2024 Season and Louisiana Baseball

[zeppelincajun]

My .02 from this past season. Gonna try and stay as balanced as possible here, so hopefully I don't end up just ____ing off both sides of the aisle.

This team got some tough criticisms. Some I think are fair. Others I'm not sure if they really stand up to scrutiny. I saw a lot of the "we just feasted on the bad part of our schedule." First, I would imagine most teams rack up wins against the weaker teams on their schedules. Also, we had some really nice series wins against quality opponents. We beat USM (a top 25 team who made a regional final). We swept Georgia Southern on the road. 55 in the RPI, and I would bet our series there played a part in them eventually just missing regional play. Swept ODU (top 75 RPI). Took 2 of 3 from Tulane (stolen bid regional team with a top 85 RPI). This team can't be summed up with simply beating bad teams and losing to good ones. Another criticism in the same vein that definitely rubbed me the wrong way was, "we aren't a bonafide 40 win team." In what way? This team DID win 40 games. 42 of them. I think our schedule could have used some improvement, but 63 SOS is not bad to the point where it calls our win total in to question. ECU has an SOS of 64, and they HOSTED.

My biggest criticism of this team I posted in the game thread of the first UT game, "Can’t imagine anyone who has been paying attention is too upset about tonight’s result. The writing has been all over the wall. Melted down in Houston, imploded at Coastal, imploded at Troy, didn’t bother to show up to the conference tournament. C’mon y’all. If you couldn’t see this coming, I’m not sure what to tell you." A little heat of the moment. Probably too harsh on the wording, but I still believe the heart of what I said to be true. This team, for whatever reason, just seemed to wilt under the lights in big away/neutral site games. People disputing this I'm sure would say that I'm cherry picking negative games and also point out the Ga Southern series. Fair enough. However, if I had handed any of you the schedule day 1 and said circle 6-7 of the most important road/neutral site games, I would bet most of you would have circled day one at Minute Maid, series openers at Troy and Coastal, the conference tourney opener, and the regional opener. All just prototypical "bright lights games." All games we ended up really losing composure in. Talent wise I wasn't sure if we had enough to go make noise in this regional. More than that I really doubted our ability to go in with the right mindset and get off to a good start. This was disappointing to me, given the number of veteran guys we had. To have any shot at winning this regional, we needed A&M in the 1-0 game with C-Mo on the mound. 10 free passes night one kept us from having that chance.

All in all, very successful season. 42 wins. 40 in the regular season. Won the conference and didn't even need a win the final weekend to do so. Player of the year, pitcher of the year, freshman of the year, and coach of the year. Some all time memorable home, comeback wins. 3rd straight regional and back to back at larges.

As to the future, I'm looking forward to seeing where we are headed. C-Mo had some huge praise for Gunner when they interviewed him during the game last night. Hopefully we can keep bringing in that HS talent and get to watch some guys flourish with a couple years in this system. Speaking of C-MO, when was the last time we had a guy cement himself as a fixture in our rotation for as long as he's here from almost the moment he steps on campus? Harris is the last I remember. We tried to make Havard and Durke those guys, but neither ended up close. If this coaching staff could help these guys be competitive consistently in the zone, we could be looking at some very dangerous pitching staffs in the future, not taking away from the one we just had.

I'm also interested to see if this season was just a blip on the radar with the dip in speed and spike in power. It seems if given the choice from a personnel standpoint Deggs would prefer the chaos on the basepaths approach.

[Esqueleto]

Dude, seriously? What kind of nonsense and colloquial genius is, a "shirt is a shirt?" LOL!!!! Look, you can disrespect this team's accomplishments if you want. Texas may have been down, but they still won 35 games in a great baseball conference. They made a super-regional last year. Do you really think the Cajun's program is on par with Texas? Texas is still an elite program, and their record shows it over the past two decades and longer. But if you want to argue with those numbers then you are wasting my time.

Bruh, for real?
Maybe the NCAA should seed by conference and history. Who gives a ____ what UT did last year or last decade? We're talking about this year.
Your argument is nonsense.
Have a good night.

[sportsfanatic21]

Speaking of C-MO, when was the last time we had a guy cement himself as a fixture in our rotation for as long as he's here from almost the moment he steps on campus? Harris is the last I remember.

Probably Gunner. Harris didn’t even do that. He only started a couple of games his freshman season.

[JamesBond]

My .02 from this past season. Gonna try and stay as balanced as possible here, so hopefully I don't end up just ____ing off both sides of the aisle.

This team got some tough criticisms. Some I think are fair. Others I'm not sure if they really stand up to scrutiny. I saw a lot of the "we just feasted on the bad part of our schedule." First, I would imagine most teams rack up wins against the weaker teams on their schedules. Also, we had some really nice series wins against quality opponents. We beat USM (a top 25 team who made a regional final). We swept Georgia Southern on the road. 55 in the RPI, and I would bet our series there played a part in them eventually just missing regional play. Swept ODU (top 75 RPI). Took 2 of 3 from Tulane (stolen bid regional team with a top 85 RPI). This team can't be summed up with simply beating bad teams and losing to good ones. Another criticism in the same vein that definitely rubbed me the wrong way was, "we aren't a bonafide 40 win team." In what way? This team DID win 40 games. 42 of them. I think our schedule could have used some improvement, but 63 SOS is not bad to the point where it calls our win total in to question. ECU has an SOS of 64, and they HOSTED.

