Speaker 1: Another one. Raging Cagen's Baseball receives another commitment from a
transfer portal picture. Let's discuss it here on Rage and Rundown.
What's good, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode
of Rage and Rundown, the show where you will know
all things you o sports. I'm your guy, JaMarcus Fitzpatrick,
but you know you can always call me fits. And
in tonight's episode, as this is literally something that just
happened within the last hour, we're talking about Louisiana Baseball
adding get another picture to their bullpen coming out of
the transfer portal. We'll talk about what it all looks
like as of now and what this type of team
is starting to shape up to look like going toward
twenty twenty seven. So I won't bury the lead. Louisiana
adds a transfer portal pitcher in Jacksonville State transfer Righty
Jackson evers. He is six foot three, two hundred and
ten pounds and he will have one year of eligibility remaining.
He announced his decision on social media, as I'm always
doing staying active on socials. I saw where he posted
about it, retweeted it, and immediately started looking at who
he was as a player and all of those things
like that, getting this type of commitment you add another
experienced arm to your bullpen is not necessarily going to
be a headline acquisition grabbing guy that it's like, oh, man,
you went and got this player that was National Player
of the Year or anything like that. But you add
some more stability to your bullpen as you head toward
twenty twenty seven, knowing the type of skill players that
you already have on your roster, and you continue to
prioritize your pitching staff, which is what coach Matt Diggs
said when he had his final media availabilit after the
Cajun's lost to Mississippi State in the Startville Regional Final.
So let's talk about his path of how he got
to this point at Louisiana. He started his career at
Old Miss. He read shirted his first season, so he
did not play. He transfers to Northwest Florida State College,
where he's two years at the JUCO level, and then
moved to Jacksonville State for twenty twenty six. He showed
perseverance throughout his career and he has played at multiple
levels of college baseball. And he's an older pitcher with
its quality experience, like what we talked about already. So
in his two seasons at Northwest Florida, he pitched in
fifty four innings, he had sixty seven strikeouts in twenty
two appearances with a five point one seven ERA. Then
he transfers to Jacksonville State, his RA drops just a
bit as he has a four point five to eight
ERA in seventeen point two innings, pitch twenty strikeouts fifteen appearances,
and he was one to zero in just one start there.
So he has the strikeout ability and some of his
numbers that he was talking about when he posted initially
that he would be entering the portal. And again, you know,
I know a lot of people will say, like this
is a guy that's bouncing around and all these things
like that, but again, situations are different. He goes to
Ole Miss and is not playing right away, so he transfers.
He bets on himself going to the JUCO level. And
then as he posted when he entered the transfer portal,
he announced that due to coaching changes, he would be
entering the transfer portal. So a guy that's looking for
another opportunity to shine once again as he's moving to
his next stop. Some of his numbers. He has a
fastball that goes anywhere between ninety one and ninety four
miles per hour, topping out at ninety five, a slider
that's between eighty to eighty four, a cutter at eighty
six to eighty nine, and I believe this is the
sinker that's ninety to ninety three.
Speaker 2: And guys, he has really good stuff.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of moments where you could see
swinging Missus in the cutups that he had in his
highlight reel on his social media platforms and it got
eighty nine thousand impressions on socials. And I can see
some Cajun fans down in the comments, tagging coach Tibbs,
tagging coach Sandy saying welcome to being a Cajun well
before this happened. So you guys kind of knew something
going in this or had a little bit of a
hunch about this one, as this is now a final
decision for this young man.
Speaker 2: So I don't.
Speaker 1: Necessarily think Uel is just looking at the er or
they're looking at the strikeout numbers of anything like that.
You know, because many pitching coaches believe that they can
fix command and consistency, and obviously, coach Sanderford because he's
been able to do what he's done in the past season,
what he did with Andrew Herman, continuing to develop Ty Roman,
continuing to develop Sawyer prud He can be able to
take some of these older pitchers and mold them through
this offseason to where they can be good relievers, to
where they can be good midweek starters, to where they
can be options for you out of the bullpen to
compliment some of what you already have that you are
returning in twenty twenty seven. So where does Jackson Evers
fit into your bullpen? Some potential roles for him. He
could be a middle reliever, somebody that you know, after
your starter goes six or seven innings, he can come
in and give you two to three innings or multiple innings.
