Exactly where I would put them. Brauny mentioned this on TA Live last week, but it really is remarkable what Earley did in the portal and recruiting despite the headwinds. I was in favor of moving on, but am cautiously optimistic with how the roster should shape up.

ReelAg6 said:

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I was in favor of moving on, but am cautiously optimistic with how the roster should shape up.

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This is exactly where I sit as well. I think it goes to show that people within college baseball still have some belief in Earley.

DaAggies said:

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ReelAg6 said:

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I was in favor of moving on, but am cautiously optimistic with how the roster should shape up.

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This is exactly where I sit as well. I think it goes to show that people within college baseball still have some belief in Earley.

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No, they have a belief that we still have talent on the roster. Doesn't mean anything that Earley can actually coach it.

a.froman said:

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DaAggies said:

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ReelAg6 said:

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I was in favor of moving on, but am cautiously optimistic with how the roster should shape up.

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This is exactly where I sit as well. I think it goes to show that people within college baseball still have some belief in Earley.

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No, they have a belief that we still have talent on the roster. Doesn't mean anything that Earley can actually coach it.

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I was more talking the offseason moves shows that people have some belief in Earley. He managed to pull a successful up and coming coach in Pennington as well as retain talent and have success in the portal. That would not have happened if people didn't have some faith in him regardless of NIL.

Please, everyone, go through the off season with little to no expectations. Things will actually go up from there!

25 is totally justified. Just enough expectations to recognize we have talent, but not overly inflated.

Some on that list are susceptible to early struggles post-draft. Specifically, Vandy. I don't have high expectations for them at all.

Not sure there is any real reason to be optimistic, we lost more in the portal and draft than we brought in. And being ranked #25 overall which is 12th in SEC is not a lot to be excited about.

deh40 said:

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Not sure there is any real reason to be optimistic, we lost more in the portal and draft than we brought in. And being ranked #25 overall which is 12th in SEC is not a lot to be excited about.

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I'm not saying that we are going to blow the doors off this year, but if you are saying there are no reasons to be optimistic then I don't think you have been following this offseason enough.

We return a lot from injury, have some marquee returners, and are bringing in some great talent from the portal and incoming freshmen class. We will be at or beyond the talent level of every team we play outside of a few. I won't blame anyone for being hesitant due to coaching, but there are some reasons to think this year may play out better than last.

Who all did we lose through the portal that we expected to have a significant role?

deh40 said:

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trouble said:

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Who all did we lose through the portal that we expected to have a significant role?

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I said portal AND draft

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Yes but we have known who we were likely to lose to the draft.

deh40 said:

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trouble said:

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Who all did we lose through the portal that we expected to have a significant role?

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I said portal AND draft

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So why even say portal if we literally lost nobody of note to the portal? I know, just to paint a more gloomy scenario not founded in reality.

There are reasons to be optimistic and pessimistic about this coming season, but sheer talent on paper isn't the issue.

deh40 said:

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trouble said:

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Who all did we lose through the portal that we expected to have a significant role?

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I said portal AND draft

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As far as position players go, the contributing position players you lose are Jace, Henseler, Kent, Kash, and Jamal.

You drop Jace for Duer (most likely). Jace is generational and will certainly be a step back regardless of who fills that spot. Gavin for Henseler should be an upgrade, even though Wyatt was very good last year. Haco for Kent is probably a push, but maybe a Haco lean. Kash and Jamal were good defensively, but batted .230 and shouldn't be hard to replace given the incoming talent.

DH, regardless of if it is a transfer or a freshman, should improve from an injured Schott, who posted a .215 average.

At least one of Partida, Kellner, or Billings will likely contribute. They're all higher rated players than Jace was coming out of high school. Not saying they'll be better than Jace, but one or two of them should be productive freshman in some role.

I also really like that we'll be on contact vs raw power per Brauny. That should be a big help, especially early in the season.

On the bump, your starters go from Lamkin, Prager, Patton to probably Sdao, Moss, Bailey. I also like Lyons to push for a starting role. There might be a slight step back for the starting pitching, but I feel like the back end is a push.

I don't see much to be extremely pessimistic about.

