Yuku free message boards

There are several factors that led to what amounted to program suicide.

1. Polk used as a "social experiment" for college baseball. Here's a great program with fans, facilities, and tradition, and yet it can't compete because of the NCAA. (Or can it?)

2. The game passed him by. There was a time in the draft where a guy who would be drafted in the 45th round would more than likely go to MLB. The thought process was "you may not get drafted again." Now the draft has changed. Now players are using their college eligibility more and more to get more leverage in contract negotiations. Also, a few years ago, in light of Moneyball, MLB did some research. And guess what the studies showed? Most of their American born players came from college. Thus, MLB teams have started to invest more in college players. Now you have a chance of getting a guy that is drafted in say the 15 th round.

What's my point? Polk went away from recruiting guys that he was afraid of losing to the draft. He instead shifted his attention more towards players that he knew would come. Of course with exception, like Ed Easley who promised Polk that he was coming no matter what, that means less talented players. The fact of the matter for college programs is you have to take chances on guys that are draft prospects more than ever because while you may lose a good player, your odds are now better than ever of getting a great player. Maybe even a first round draft pick like Vandy did with Mark Prior.

3. Polk stopped recruiting Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia, and etc. mainly because they were Lottery states. Had Polk recruited from those states successfully- and he could have- his arguement on that issue would have not looked quite so good. Check out our roster and see how many players we have from those states. It's not very many. One is a legacy- Forrest Moore. I think Tyler Whitney is the other- Memphis.

4. Polk was arrogant. He thought that people would come to MSU to "play for him". What we needed were players that would play for Championships.

5. Polk was also an enabler. In this case I'm talking the Mississippi JUCO's, which are realtively weak in baseball. Now what would be a great way to strengthen the JUCO's? How about sending your recruits from Mississippi there? Then they could get two years of scholarship money from there and get valuable playing time.

Now here's the problem with that, because let's face it, that sounds good. While MSU is a great program, and while we need to recruit nationally- ie Florida, Texas, and California- the fact of the matter is, we're not going to get their A-list talent in all likelihood. We can get A-list talent from Mississippi. But when Ole Miss and USM are saying, ""Hey! we have a spot for you", and we're saying go JUCO and then we'll think about it, these baseball players like Head, Dozier, McInnis, Davis, Logan Power, Louis Coleman, and etc. are going to go the shure route, and I can't blame them. These baseball players potentially have millions of dollars at stake. They're not going to risk that playing against inferior talent for two years to please some old fart when they could be playing in the SEC.

Basically, we were hoping for Grant Hogue and Scott DeLoach- both were walk-ons.

If there's one trend I like about our baseball team, it's that we signed some of the top players in Mississippi this year and have some of the top juniors as well.