I don't know how much interest there is here. I know we got Jason, the Vandy fan (sorry I'm not good with names), and myself, but I figured I'd start a thread for the season.

The season finally gets underway on Friday thanks to the new rule. I personally hate it, but I'm sure the Northern schools love it. I liked it much better when we started Feb 1st last year, but I can see where schools don't like that and how it can be unfair. I don't like how we have a conference game on the third weekend and a lot of weeks where we have 2+ games midweek.

FSU starts out the season against Duquesne this weekend. I don't know a thing about them, but I can't wait. In a week from Tuesday we play the Phillies which was a lot of fun last year. It should be an interesting season for us. We lost Tony Thomas and Mark Hallberg to the draft on the offensive side. The big loss Bryan Henry. He was the Friday night starter and was good for 7-8 every start. We also lost our #2 starter in Michael Hyde. This years Friday starter will be Elih Villanueva from Miami Dade CC (how we got him, I don't know). He's got a Zambrano like build, but only tops out at 94 with 4 legit pitches and a great curve. I would keep going, but I'm sure no one cares.

Hopefully I get some interest here.

Mizzou starts this week in Florida for a tourney. They are going to be real good this year. Top pick potential for '08 in Aaron Crow, '09 in Kyle Gibson and in '10 with Nick Tepesch. Mizzou has as good a pitching staff as anyone in the country.

I'm interested in the Stetson game. We play them every year (4 times this year) and they always make the tournament.

I slightly follow Gophers baseball, but that doesn't mean too much. I'll go to a couple games maybe, but not too much more (unless I get some increased motivation to follow them, it's generally pretty hard to do though.. lack of coverage )

I'm not big into college baseball. I do try and watch the games from Omaha. But I will follow this thread if it takes off.

Miami fan here so I'll be on this thread too.

haha im the vandy fan.....we open playing in the demarini invitational in tempe...baseball america has us ranked 3 preseason..first game this friday vs. 2 time defending national champ oregon state (7th by BA) then arizona state (9th) on saturday and miami of ohio sunday...should be some good players there....

man after the season ended last year im dying for this season to start again...we return our entire offense which is promising, but we lose the #1 overall pick in Price and the #8 in weathers.....man it was so heartbreaking seeing us ranked 1 most the whole year last year, and then losing to michigan the way we did last year (extra innings on a monday night, price came in in the 10th to get out of a jam after starting friday night, gives up only his 2nd or 3rd HR of the year in the 11th to get his first loss of the season against michigan, then in the bottom alvarez robbed of HR to win it for the wolverines)

im heading back to nashville for the series in mid march against #12 south carolina...should be some good talent and for sure some future major leaguers....im still hoping alvarez signs with boars and falls to us at 8, but i doubt it....i compare him to a young jim thome or carlos delgado

Is the reason Michigan is ranked so high because of hype from beating Vandy last year, or are they actually that good? It would be nice for the Big 10 to have a decent team.

probably a bit of both....zach putnam is one of the best players in the country, and he pitches and plays the field....from what ive read they return their entire team basically....when i saw em last year during that entire regional weekend, they could really hit

He is fantastic, I play for the same high school now that he did 3 years ago, and I still remember watching those games he played in, just nasty stuff. Now he has that splitter, geesh. The only concern I have for him is that he is injury prone with an arm that isnt the most durable. Apparently its hard for him to pitch more than once a week.

I love college baseball and actually get out to a dozen or so ASU games each year. I'm not a big fan of the new schedule rule at all though...even though I understand it. It really cut into the quality of schedule this year for ASU who usually has a series with Texas, FSU, Miami or somebody early on....not this year. I am gonna make it out to the DeMarini Invite this weekend out at Packard (vs. Vandy on Sat. at 1pm). ASU will be pretty damn good this year...but I'm not sure about the move or how long it will last moving Brett Wallace to 3rd (so basically Ike Davis can play 1st). It may work out though.

Putnam was recruited hard by Vandy...he took a long time in making his decision between vandy and michigan...We had the #1 ranked recruiting class that year without him (featuring preseason player of the year in Alvarez, 3rd team all american ryan flaherty, second to third round picks in bret jacobson and nick christiani, not to mention diallo fon now starting as a transfer for arizona, and josh zeid at tulane)....that would have been sick to land him in that list too....i think hes actually hurt himself a bit by playing both ways, i think he would be better at either craft had he just stuck with one, but that said it has worked out for micah owings...he really shouldnt have to pitch more than once a week at this point, as hes michigan's bona fide Friday night starter...come tourney time he may have to make a few relief appearances, but he shouldnt be pitching more than just fridays anyways

Saluki Baseball baby! We got a really good team this year, projected #2 in the valley behind Wichita State by Baseball America!