He can be a bridge arm between the starter and
the closer, which is something that's going to be solid.
You've got guys like Hayden Pearson already and Parker Smith's
and so many others in your bullpen as a geared carter,
so many others that you have in your bullpen as well,
so he could be one of those guys.
Speaker 2: He could be a.
Speaker 1: Setup role, a late inning strikeout guy. Hey we're in
the bottom of the ninth and we need to close
this door. Or hey, we're in the seventh or eighth inning,
go get us a couple strikeouts, real quick, go ahead
and slam the door shut for us. Or he could
be a spot starter for you, again, like a midweek starter,
somebody that comes in on a Tuesday in continues to develop.
We saw saw your crew do that last year as
a freshman. He's obviously much more older and has more
experience at the collegiate level, but that just goes to
show what he could potentially be for you. The biggest thing,
like what I've said multiple times that he's going to
add to your bullpen, is just an experienced arm. You
can never have too much pitching. Because now, as of
adding him to this roster, you now have nineteen pictures
out of your bullpen, and they are as follows as
we've done in multiple episodes. I'll read them off, Ty Roman,
Garrett Carter, cam Riley, Parker Smith, Hayden Pearson, saw your Pruitt,
Chase Morgan, Jared tled landon Victorian Bryce Wilson are all
your returners. Evan Vincent from Turlin's Catholic is a freshman,
Trent Late is a transfer, Dacan Coubat, Matt Exsullivan, Charlie Kribbs,
Blaine Albright, Griffin Miller, Kendall Dove, and now Jackson Evers
enters the bullpen with your guys. So you're at nineteen
and I think that that is still a very solid number.
Speaker 2: There's no telling.
Speaker 1: Maybe you add an extra arms in there, but I
think that the next thing that this program is going
to be targeting is to catch a position because you
only have two guys in Cole Brown and Stevensplita, to
give you options and also to start looking potentially toward
the future.
Speaker 2: In case Coke.
Speaker 1: Brown, I don't know if he would be a draft
eligible sophomore or not, or whether he takes his opportunity
in his junior year, you already could have somebody riding
behind him that is learning and getting some opportunities to
catch a little bit and also give him a breather
in some of those midweek games and rest him as
a few opportunities that he could get in those different scenarios.
So that's what you're looking like as of now. I'm
going to take a quick time out and when we
come back, we'll talk about this transfer portal class as
a whole, and a lot of what Coach Diggs is
kind of looking toward and what this team could potentially
be looking like as we head to twenty twenty seven.
We'll discuss it when we come back here on Rage
and Rundown. Hey, guys, thank you so much for tuning
in to another episode of Rage and Rundown. We're going
to get back into the action in just a second,
but before we do, if you're watching this video, thank
you so much. Please do me a favor. Please like it,
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get in front of more raging Cajun fans just like yourself.
So before we went to break, we broke down who
Jackson Evers was and what he could potentially do for
your pitching staff in terms of helping as you move forward.
So now, the Cajuns, as we have discussed, are at
nineteen total pictures, they have eight of them being transfers,
and then you have four infielders making it twelve, and
then one outfielder and Kelle Pizzano making it thirteen total
transfers that you are bringing in to your program. And
some of those recent editions we talked about it, Michael
Kendrick from Kansas State, Kendall Dove from UTSA, Manny Salez
from Texas State, and now Jackson Evers from Jacksonville State.
What is it that we are seeing Coach Degg's building.
He is looking for experience. This is not going to
be a roster built around freshman This is not going
to be a roster built around development and waiting. This
is going to be about getting experienced guys and saying,
this is what we want to do, this is the
goal that we have.
Speaker 2: Let's load up and let's compete.
