SEC ALL-SEC preseason teams announced

[Big_Blue_1018]

LSU Picked To Win 2023 SEC Baseball Championship

2023 SEC Preseason Coaches Poll, All-SEC First and Second teams announced.

www.secsports.com

This is voted/picked by the leagues 14 coaches.

~Kentucky was picked to finish 6th in the east.

~Interesting that there are zero players from Kentucky on the list. Now I know it’s just a preseason list but still.

 

[SeanCain]

LSU Picked To Win 2023 SEC Baseball Championship

2023 SEC Preseason Coaches Poll, All-SEC First and Second teams announced.

www.secsports.com

This is voted/picked by the leagues 14 coaches.

~Kentucky was picked to finish 6th in the east.

~Interesting that there are zero players from Kentucky on the list. Now I know it’s just a preseason list but still.

Missouri has one player, outside of that; it’s the usual top teams well represented. I’m not sure how much longer this train wreck of a baseball team can go on. Mingione has had ONE good year and consistently underperformed from then on. I assume UK just doesn’t care to compete in baseball.

 

[Cats8585]

Missouri has one player, outside of that; it’s the usual top teams well represented. I’m not sure how much longer this train wreck of a baseball team can go on. Mingione has had ONE good year and consistently underperformed from then on. I assume UK just doesn’t care to compete in baseball.

Can you explain what underperform means to you? Would you curious what your expectations are for KY baseball.

 

[CockyCat3]

Missouri has one player, outside of that; it’s the usual top teams well represented. I’m not sure how much longer this train wreck of a baseball team can go on. Mingione has had ONE good year and consistently underperformed from then on. I assume UK just doesn’t care to compete in baseball.

I imagine it is pretty hard for someone to say that we will have a preseason all comference player when all of ours are coming from other places. There isn't really any history for them to go by. I'd venture to say that we will probably have some on the list at the end of the season.

 

[SeanCain]

Can you explain what underperform means to you? Would you curious what your expectations are for KY baseball.

That’s a lot to unpack. I’ll make it short. My expectations are for UK to field a competitive team. My other expectation is to be able to get a decent amount of the in-state talent. Neither of those has happened. Outside of year one we’ve either underperformed or haven’t recruited to be successful. I don’t think anyone who posts on the baseball forum is happy with Mingione and haven’t been for at least three years now.

 

[Cats8585]

That’s a lot to unpack. I’ll make it short. My expectations are for UK to field a competitive team. My other expectation is to be able to get a decent amount of the in-state talent. Neither of those has happened. Outside of year one we’ve either underperformed or haven’t recruited to be successful. I don’t think anyone who posts on the baseball forum is happy with Mingione and haven’t been for at least three years now.

So missing the tournament by 1 game two years in a row isn’t a competitive team? That’s why I asked, because that doesn’t seem bad. I would love for UK baseball to be better than that but it’s never been good in my lifetime. I can only recall 3-4 times it’s even been that good.

From my understanding the in-state talent thing is up for debate. Kentucky has the top ranked player for 2023 and 2024 on PrepBaseballReport. Louisville seems to commit a lot of kids as 9th graders. Some are good, but many are not. I don’t want to see UK get into the 10-12 transfer portal kids every cycle game. I am not a fan of that.

Maybe this isn’t popular but Louisville is one of the best programs in the country. I expect them to be good and get good players. That just makes the Kentucky job that much more difficult.

Mingione is for sure not popular here. I have many questions and doubts myself. I do believe the program has trended up every year since his disaster of a hire in Fanning. (Of course he made the hire and gets the blame for that) I am not sure what I think is realistic to expect from Kentucky baseball year in and year out. I know what travel ball coaches and some agents in the business say about it, but it doesn’t really align with how most of the fanbase seems to feel.

 

[Comebakatz3]

So missing the tournament by 1 game two years in a row isn’t a competitive team? That’s why I asked, because that doesn’t seem bad. I would love for UK baseball to be better than that but it’s never been good in my lifetime. I can only recall 3-4 times it’s even been that good.

