2024 Season and Louisiana Baseball

[zeppelincajun]

Now that our season has officially come to a close, I just wanted to create a thread for everyone to give their takes on the 2024 season and thoughts on the direction of the program.

I’ll go more in depth on my opinions after work today but wanted to get the ball rolling. Quick thoughts: successful season and proud of the way the guys fought in the regional. 3 straight regionals after a 4 season (5 year) drought has me optimistic (although my optimism is always cautious as a Cajuns fan).

GEAUX CAJUNS

[Scott Malkinson]

Now that our season has officially come to a close, I just wanted to create a thread for everyone to give their takes on the 2024 season and thoughts on the direction of the program.

I’ll go more in depth on my opinions after work today but wanted to get the ball rolling. Quick thoughts: successful season and proud of the way the guys fought in the regional. 3 straight regionals after a 4 season (5 year) drought has me optimistic (although my optimism is always cautious as a Cajuns fan).

GEAUX CAJUNS

I think it was a very successful season in a top 5 league. In the future, I would like to see the OCS get stronger.

[MWolf]

At this point I trust Deggs to restock the cupboards with position players. First round talent like Debarge doesn't grow on trees but the lineup will be fine.

Pitching arrow is pointing straight up. If Gunner can keep this up we will be competing to host and win regionals sooner rather than later, and he will be getting calls to be the head man at big programs.

Proud of this team and excited for the future!

[sportsfanatic21]

It was a GREAT season. Won the 4th best league regular season title (I don’t care what RPI says, the SBC had 4 teams in regional finals and a couple others that were capable of doing the same if they had been awarded a bid), and with room to breathe. One of 13 schools in the country to win 40 regular season games. Ranked in the top 25 for basically the entire 2nd half of the season. Made a run at a school record winning streak. Top 25 nationally in ERA. Hit .300 as a team and hit 80 HRs. Had the SBC Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year, Freshman of the Year, and Coach of the Year. Received an at large 2 seed bid to the NCAA Tournament. And ended up in the finals of the #3 regional.

In today’s world of NIL and the Wild West transfer portal, competing against teams with budgets that just DWARF UL’s, that have unbelievable facilities (A&M’s is amazing and they are tearing it down because it’s not good enough)…what this team accomplished, in what was supposed to be a “rebuild year” was nothing short of stellar.

This program, and this year’s team, has SO much to be proud of. I hope some of the folks that don’t see it, at some point, realize what these guys are doing in the current landscape of the sport. The condensed MLB draft and elimination of a ton of minor league affiliates (plus the remnants of the extra COVID year) has college baseball stacked with much more talent than it has EVER had. And we have a team thats ranked and finished as one of the 20-30 BEST in the country…against all of the factors working in favor of a whole lot of other big money schools.

They deserve the kudos that they’ve earned from the outside. Hopefully, at some point, they will get that same respect from the inside.

[raginsaints]

I wanna give DeBarge a huge shoutout for not portaling out when you know he had NIL money thrown at him. Hope that sets a precedent for other guys that you can be an elite, high draft pick here.

Also, as a fan base, we need to learn how to act in a major college baseball conference. Winning the regular season title is a huge accomplishment. Our 7th place team just made it to a regional final. This ain’t your daddy’s Sun Belt.

[Cajunsmike]

It was a GREAT season. Won the 4th best league regular season title (I don’t care what RPI says, the SBC had 4 teams in regional finals and a couple others that were capable of doing the same if they had been awarded a bid), and with room to breathe. One of 13 schools in the country to win 40 regular season games. Ranked in the top 25 for basically the entire 2nd half of the season. Made a run at a school record winning streak. Top 25 nationally in ERA. Hit .300 as a team and hit 80 HRs. Had the SBC Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year, Freshman of the Year, and Coach of the Year. Received an at large 2 seed bid to the NCAA Tournament. And ended up in the finals of the #3 regional.

In today’s world of NIL and the Wild West transfer portal, competing against teams with budgets that just DWARF UL’s, that have unbelievable facilities (A&M’s is amazing and they are tearing it down because it’s not good enough)…what this team accomplished, in what was supposed to be a “rebuild year” was nothing short of stellar.

This program, and this year’s team, has SO much to be proud of. I hope some of the folks that don’t see it, at some point, realize what these guys are doing in the current landscape of the sport. The condensed MLB draft and elimination of a ton of minor league affiliates (plus the remnants of the extra COVID year) has college baseball stacked with much more talent than it has EVER had. And we have a team thats ranked and finished as one of the 20-30 BEST in the country…against all of the factors working in favor of a whole lot of other big money schools.