My biggest criticism of this team I posted in the game thread of the first UT game, "Can’t imagine anyone who has been paying attention is too upset about tonight’s result. The writing has been all over the wall. Melted down in Houston, imploded at Coastal, imploded at Troy, didn’t bother to show up to the conference tournament. C’mon y’all. If you couldn’t see this coming, I’m not sure what to tell you." A little heat of the moment. Probably too harsh on the wording, but I still believe the heart of what I said to be true. This team, for whatever reason, just seemed to wilt under the lights in big away/neutral site games. People disputing this I'm sure would say that I'm cherry picking negative games and also point out the Ga Southern series. Fair enough. However, if I had handed any of you the schedule day 1 and said circle 6-7 of the most important road/neutral site games, I would bet most of you would have circled day one at Minute Maid, series openers at Troy and Coastal, the conference tourney opener, and the regional opener. All just prototypical "bright lights games." All games we ended up really losing composure in. Talent wise I wasn't sure if we had enough to go make noise in this regional. More than that I really doubted our ability to go in with the right mindset and get off to a good start. This was disappointing to me, given the number of veteran guys we had. To have any shot at winning this regional, we needed A&M in the 1-0 game with C-Mo on the mound. 10 free passes night one kept us from having that chance.

All in all, very successful season. 42 wins. 40 in the regular season. Won the conference and didn't even need a win the final weekend to do so. Player of the year, pitcher of the year, freshman of the year, and coach of the year. Some all time memorable home, comeback wins. 3rd straight regional and back to back at larges.

As to the future, I'm looking forward to seeing where we are headed. C-Mo had some huge praise for Gunner when they interviewed him during the game last night. Hopefully we can keep bringing in that HS talent and get to watch some guys flourish with a couple years in this system. Speaking of C-MO, when was the last time we had a guy cement himself as a fixture in our rotation for as long as he's here from almost the moment he steps on campus? Harris is the last I remember. We tried to make Havard and Durke those guys, but neither ended up close. If this coaching staff could help these guys be competitive consistently in the zone, we could be looking at some very dangerous pitching staffs in the future, not taking away from the one we just had.

I'm also interested to see if this season was just a blip on the radar with the dip in speed and spike in power. It seems if given the choice from a personnel standpoint Deggs would prefer the chaos on the basepaths approach.

Also interested to see where Deggs takes the offensive approach. Without going take an in depth look, it felt like this team was pretty feast or famine with the long ball to score runs this year. Obviously you’d want to combine speed and power, but in this day and age I just don’t know how you don’t pick power and live with it.

[Turbine]

Beating Texas this year is not saying much, especially given the circumstance. The Yankees might have had a hard time bouncing back from such an emotional loss. The win yesterday afternoon wasn't difficult to predict.

If your only guage is that it was a trap game for Texas then Louisiana gets 100% of the credit for snapping the trap shut.

[CajunT]

Bruh, for real?
Maybe the NCAA should seed by conference and history. Who gives a ____ what UT did last year or last decade? We're talking about this year.
Your argument is nonsense.
Have a good night.

No, you are right! Texas is straight up garbage, no better than NWST.

Texas SOS#25 RPI#46 Quadrant 1 Wins-12 15-10 Conference record. Your right again, straight garbage.

[moorecajun]

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Simply put, OUTSTANDING.

Geaux Cajuns.

Swamp, you've done a nice job with your videos! Thanks

[wcd35]

Some stat trends for you guys:

Offense
Continued year over year improvement despite losing majority of the starting lineup. Average, Slug, OPS highest since 2014. Not much to complain about here except the walks regressed back closer to the mean or slightly lower. Last year was an anomaly with walks


Pitching/Fielding
Started great and started to come back to a more normal season. Feast or famine with the best strikeout/9ip rate and most k's on the chart as well as the worst walk/9ip and most bb's on the chart. Still, the ERA, WHIP and K/BB ratio all improved from last year. Fielding was solid in comparison to competition and about average for year to year

[CajunRage]

Finished in the top ~10% and sent college baseball royalty packing. Did we reach the ultimate goal? No, but neither will 304 other teams. Progress year over year. This season was a success. Look forward to seeing where DeBarge and LP (and possibly others) go in the draft. Look forward to seeing what Gunner can do with a full offseason. Counting down to opening day 2025 already.

[CajunT]

Some stat trends for you guys:

Offense
Continued year over year improvement despite losing majority of the starting lineup. Average, Slug, OPS highest since 2014. Not much to complain about here except the walks regressed back closer to the mean or slightly lower. Last year was an anomaly with walks


Pitching/Fielding
Started great and started to come back to a more normal season. Feast or famine with the best strikeout/9ip rate and most k's on the chart as well as the worst walk/9ip and most bb's on the chart. Still, the ERA, WHIP and K/BB ratio all improved from last year. Fielding was solid in comparison to competition and about average for year to year

Thanks for the work. Great graph

[Cajunchuck]

No, you are right! Texas is straight up garbage, no better than NWST.

Texas SOS#25 RPI#46 Quadrant 1 Wins-12 15-10 Conference record. Your right again, straight garbage.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I am with you CajunT. I think Texas is a very good team with a storied history and a lot more resources than we have. They actually went 20-10 in conference play and finished 3rd in a good power conference. It was a big win in an elimination game and the Cajuns deserve a lot of credit. I for one thoroughly enjoyed that win over Texas.

[Policarp]

Watching Jose' do the bat flip video for the 144th time. We went down fighting to end.
Just a great way to finish year.

Football.... you're on the clock!