think he could be a real good late inning guy if he isnt a starter.
Wascom: showed that he is a front line reliever. injury or illness sidelined him I believe: i hope he can get back on the field healthy because hes a good one.
Bulliard: This kid has to put it together, his stuff is too good to be on the bench (same with Marze)
Wilborn: I think he will be back as he probably pitched himself out of the draft. (Needs to redeem himself as a hard throwing lefty out of the pen)

I've heard good things about Larsen and Hubbell. hopefully they can get on the mound in some capacity.

new Juco guys need to assert themselves early and try and take someone's job.

[CajunT]

_ Choose your own adjective. That's fine. We'll agree I'm sure 400 foot moon shots are not easy to do. You illustrate the value of the solid line up though. _

Moon shots are one thing, hitting with runners in scoring position is another. His average over the past two years has not been great in those situations. I don't have those numbers right now, but I was shocked when someone told me those numbers. I enjoyed watching Hawkins play here, but he has struggled the past two years.

[LifeTimeCajun]

_ I'm going this route:

1 - Olasin CF
2 - Bowman LF
3 - Smith 1B
4 - Keefer 3B
5- Griffen C
6 - Fontenot SS
7 - Long or Porrier DH
8 - Goulas RF
9 - Bostick 2B

This is obviously pending JUCO transfers that come in and make an impact immediately. I also think Bostick started to figure some things out in the last 3 weeks. Good signs for next season. _

i am not particulary sold on bowman as a hitter. And smith has too good of an arm to be stuck at first base....that would be wasting his talent in my opinion

[Boomer]

_ The thing that worries me is still the hitting and power of the lineup next year. All but 1 of our recruits are pitchers so we basically have to improve hitting through practice rather than bringing in new bats. This will be the biggest area of concern IMO. Pitching will be solid with near everyone coming back. Hopefully a new or less used pitcher or 2 will step up to fill the spots being vacated. _

they all need to stay in the weight room this Summer and Fall----We look like lil kids compared to some teams!!!!

[CajunProud]

_ I agree with that and for the poster who says small ball is dead, I say watch the way every west coast team plays. Small ball is alive and well and makes a lot of average teams very good.

I do think that we need to have at least 3 guys with 10+ homerun potential, but getting that 1 20+ bomb guy isnt as crucial as finding guys who can steal 20+ bags is, to me, more important then the 20 bomb guy. (for our park and our league)

Also, we have to do a better job of identifying true bullpen guys like Pilgreen, Laughter, Sham, Beck, Farquhar etc. We didnt have any guys like that this year and it killed us. I liked Haggan but having him as our top reliever is unacceptable. He is at best a lefty-lefty matchup guy.

We will always have good starting pitching, but until we can truly identify and build a bullpen, we will not be going back to a regional.

I think Les, Keefer, Goulas, and even Griffen can be those 10 homer guys. Griffen needs to be in a positon where he can hit in front of our best hitter so that he can get fastballs. Hitting him at the bottom of the lineup isnt going to help him because there is no one to protect him and people can junk ball him into bad at bats. The million dollar question is where is that in the lineup as he is too much of a liability as a 3 or 4 hitter. If you can really get him to focus on having a disciplined strike zone you can hit him 2 hole. 2 hole hitters see the most fastballs because pitchers dont want to walk him with the meat coming up. (Worked beautifully for Gisclair in 07).

Here is my lineup for next year. (9 guys who all played important roles this year)

1.CF Olasin SR
2.C Griffen JR
3.RF Smith SO
4.LF Goulas JR
5.1B Keefer SR
6.DH Long DR
7.3B Benzel JR
8.2B Bostick SR
9.SS Fontenot JR _

Have to agree to disagree. Oregon State and Fresno State both had a lot of pop in their lineups. Small ball by itself is dead, and if it isn't, it should be.

[bruh]

_ Have to agree to disagree. Oregon State and Fresno State both had a lot of pop in their lineups. Small ball by itself is dead, and if it isn't, it should be. _

Seriously????? Do you watch college baseball at all. Oregon State won back to back championships with nothing but pitching and defense. They had minimal power and scored runs by bunting and stealing. This year they are hitting .275 as a team with 22 team bombs, but they have an incredible team fielding percentage of .976(unreal) and an era of 3.69.