THing is is that his dad is a major Michigan fan and really pushed him to them, Vandy had a shot but I really believe it was Michigan or the draft for him, with him demanding a huge amount to be signed, plus he really wanted to hit still and Michigan garunteed that he would get the oppurtunity to. I think he was looking towards the future too, since hes still pretty raw as a hitter and could develop into a really good one, where as his arm might not last as long as he might need, plus he'll have a degree or some college to fall back on.

I think its really cool to be playing on the same field that he did, on the same team. He was like a god here, I remember that we had so many scouts that they brought up the benches from the JV/Freshman field up to the Varsity field just so taht they could sit down, of course that meant we were left with no place to sit during games. I really appreciate though what he did for the school's program, took us to two straight State championships, winning the first. That put the spotlight somewhat on the crappy state of the fields and the dire need to upgrade them. (which they are finally starting to do, the mound wasnt even alligned right with home plate, as the school with the most students in the state, I think we deserve more).

UNC will be solid again, led by Dustin Ackley and Tim Federowicz on offense. But pitching will be somewhat of a question. UNC has a ton of talent, but not a lot of experience after ace Woodard graduated and closer Carignan was drafted. Alex White should step up as the ace, but out of the 17 pitchers on roster, only 4 are juniors or seniors.

Kendric Burney, who plays CF, and is also a starting CB on the football team, will suprise some people. He has tremendous defensive range and suprising power at only 5'10.

UIC > Vandy

NIU should have a pretty good team this year as well and should contend for the MAC title. I think were down in Carbondale in a couple of weeks.

Thought I would post it here, Texas Tech's opening series with NIU was cancelled for good after both teams couldn't come up with a replacement date.

UIC really played us very, very well last year....they had some arms in their rotation...we won the first two games by only 1...2-1 and 1-0, i was generally impressed especially the way they threw the ball (and i think one of those pitchers was a true freshman) , though we did pound em on sunday 14-5

I just want to give an official F-U to college baseball for starting the season later and going to this new schedule which is going to completely reak havoc on pitching staffs everywhere. Oh and GO TITANS!!!!. New coach so it should be interesting to see if things can continue (they have a couple top notch young position players but the rotation will be a bit of a question-mark, especially with these weeks where you may have 5 games.

Northern teams say hi.

Let me know when any Northern team consistently represents one of the good teams in college baseball (with the exception of Oregon State). Bottom line, this new schedule is going to absolutely water down the level of play and it is going to prevent teams from getting to play as many power teams. I realize the idea of timing everyone's schedule similarly, but they don't do that with college football (big ten play ends weeks before some of the other conferences play).

We're definately going to see a rise in ERA this year. Teams go from needing only 3 legit starters with a middle of the line fourth guy to needing at least 4 guys with a middle tier 5th starter. They also need a deeper pen. A lot of the guys don't have the endurance to go 7-8 innings all the time and thats going to put a hell of a lot of strain on the pen.

On the FSU front, I'm worried about Buster Posey, our catcher. Before last year he only played catcher one year in little league (he previously was a SS, and not a bad one). He is also our closer for this year. Last year he starter every single game, but there's no way he'll be able to do that this year. Luckily we added some excellent depth in Brunnel and Kane. But still, any time you need to rest your team MVP and possible 1st round pick(2-3 more likely), it's going to hurt.
It also hurts us having only one really experienced starter.

The argument is that part of the reason that they consistently don't do as well is that southern teams are able to play and practice for a lot longer than a Northern team can.

Baseball in February is stupid anyway.

Wichita St.

90% chance of rain tomorrow.....I'm pissed.

ryan flaherty for vanderbilt ties andy phillips all time SEC record by hitting in his 36th consecutive game...robins next

on a side note im watchin the game thru cstvs all access and they have Roland Hemond in the booth for a few innings

Somehow it hasn't rained yet, but it's close. At 1:40pm they moved the game from 4 pm to 5 pm and that looks like a dumb move considering it still hasn't rained. If we get the green light, I'm heading out there at 4:45, but I would expect it to start raining at any moment.

god i hate early season rainouts......especially when its the sox, i get amped up for the season and look forward to seein the game, and then its delayed and ppd...hope you get yours in

It's rainin' pretty steady out here in Phx.