From my understanding the in-state talent thing is up for debate. Kentucky has the top ranked player for 2023 and 2024 on PrepBaseballReport. Louisville seems to commit a lot of kids as 9th graders. Some are good, but many are not. I don’t want to see UK get into the 10-12 transfer portal kids every cycle game. I am not a fan of that.

Maybe this isn’t popular but Louisville is one of the best programs in the country. I expect them to be good and get good players. That just makes the Kentucky job that much more difficult.

Mingione is for sure not popular here. I have many questions and doubts myself. I do believe the program has trended up every year since his disaster of a hire in Fanning. (Of course he made the hire and gets the blame for that) I am not sure what I think is realistic to expect from Kentucky baseball year in and year out. I know what travel ball coaches and some agents in the business say about it, but it doesn’t really align with how most of the fanbase seems to feel.

Simply put, you don't demand better and you won't get better. Louisville has a historically worse program than UK. They made the correct hire and have since made the CWS 6 times and are a perennial top 15 team. Meanwhile, we're supposed to be ok with just being "1 win away from making the tournament?" Past failure should not lock one out from future success.

I'm not sure I see significant improvement from Fanning, and even still there are a lot of wild factors at play and I'm not sure it's apples to apples anymore. What I do know is that in 3 years here UK's average SEC reg season wins was 13. With two extremes. Meanwhile, under Coggin we have played in the SEC twice and our average is 12 reg season wins. I think Fanning and Belanger were poor hires, largely because Mingione should have hired someone with a lot of experience rather than fairly new coaches (similar to Vitello hiring Anderson). However, it's hard for me to definitively say we're significantly improved without Fanning. I will say that I think Roszel is exponentially better than Belanger.

 

[Derek Terry]

Fanning/Coggin stuff has a lot of nuances. I'm careful to go down the rabbit hole of individual players because I don't know the backstory of every kid recruited to Kentucky in the Mingione era. Who should get credit, blame, etc. The obvious caveat in the two tenures is the transfer portal exists now and didn't when Fanning was here.

Generally speaking -- strictly regarding high school recruits -- the classes from 2017-19 are pretty bad. The 2018 class had 13 transfers out of 17 high school signees. It was a complete dud. 2019 was pretty much the same but at least featured Chase Estep, Cole Stupp, John Rhodes and Zack Lee.

With the portal, it's just hard to judge Coggin on high school recruiting IMO. But this year's team looks like it'll have three guys he signed out of high school in the starting lineup: Burkes, McCoy and Pitre. Next year's team could have those three guys back plus guys like Austin Fawley and Lukas Schramm. I also think they have a few 2023 guys who could get a chance right away.

 

[Basil Cat]

Simply put, you don't demand better and you won't get better. Louisville has a historically worse program than UK. They made the correct hire and have since made the CWS 6 times and are a perennial top 15 team. Meanwhile, we're supposed to be ok with just being "1 win away from making the tournament?" Past failure should not lock one out from future success.

I'm not sure I see significant improvement from Fanning, and even still there are a lot of wild factors at play and I'm not sure it's apples to apples anymore. What I do know is that in 3 years here UK's average SEC reg season wins was 13. With two extremes. Meanwhile, under Coggin we have played in the SEC twice and our average is 12 reg season wins. I think Fanning and Belanger were poor hires, largely because Mingione should have hired someone with a lot of experience rather than fairly new coaches (similar to Vitello hiring Anderson). However, it's hard for me to definitively say we're significantly improved without Fanning. I will say that I think Roszel is exponentially better than Belanger.

Great points as usual. The admin at UK has never expected or demanded anything from the baseball program. My two favorite programs are football and baseball ( for personal reasons ). So I have seen a lifetime of frustration. We have evidence that one hire can change the entire direction of a program i.e. Dan McDonnell. I sure hoped it was Nick.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Fanning/Coggin stuff has a lot of nuances. I'm careful to go down the rabbit hole of individual players because I don't know the backstory of every kid recruited to Kentucky in the Mingione era. Who should get credit, blame, etc. The obvious caveat in the two tenures is the transfer portal exists now and didn't when Fanning was here.