They deserve the kudos that they’ve earned from the outside. Hopefully, at some point, they will get that same respect from the inside.

I think our fans recognize what the team accomplished this year was significant.

[Duggie35]

The Cajuns had a great season! I feel good about the future and maintaining the status of the program. These regionals prove why pitching depth and staying in the winners bracket are so important.

A big thing next year will be for the pitching staff to GREATLY reduce walks and HBP. As we know and saw all year, free passes come in to score more times than not. Our pitching staff will need to make teams earn runs rather than gifting them runs!

[angeleast]

Very enjoyable season!! I'm going to miss them until next season.

[MountainDew]

I’ll go a little more in depth in terms of how the program has done since Deggs stepped into the HC role.

2019: 28-31 overall (15-15 SBC)
Lost in the SBC tourney to end the season. Short and unconventional offseason going into 2019 after Robe’s passing.

2020: Covid year 8-9 overall

2021: 31-23 overall (13-11 SBC)
Went 2-1 in the SBC tourney and lost in the semis. Is this the year the tourney was cut short for weather and switched to single elimination? IMO, Deggs still hadn’t had a normal offseason between Robe and the Covid years.

2022: 37-23 overall (19-11 SBC)
Probably Deggs’ first true offseason. Had to win the SBC tourney to get into a regional and did. Received an auto-bid as a #3 seed. Went 1-2 in the College Station regional beating TCU in game one and losing to A&M in a well-played game 2. Ran out of gas against TCU to end the season, missing the regional final.

2023: 41-24 overall (18-12 SBC)
Went into the conference tourney pretty much needing to win to get into a regional. Beat both Tx State and Coastal twice and lost to USM in the SBC championship game. Received an at-large bid as one of the Last 4 in as a #3 seed. Went to the Miami regional where I thought we competed well against really good Texas and Miami teams. Went 1-2 in the regional, missing the regional final.

2024: 42-20 overall (23-7 SBC)
SBC regular season champs. 0-2 in the SBC tourney which was disappointing. Received an at-large bid as a #2 seed in the College Station regional. Made it to the regional final.

From what I see above, I call that IMPROVEMENT and PROGRESS. Cajuns baseball has been trending up since Deggs got here, and I expect this staff to keep things moving forward for years to come. Losing one of the best middle infields I have seen come through this program will sting. But good programs reload year after year and I expect that from this staff. I’m not familiar with recruiting for next year but it seems Deggs will have to dig into the portal and the JUCO transfer list.

The big dogs are putting more and more money into the diamond sports. It will get harder and harder for “mid-majors” to compete. But I expect us to do so. There is so much talent just in the Lafayette area alone when it comes to baseball. Deggs has a good pipeline in Texas. I expect Gunner to learn from his first year and grow.

2024 was a great but frustrating season at times. I think a lot of us get frustrated because we watch every game and see what these guys are capable of. We saw this pitching staff throw really well throughout the season, and then saw them struggle. We saw what guys can do at the plate, but also saw when they struggled. We’re losing a lot of production next year, but there are still a lot of guys coming back (I assume) who saw tons of time this year.

Reload. Progress. Improve.

Geaux Cajuns!

[Policarp]

I passed a good time. 90% of our games were a joy to watch. For the love of the game.

Offense. 1) Need consistent power hitters. We saw 1st hand vs TX in our win and initial loss where crooked # HRs are often game changers
2) Small ball is just fineBUT.if we are going to do it at a similar rate we need to be better. Much better.

Pitching overall was good. Most losses correlated with 1) walks 2) HBP and early in year.3) unearned runs. Defense 2nd half of season was much improved

Scheduling OOC need 1 challenging weekend on road. 1 Neutral weekend is fine. Most players benefit from a challenging road test pre conference.....also helps a little with RPI too.

[Cajuns78]

I agree with all of this, but that 2019 season was Robe’s last season. Degg’s first season was 2020.

[CajunT]

I’ll go a little more in depth in terms of how the program has done since Deggs stepped into the HC role.

2019: 28-31 overall (15-15 SBC)
Lost in the SBC tourney to end the season. Short and unconventional offseason going into 2019 after Robe’s passing.

2020: Covid year 8-9 overall

2021: 31-23 overall (13-11 SBC)
Went 2-1 in the SBC tourney and lost in the semis. Is this the year the tourney was cut short for weather and switched to single elimination? IMO, Deggs still hadn’t had a normal offseason between Robe and the Covid years.