List of teams who have made the tournament the last 5 years:
Arizona St., Arkansas, Cal State Fullerton, Clemson, Florida St., Miami, Ole Miss, Mississippi St., Missouri, UNC, NC State, Oral Roberts, Pepperdine, Rice, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Texas, Wichita State

2 northern teams in that list, but otherwise what you would expect.

solid win for vandy...8-1 over 2 time national champ oregon state....arizona state tomorrow

Didn't get the game in today, we have a DH tomorrow. If it would have started at 4 like it was supposed too we probably could have finished it before it rained, but they kept pushing it back.

We won the first game 14-3. We had 6 homers each by different players. 2nd game starts in 20 min.

who are you guys playing?

vandy is without pedro alvarez today...arm injury, not serious....still it would be nice to have him facing the #1 ranked team (USA today coaches poll) in Arizona State.

UNC defeats Florida Atlantic 7-1 in their opener, Ackley and Seth Williams with 2 HR a piece and Alex White pitched 5 2/3 6 K's 0 ER.

Ackley is going to put up some monster numbers, he is something else.

yikes, pitching depth proving to be a major concern for my commodores (which was my biggest worry coming into the year)....ASU all over us 16-2 and its only the 6th inning...brett wallace has a slam and a 3 run shot for the sun devils....7 rbi

We're playing Duquense (not very good). I just left the 2nd game, final score 15-3 in 7 innings. 2 more homers in the 2nd game. We had a total of 8 homers today from 8 different batters. The starting pitching looked shaky (just high WHIP), but they got out of the innings unharmed most of the time. The offense was amazing though. I think last season we hit 3 homers in the first 3 weeks of the season. Now after 2 games we have 8.

Mike McGee, the FR Starting LF, was awesome today. Today he hit .727 with 8 hits, 1 HR, 6 rbi, 4 R, 2 3B and had a walk in 11 AB. He is also the starting pitcher for tomorrows game. Hopefully we won't use a DH and let him hit.

Man...ASU put the smackdown on today. I was VERY disappointed not gettin' to see Alvarez today. Wallace with a couple of impressive bombs (a grand slam and 3-run shot)...can't remember who had the other dinger. Leake looked pretty decent on the mound. Actually Leake is supposed to be their best shortstop...but they think he's too valuable on the mound. Kind of a sloppy game for ASU though. ASU had 6 errors (I know Ike had 2 over at 1st and Wallace had one). I don't think Vandy had any errors. Lots of new faces on this team this year. I thought I was told that Jason Jarvis (closer) was ineligible...but he was in uniform today. He didn't pitch...but he pinch hit.

I wouldn't read too much into this game though....they could probably play 10 and split 'em.

if we dont get our starters to go deep its gonna be a long year....that pen is so young...the only guy who really has any experience at all is jason cunningham, and thats like 4 innings as a walk on after being the team manager...

Cunningham came in today in the 6th...faced 4 batters...gave up 4 hits and 4 runs...the last the 3-run dinger by Wallace. Tough day for Vandy pitchers...they had to have over 10 walks today. That never helps.

We finished the series with a 15-3 win. McGee kicked ass again. He went 3-4 with 3 RBI, 1 R, and a BB. He also had a no hitter through five innings and got the W on the mound.

Bah ..Pedro Alvarez out indefinitely with a broken bone in his hand...not good for vandy....maybe good for the white sox and other teams hoping he falls a bit in the draft

Beat Auburn 7-5 tonight. Elih looked good through 3, but then got wild and let Auburn back in the game. Awesome job by Guinn (3rbi, HR), Marshall (2.2 innings of relief, 1 ER), and Posey (2/3 1 run, 1 rbi, 1 Save). Game 2 is tomorrow at 4.

Is that the same Guinn who was drafted by the Sox this year?

It is a different guy. We have Dennis. I think the other guy was Brian Guinn and he went to Cal.


We won today 6-5 over Auburn. They had to make it interesting though. It was 6-2 going into the bottom of the 9th and the final score was 6-5.

Indiana is off to a 1-3 start. They lost 2 of 3 last weekend to LSU, then lost 12-5 to Illinois State today.

Beat Auburn 4-3 today. We had 3 more homers today (I have no idea where the power is coming from). We go for the 4 game sweep tomorrow at 2.

Fullerton got beat down by Stanford yesterday and today. I hate this new f***ing schedule. Quality games like UCLA get moved to the middle of the week so I can't go. It will be interesting to see if they can pull anything out against the Tree's before playing the studly Bruins in a midweek series.

Fullerton is way too young and I have my fears about them with this new schedule.