Generally speaking -- strictly regarding high school recruits -- the classes from 2017-19 are pretty bad. The 2018 class had 13 transfers out of 17 high school signees. It was a complete dud. 2019 was pretty much the same but at least featured Chase Estep, Cole Stupp, John Rhodes and Zack Lee.

With the portal, it's just hard to judge Coggin on high school recruiting IMO. But this year's team looks like it'll have three guys he signed out of high school in the starting lineup: Burkes, McCoy and Pitre. Next year's team could have those three guys back plus guys like Austin Fawley and Lukas Schramm. I also think they have a few 2023 guys who could get a chance right away.

A caveat to this, which cuts both ways, is that a player may have been recruited by one coach but signed by another. Hagenow is a good example. 2020 signee and grad class, but committed in December of 2017. So Fanning got him in the fold and credit to Coggin for keeping him and getting him to campus. Not sure where Burkes falls in that but he was a 2020 recruit as well.

So it makes it hard to know where to lay blame/credit. Thompson came to UK in 2017. Clearly, Mingione and Fanning didn't recruit him the entire time, but they kept him and got him to UK. So, past coaches can have good and bad impacts on current ones.

An intersting part is also that PG ranked 2017 as 6th best in the nation and 18 as 12th best. So that means we either got some overranked players or we did a horrible job at developing them, or both.

 

[Derek Terry]

A caveat to this, which cuts both ways, is that a player may have been recruited by one coach but signed by another. Hagenow is a good example. 2020 signee and grad class, but committed in December of 2017. So Fanning got him in the fold and credit to Coggin for keeping him and getting him to campus. Not sure where Burkes falls in that but he was a 2020 recruit as well.

So it makes it hard to know where to lay blame/credit. Thompson came to UK in 2017. Clearly, Mingione and Fanning didn't recruit him the entire time, but they kept him and got him to UK. So, past coaches can have good and bad impacts on current ones.

An intersting part is also that PG ranked 2017 as 6th best in the nation and 18 as 12th best. So that means we either got some overranked players or we did a horrible job at developing them, or both.

There just haven't been many guys who left UK and went on to do better things. Ayers and Marsh were two guys who could've helped for sure if they had stayed. Drew Grace transferred to Maryland for the 2022 season but I believe he's back at UK finishing his degree now and obviously no longer playing baseball.

 

[Comebakatz3]

There just haven't been many guys who left UK and went on to do better things. Ayers and Marsh were two guys who could've helped for sure if they had stayed. Drew Grace transferred to Maryland for the 2022 season but I believe he's back at UK finishing his degree now and obviously no longer playing baseball.

Right, so they conceivably were either over ranked or not developed or both.

 

[SeanCain]

We’ll have some indication what we have after next weekend.

 

[Seamhead_Ninja]

Right, so they conceivably were either over ranked or not developed or both.

You absolutely can not go by recruiting rankings in baseball outside the top 50 or so. It's a crapshoot and usually predicated on what PG events you attend. Cole Stupp is a good example, he was virtually unknown out of high school. The only guys who really excelled after leaving were Polcavich (who was dismissed for some really bad stuff) and Jake Thompson (who was a walk-on who went crazy in summer and was given a scholarship by OSU at last minute).

Ultimately, the head coach is responsible though, no doubt.

 

[Derek Terry]

Right, so they conceivably were either over ranked or not developed or both.

Pretty one-sided in being overly ranked IMO.

 

[Cats8585]

Simply put, you don't demand better and you won't get better. Louisville has a historically worse program than UK. They made the correct hire and have since made the CWS 6 times and are a perennial top 15 team. Meanwhile, we're supposed to be ok with just being "1 win away from making the tournament?" Past failure should not lock one out from future success.