2022: 37-23 overall (19-11 SBC)
Probably Deggs’ first true offseason. Had to win the SBC tourney to get into a regional and did. Received an auto-bid as a #3 seed. Went 1-2 in the College Station regional beating TCU in game one and losing to A&M in a well-played game 2. Ran out of gas against TCU to end the season, missing the regional final.

2023: 41-24 overall (18-12 SBC)
Went into the conference tourney pretty much needing to win to get into a regional. Beat both Tx State and Coastal twice and lost to USM in the SBC championship game. Received an at-large bid as one of the Last 4 in as a #3 seed. Went to the Miami regional where I thought we competed well against really good Texas and Miami teams. Went 1-2 in the regional, missing the regional final.

2024: 42-20 overall (23-7 SBC)
SBC regular season champs. 0-2 in the SBC tourney which was disappointing. Received an at-large bid as a #2 seed in the College Station regional. Made it to the regional final.

From what I see above, I call that IMPROVEMENT and PROGRESS. Cajuns baseball has been trending up since Deggs got here, and I expect this staff to keep things moving forward for years to come. Losing one of the best middle infields I have seen come through this program will sting. But good programs reload year after year and I expect that from this staff. I’m not familiar with recruiting for next year but it seems Deggs will have to dig into the portal and the JUCO transfer list.

The big dogs are putting more and more money into the diamond sports. It will get harder and harder for “mid-majors” to compete. But I expect us to do so. There is so much talent just in the Lafayette area alone when it comes to baseball. Deggs has a good pipeline in Texas. I expect Gunner to learn from his first year and grow.

2024 was a great but frustrating season at times. I think a lot of us get frustrated because we watch every game and see what these guys are capable of. We saw this pitching staff throw really well throughout the season, and then saw them struggle. We saw what guys can do at the plate, but also saw when they struggled. We’re losing a lot of production next year, but there are still a lot of guys coming back (I assume) who saw tons of time this year.

Reload. Progress. Improve.

Geaux Cajuns!

The "Process" as Coach Robichaux use to say can be frustrating at times. The growth of a team in a season can have its challenges and excitement. As a baseball fan, it can be frustrating to watch a team struggle early in the season and then begin to peak or take off on a win streak.

I think once exit interviews take place and players are sent out for summer ball, we can get a better idea of which athletes will remain with the program and which players are moving on. They've already signed a JC outfielder, so I expect those positions to look at little different after fall. They are also looking at a transfer at SS and maybe 2nd base, and several JC arms as well. They like Marcotte, Tollett, Kirby and Hess. I think most of those young players will be some work this summer to come back and compete in the fall. Morgan will be a major concern if he goes out and pitch this summer. I would try to talk him out of it, but you never know.

The transition from the current roster will be interesting this fall.

[Rainman66]

Frankly, I thought the team overachieved. Still not sure how we got to 40 wins. It is a testament to the coaching staff and players. Pitching was much improved, BUT still had way too many walks and HBP. I am very interested to see what type of arms CGL can attract to the program in his first full offseason.

Backfilling Debo & JT up the middle is gonna make or break next season both offensively and defensively.

As of now, next year's team is appearing to be a pitching, defense & small ball team. That is not what I envision a Matt Deggs team to be, so that could be interesting.

[HOUCajun]

Congrats Cajuns on a great season. In hindsight, our best chance to win the regional was to have UT beat aTm Saturday night. They were simply too good rested and ready. That was such an emotional game I think either team would have come out flat. I would have liked our chances sneak one against aTm and get 2 w’s against Texas.

What juniors do we lose to the draft? Debo and LP? Any others?

[CajunSID]

Very good season. As noted above, program has improved year by year despite the ever changing obstacles.

Yes, pitching faltered down the stretch, but I don’t see how it could be expected not to given injury and fatigue to your top two arms.

I think the weekend scheduling was fine, and the only thing I would tweak is adding midweeks at 1-2 SEC schools if you can’t get a weekend there.

If they can do it, would be great to sneak a home weekend w/ a Kentucky or Big 12/Big Ten school needing to hit the road in February.

There is a lot to replace, for sure, but I thought the Texas game showed what most Cajun fans know about this program.

Elimination games often show the character/will of teams, and UL just wasn’t losing to UT yesterday. I don’t know what everyone else thinks, but to me it speaks volumes.

Geaux Cajuns!