Paul Mainieri talks 2020 LSU baseball

LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri hosted media day on Friday before the start of practices.

Opening Statement…

“It’s so great to be back and get ready for the start of the season. What a year it has been. More than anything, I am a college football fan and an LSU football fan, so I was getting just as much enjoyment out of the season as everyone else was. My personal congratulations goes to Coach (Orgeron) and to the football team. We had a player on the football team, Mo Hampton. I met with our team the day after the National Championship, on Tuesday. We were allowed to have a team meeting, but not practice until Wednesday. As I stood there addressing my team for the first time, it almost didn’t feel like baseball season. There was just such a euphoric feeling from what the football team did this fall. It has been an amazing year so far if you look at basketball, undefeated in the SEC. Women’s basketball is having a phenomenal year. Gymnastics is undefeated and ranked second in the country. We have a pretty good softball team, I know Beth (Torina) is excited about her team this year. Across the board, LSU athletics has never been stronger. It is exciting to be around here. Now it’s time for the baseball program to uphold its end of it as well.

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“I’m excited about our team this year. We have a lot of great kids and a lot of young kids and a veteran pitching staff. There are a lot of things that make us excited about this year. It hasn’t been often in the 14 years I have been here where I stood in front of everyone and there are so many unknowns about a team as we have this year with our position players. Our pitching staff is a veteran pitching staff. We have 16 pitchers on the team. We only have three new pitchers, so 13 guys are veterans. It just so happens the three new guys are left-handers. We are excited about adding some left-handed pitching to the staff.

“When you look at the position players, obviously we lost three major players last year in Josh Smith, Zach Watson and Antoine Duplantis. Filling those holes is going to be huge. We have a lot of new guys and a lot of new position players. I am still waiting to see which players are going to rise above others and make a statement that they should be starting players. As we went through fall practice, all of them showed great things, just not consistently. These next three weeks are going to be interesting to see. Even after the season begins, there is going to be some fluidity to our lineup. I don’t think the lineup we start with on Opening Day is going to be the same for 56 games and the National Championship. There are going to be different opportunities for different guys throughout the year. While we are trying to figure out the right combination and put the pieces of the puzzle together in our lineup, I think our pitching staff is going to be at a level that allows us to win games even while we are learning about our team.”

On replacing Josh Smith as a leader in the infield…

“Our infield is the most inexperienced group we have out there. We only have one returning infielder from last year’s team and that is Hal Hughes. Hal, of course, is a fine defensive player. He is a pretty steady shortstop and makes the routine play for us. On a given day if that’s what we need is a shortstop to make some plays for us and have some scrappy at-bats, then Hall will be the guy. When I think of a replacement for Josh, even though it’s a different position, I think (third baseman) Zack Mathis has those qualities of a real leader.”

On guys competing for a spot in the weekend rotation…

“I am pretty sure Cole Henry will be our Friday night starter. He has the capability to be one of those special guys we have had around here. I think he is going to continue to improve as the year goes on. I think you are talking about a kid that is potentially a first-round draft choice and an All-American caliber pitcher. For the second and third spots, I think it is a battle between AJ Labas, Landon Marceaux and Eric Walker.”

On Daniel Cabrera as a leader of the team…

“He doesn’t really have a choice. We don’t have that many veteran position players. Daniel is the most talented one we have. I think he just knows the responsibility. I let the player who wears (jersey) number eight decide on who to give it to. When Antoine (Duplantis) wanted to give it to Daniel Cabrera, I asked Daniel how he would feel about that because there is a responsibility of leadership. I was really happy with his response. He wanted the number eight and embraces that responsibility.”

On the bullpen…

“As far as the bullpen goes, we have some veterans that have pitched some good baseball for us. Ma’Khail Hilliard, Trent Vietmeier, Matthew Beck, Devin Fontenot, these guys are good pitchers. They all have rough moments, but they have done some outstanding things for us. One of the keys for us, as last year proved to be true, is our ability to keep the guys healthy. Rather than push a starter to work an extra inning, it’s a good feeling knowing we can go to the bullpen and bring in a guy that is a veteran pitcher and has pitched well for us in the past.”

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