I'm not sure I see significant improvement from Fanning, and even still there are a lot of wild factors at play and I'm not sure it's apples to apples anymore. What I do know is that in 3 years here UK's average SEC reg season wins was 13. With two extremes. Meanwhile, under Coggin we have played in the SEC twice and our average is 12 reg season wins. I think Fanning and Belanger were poor hires, largely because Mingione should have hired someone with a lot of experience rather than fairly new coaches (similar to Vitello hiring Anderson). However, it's hard for me to definitively say we're significantly improved without Fanning. I will say that I think Roszel is exponentially better than Belanger.

Louisville has one of the best situations in all of college baseball. It’s a top 10 job in a financial sense.

I tend to agree with you - if expectations don’t rise then the program doesn’t rise. I’m just struggling to decide what I think is a realistic expectation.

Again - “missing the tournament by one game” sounds bad . It also means the past two years are both top 15ish (maybe even top 10) seasons all time at Kentucky. It doesn’t mean we should be content with that, but I don’t know that it’s considered a failure either.

 

[Cats8585]

Pretty one-sided in being overly ranked IMO.

Fanning is not popular around my hometown (Cincy).

It’s pretty obvious he either recruited guys based on their ranking or had some influence on their ranking. Way too many ranked kids who either retired early or didn’t have success at lower levels.

 

[Cats8585]

A caveat to this, which cuts both ways, is that a player may have been recruited by one coach but signed by another. Hagenow is a good example. 2020 signee and grad class, but committed in December of 2017. So Fanning got him in the fold and credit to Coggin for keeping him and getting him to campus. Not sure where Burkes falls in that but he was a 2020 recruit as well.

So it makes it hard to know where to lay blame/credit. Thompson came to UK in 2017. Clearly, Mingione and Fanning didn't recruit him the entire time, but they kept him and got him to UK. So, past coaches can have good and bad impacts on current ones.

An intersting part is also that PG ranked 2017 as 6th best in the nation and 18 as 12th best. So that means we either got some overranked players or we did a horrible job at developing them, or both.

This is a good point!

Several kids overlap. ECU has had super regional teams the last couple of years and MSU won a national championship.

Coggin and Roszel should probably get some credit for that - but then you certainly credit the players current coaches for getting them to campus and their actual development.

It’s hard to know where to place credit or blame exactly. I’m not sure anyone in the know would want to place the blame anywhere.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Louisville has one of the best situations in all of college baseball. It’s a top 10 job in a financial sense.

I tend to agree with you - if expectations don’t rise then the program doesn’t rise. I’m just struggling to decide what I think is a realistic expectation.

Again - “missing the tournament by one game” sounds bad . It also means the past two years are both top 15ish (maybe even top 10) seasons all time at Kentucky. It doesn’t mean we should be content with that, but I don’t know that it’s considered a failure either.

I think that that measuring stick is kind of crooked just because it's been a relatively short time frame that college baseball has been played how it is now. We didn't get a 64 team tournament until 1999. So it was much harder to be 'one win away from making it,' in 1995 than it is today because in say 1995 only 48 teams were getting in.

For me, the NCAA tournament should be basically a given and not a major accomplishment. We don't have to make it every year, but it should be a big disappointment when we don't and it should be rarer than not. I look at it like UK football... it took some time but now a bowl game is expected and barely getting eligible for that this year was a disappointment. We've seen that great coaches can quickly change programs, Mingione hasn't done that. I think we're in a very similar position to the Henderson years.

 

[CockyCat3]

I think one thing to mention is that we didn't have a mass exodus in the transfer portal this year. In fact, I'm not really thinking of anyone significant we lost to the portal. That tells me that the players are bought in to what's going on. I don't know if that is a Fanning/Coggin comparison at all, but it just tells me that the coaches have brought in the guys they want and those guys are buying in.

If this wasn't the case I feel like guys like hagenow, Strickland, Burkes (especially considering his play at the end if the year) Lee, Logue, Church, etc could have/would have been transferring out. We've seen a ton of that in the transfer era. But guys weren't leaving. So, the culture is being built, now the winning needs to follow.

Let's hope this is the year it all clicks.