Speaker 1: Very similar to what we saw Kwanas White do during
the offseason and the way that he structured his roster,
going to get a lot of older guys, and even
if we kind of look at the football aspect of things, Indiana,
the National champions, the defending National champions, had a lot
of older guys that they went and got out of
the portal to be able to build a roster that
they had that would go on to win a championship.
That is is kind of what college athletics is turning towards,
because when you look at from an nil evaluation standpoint
or just what you could get out of it as
a whole. If you go in you get a freshman
player and he doesn't become a day one starter for you,
like a Blaze Rodriguez, a Noah Lewis, a Sawyer Pruett
or Cole Brown, they may have to sit back and
wait for a while, and maybe they get impatient and
they transfer, or maybe you pay so much for them
because they're highly talted coming out of high school and
they don't pan out, and then they still transfer because
they didn't pan out, going to get a few more
older guys, which I do believe that this is something
that can be somewhat sustainable for you, but you have
to deal with culture issues because not everybody is gonna
buy into your vision. Everybody brings their best representative when
they're coming in on visits and they're having those conversations
before they commit, but you never know what happens when
adversity comes along, or when a guy gets moved from
a Friday starter to a midweek guy, like with Tyroman
dealt with their in the season. You never know how
guys are going to respond to those type of moments.
But in getting experienced players, the one obstacle that you're
not having to climb over is having to teach these
guys how to be college players. Right, they understand that
they have study hall, they understand that they have to
get their hours in class. They handle their business to
make sure that they're eligible every single season, because that's
what an older guy already knows. He's already assumed that
role in the collegiate level, and so now you're not
having to teach him that. Now it's simply, hey, you
already handled your business. You know what it takes to
be the student part of this. Let me help you
to be an athlete. Let's go out here and win
some big games. So you've got older players, you've got
players with multiple stops, with players who have played in
meaningful innings in baseball games, which helps a ton.
Speaker 2: Right, you look at what happened in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: You finished the year forty one twenty five he made
it to the NCO Tournament, getting back there after missing
out in twenty twenty five. You won multiple games in Montgomery,
getting all the way to the Sun Belt Championship game,
going toe to toe with Southern Miss and beating Coastal
Carolina four out of five times in the season, and
you reached a regional. But the one thing that really
kept you from having a chance at being able to
keep going and potentially going on a magical run like
what we just saw Troy do even though they got eliminated.
Speaker 2: Today was the fact that you ran out of my arms, and.
Speaker 1: Now that you're adding more depth in your bullpen, I
don't think that that's going to be as much of
the case as what we saw this past season. I
think now that you've added more arms to your roster,
that you have given yourself a chance now that if
the pinching and the hitting will sync up together with
some of the guys that you've brought in and the
guys that you already have on your roster, Team one
thirteen could potentially be hosting a regional and maybe even
a super Regional, and could potentially go on a run
towards the College College World Series. Like what we saw
Troy do this season Coastal Carolina do this season before.
So it appears that the coaching staff is going to
continue to lean into the pitching depth, which is what
I feel like they've solidified now. Like I said, I
think that they will go and try to target some
catchers to be able to solidify your roster. But in total,
now you are at thirty three guys, and this is
a very solid arm that you add in. There isn't,
like I said at the beginning, somebody that's going to
be flashy or anything like that, but it adds depth
to the mound and it gives you an opportunity that
you have options coming out of the bullpen. As you
head to the off season, you inch towards fall ball
and then getting toward the twenty twenty seventh season where
we will be seeing what Team one thirteen will look like.
That's going to wrap up this episode of Rage and Rundown.
If you made it to this point in the video, guys,
thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I greatly appreciate that.
Speaker 1: As like I said, I'm dropping this literally probably an
hour or so after the news has broke. If you
made it to this point, thank you please like the video,
share it, leave a comment down below, but most importantly,
make sure you subscribe to the channel. If you're listening,
please follow the podcast feed, rate the show, and leave
us a review, because that's going to help us get
in front of more raging Cajun fans. Just like yourself,
I'm your guy, JaMarcus Fitzpatrick. We'll see you guys next time.