Justice Beaver said:

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trouble said:

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Who all did we lose through the portal that we expected to have a significant role?

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Luke Jackson
Jamal George

We're pretty lucky Sdao and Moss decided to come back because otherwise I'm not sure we could even field a weekend rotation…But by all means let's crank up the '26 pumping before football even starts. We gonna make more dumbass hats again this year?

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Luke Jackson was a RS sophomore who in conference only pitched 8.1 innings and had a 10.80 ERA. He had some talent yes, but outside of a couple good showings he never put it fully together. Would have rather kept him, but he is no promise to finally figure it out.

Saying Jamal George was going to play a big role is laughable. He never managed to carve out a role for himself when we had a spot open for anybody to step up in. He hit 0.231, and slugged 0.277, with a 36% strikeout rate. If he had a role next year it would not have been significant.

As for Sdao and Moss, you are right. It is big that they come back. I think most teams would struggle to have good weekend starters if they lost two of their best projected arms.

Nobody here has said we deserve to be higher than #25, only that it's a fair ranking or we still posses some good talent. There are reasons to be optimistic and reasons to be pessimistic, but can you not be a cynical ******* to anybody who chooses to not give up on the baseball team before football even starts.

DaAggies said:

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Justice Beaver said:

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trouble said:

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Who all did we lose through the portal that we expected to have a significant role?

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Luke Jackson
Jamal George

We're pretty lucky Sdao and Moss decided to come back because otherwise I'm not sure we could even field a weekend rotation…But by all means let's crank up the '26 pumping before football even starts. We gonna make more dumbass hats again this year?

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Luke Jackson was a RS sophomore who in conference only pitched 8.1 innings and had a 10.80 ERA. He had some talent yes, but outside of a couple good showings he never put it fully together. Would have rather kept him, but he is no promise to finally figure it out.

Saying Jamal George was going to play a big role is laughable. He never managed to carve out a role for himself when we had a spot open for anybody to step up in. He hit 0.231, and slugged 0.277, with a 36% strikeout rate. If he had a role next year it would not have been significant.

As for Sdao and Moss, you are right. It is big that they come back. I think most teams would struggle to have good weekend starters if they lost two of their best projected arms.

Nobody here has said we deserve to be higher than #25, only that it's a fair ranking or we still posses some good talent. There are reasons to be optimistic and reasons to be pessimistic, but can you not be a cynical ******* to anybody who chooses to not give up on the baseball team before football even starts.

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If the two losses he's most concerned about are Jackson and Jamal, Darden and Chestnut are two plug and play options that are improvements. That's taking .02 seconds to think about it, not going through all the new names to see if there's anyone else who is better.

I think we have problems if Chestnut is an everyday starter.

I would say the same thing about George.

Killzone3abc said:

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I think we have problems if Chestnut is an everyday starter.

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He is an absolute defensive weapon. In 2024, he batted .262 (not great), but had a .441 OBP which was one of the highest on the team, and he represents speed on the bases, going 18 for 19 on SBA. He will be a steady leader for the team and presumably he will have gotten better in the 2 years since we've seen him so the aforementioned stats will only get better.

There are worse things that could.happen than Chestnut being a day 1 starter

He's been throwing since spring. He's here in town working out with the coaches and other players who are here. I saw him Tuesday.

25 is a CYA ranking. This team has enough talent to do better than that, so they don't want to leave us unranked, but slipping us in at 25 means that they are skeptical that we will get it done, for obvious reasons. It's basically saying, "Show me."

LB12Diamond said:

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I knew it was bad but I did not think it was so bad being ranked 25 would be a positive.

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I think we've proven that A&M rarely does well with high expectations. I'll take just barely ranked over preseason #1 any day of the week.

Luke The Drifter said:

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To be fair, it is often a crapshoot with a pitcher trying to come back from major surgery. All indications are that Sdao will be in great shape, but it's always a great unknown until the dude gets on the mound and faces live, in-game action.

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It's not as bad as it used to be. I would say it's pretty common these days for pitchers get back where they were before injury. Prager had Tommy John in 2023 and had a 9 win 2.95 ERA season in 2024.