 

[Comebakatz3]

I think one thing to mention is that we didn't have a mass exodus in the transfer portal this year. In fact, I'm not really thinking of anyone significant we lost to the portal. That tells me that the players are bought in to what's going on. I don't know if that is a Fanning/Coggin comparison at all, but it just tells me that the coaches have brought in the guys they want and those guys are buying in.

If this wasn't the case I feel like guys like hagenow, Strickland, Burkes (especially considering his play at the end if the year) Lee, Logue, Church, etc could have/would have been transferring out. We've seen a ton of that in the transfer era. But guys weren't leaving. So, the culture is being built, now the winning needs to follow.

Let's hope this is the year it all clicks.

We had a few. Hudepohl and Liebert were two older ones and then maybe a few others that hadn't played a ton. But you're right, it was definitely less as transfers than a year ago. Still, we had to replace a ton, so plenty of opportunities for those that stayed.

That being said, the team seemed to have really strong player leadership a year ago. As far as I could tell, Williams played a big role in that, and I think that was a factor in a lot returning.

 

[CB3UK]

So missing the tournament by 1 game two years in a row isn’t a competitive team? That’s why I asked, because that doesn’t seem bad. I would love for UK baseball to be better than that but it’s never been good in my lifetime. I can only recall 3-4 times it’s even been that good.

From my understanding the in-state talent thing is up for debate. Kentucky has the top ranked player for 2023 and 2024 on PrepBaseballReport. Louisville seems to commit a lot of kids as 9th graders. Some are good, but many are not. I don’t want to see UK get into the 10-12 transfer portal kids every cycle game. I am not a fan of that.

Maybe this isn’t popular but Louisville is one of the best programs in the country. I expect them to be good and get good players. That just makes the Kentucky job that much more difficult.

Mingione is for sure not popular here. I have many questions and doubts myself. I do believe the program has trended up every year since his disaster of a hire in Fanning. (Of course he made the hire and gets the blame for that) I am not sure what I think is realistic to expect from Kentucky baseball year in and year out. I know what travel ball coaches and some agents in the business say about it, but it doesn’t really align with how most of the fanbase seems to feel.

Tennessee is historically terrible. They went and hired Vitello and boom, look at them now. Indiana. Tennessee and Louisville all have successful programs. Zero reason we can't get the talent here with the right staff.

 

[Cats8585]

Tennessee is historically terrible. They went and hired Vitello and boom, look at them now. Indiana. Tennessee and Louisville all have successful programs. Zero reason we can't get the talent here with the right staff.

TN has more CWS app than our program has Super Regional appearances.

Indiana is… not good. (Scored 3 touchdowns on us last year though)

Been mentioned here several times how good of a situation UL has.

Not one place in my post did I say UK can’t get good talent. There’s been a lot of talent at UK.

I know for a fact that you can’t compare UK to UL or TN, but, as I’ve said several times, I’m not sure who the comparisons should be made to. It’s certainly not Vandy football bc that’s a disaster. Who’s the worst SEC basketball program? Ole Miss maybe? Can get some good players and they have a nice facility but they’ve never sustained success.

 

[CB3UK]

TN has more CWS app than our program has Super Regional appearances.

Indiana is… not good. (Scored 3 touchdowns on us last year though)

Been mentioned here several times how good of a situation UL has.

Not one place in my post did I say UK can’t get good talent. There’s been a lot of talent at UK.

I know for a fact that you can’t compare UK to UL or TN, but, as I’ve said several times, I’m not sure who the comparisons should be made to. It’s certainly not Vandy football bc that’s a disaster. Who’s the worst SEC basketball program? Ole Miss maybe? Can get some good players and they have a nice facility but they’ve never sustained success.

Ole Miss and Georgia are historically worst teams in SEC basketball. Maybe I'm wrong but I believe Indiana has a solid baseball history. The point is teams in our region can recruit talent to win. There's no reason we can't. We just don't actually try to make baseball a priority. It's not football where there's a bunch of factors that inhibit our ability to recruit at a high level like Alabama and Georgia. Kentucky has everything if they'd actually hire a staff and try to win. Extending Mingione is one such example of us passing the buck on truly trying to compete.