Fresno State won a world series with their bullpen and timely hitting. Guys like mendonca and susdorf and hit a few bombs, but they were a station to station team. Teams like CS-Fullerton, UC-Irvine, Cal Poly, Long Beach St, etc all play great defense, pitch lights out and move runners.

watch the damn games

[LifeTimeCajun]

check out the stats for UT this year, a team that will most likely make it to the cws. not very many homeruns in that lineup but yet they are ranked in the top 5 i think

[BirdofParadise]

_ Seriously????? Do you watch college baseball at all. Oregon State won back to back championships with nothing but pitching and defense. They had minimal power and scored runs by bunting and stealing. This year they are hitting .275 as a team with 22 team bombs, but they have an incredible team fielding percentage of .976(unreal) and an era of 3.69.

Fresno State won a world series with their bullpen and timely hitting. Guys like mendonca and susdorf and hit a few bombs, but they were a station to station team. Teams like CS-Fullerton, UC-Irvine, Cal Poly, Long Beach St, etc all play great defense, pitch lights out and move runners.

watch the damn games _

You bring up very good points.

Texas is the #1 national seed this year. Their team batting average of .289 is nine points higher than the Cajuns this season. Their slugging percentage and on-base percentage are comparable to the 09 UL team. They have only 31 home runs all season (we hit 50). Their runs per game average is pretty close to what we scored. They've had nearly 80 sacrifice bunts....more than 30 more than we did (and some think WE play small ball). They've stolen about the same number of bases as the Cajuns.

But their team ERA is 2.8. That's unreal in college baseball today. They field .980...also unheard of.

And all they are is the #1 seed going into the NCAA Regionals.

If you start with 2002 (and Fresno was somewhat of an aberration last year, although their bullpen was nails in the CWS), the teams that have won the CWS have done it with pitching, defense and timely hitting.

[wcd35]

_ check out the stats for UT this year, a team that will most likely make it to the cws. not very many homeruns in that lineup but yet they are ranked in the top 5 i think _

#1 overall national seed actually with 31 HRs and a .289 team BA

For comparison, LSU is #3 with 89 HRs and bats .313
Cajuns had 51 HRs and batted .278

EDIT: Jay just beat me to it. Power hitting can get you to the top, but small ball and great pitching and fielding can do it as well.

[Just1More]

I saw nothing wrong with the Cajun batting "philosophy" this season. Our guys simply failed to fight hard at the plate, at very peculiar times and we errored our way out of contests. To say we watched too many pitches to raise pitch counts and that we played nothing but small ball is totally false. We swung at many a first pitch, we swung for the fences with guys in scoring position, and the bats let us down.

Griffen needs some batting instruction on how to connect with that big swing. It is a shame that Goulas wasn't healthy from the git-go. I think that would have made a world of mental difference to the entire team. I thought we had plenty of players with pop in their bats... and still do. They just didn't get tough at the plate... half the season it seemed like guys were just taking batting practice and content to go back to the dugout.

The only philosophical issue I questioned was the constant lineup changes. I know it was tactical for a lot of reasons I can't see from the outside. But, it seemed like it may have lifted the player leadership requirement out of the rotation. I'm probably way off, but something about the line-up changes always left me wondering who out of our upperclassmen were mentally in charge of the team.

If things improve from a mental standpoint (toughness at the plate and defensively) these same guys are a regional team next year.

[GoneGolfin]

_ Have to agree to disagree. Oregon State and Fresno State both had a lot of pop in their lineups. Small ball by itself is dead, and if it isn't, it should be. _

Oregon State did not have a lot of pop in their lineup. Both of those Beaver national championship teams were built off of excellent pitching and defense. It is pitching and defense that has been the path to the title for the vast majority of teams since the de-tuning of the aluminum bat.

Brian

[GoneGolfin]

_ check out the stats for UT this year, a team that will most likely make it to the cws. not very many homeruns in that lineup but yet they are ranked in the top 5 i think _

Yup. They play the best defense in the country and have the deepest pitching staff (notice I did not say best front-line starters ... although they are still very good here ... especially Ruffin).

This is the way Texas has always done it under Garrido. Texas is always near the top in number of sacrifice bunts and in some years is far and away the leader. They won two national championships this decade on pitching and defense (and small ball) and challenged for several more.

Brian