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According to Baseball America, Parker just inked a 1.4 million dollar deal with the Rockies. The rest of the terms are not disclosed yet but its far from what everyone has stated Parker desired to play baseball-only and give up Clemson football.

But the last figures we heard in July were in the 2-2.4 million range, so this means Parker lost between a half million and a cool million to play Clemson football.

Casey Harman signed his deal with the Cubs for a nice chunk of change over the recommended slot money for a 29th round pick, and John Hinson and Jeff Schaus have stated they will come back.

At this time, no word on McGibbon or Steve Wilkerson signing. It was expected they would not sign.

So one incoming recruit (Cole Brand), Harman, and Parker are all that appear to have left Clemson baseball for 2011. Losing Harman is a killer though, since I expected our rotation to be quite solid with him and Weismann back to lead off the weekend. Now its Weismann's job on Friday to lose.

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Final Record: 45-25, 18-12 ACC

Atlantic Division Champions and Final 4 of College Baseball.

Final Rankings: #4 in three polls, Collegiate Baseball, National Collegiate Writers and USA Today/ESPN. It is the 5th time Clemson has finished so high. #10 finish in Baseball America and Rivals. The final Composite poll ranks Clemson 5th.

Preseason rankings had Clemson around 15th in most polls, as noted in our preseason preview.

2010 Baseball Recruits - As of now only Cole Brand has opted for MLB.

CUAD Final Season Notes

Season in Review

The Tigers started off the year 7-0 with wins over Miami (OH), Michigan State, Furman,Wright State, and Dayton. Three of the games were close and the game against Dayton went to 10 innings. We simply had more than these guys. The first tough series of the season was SC at home, at Fluor Field, and in Columbia with us taking 2 of 3 games.....and the 3rd in dominant fashion, 19-6. 

Then at 10-1 we hosted a dominant-hitting NC State team and crushed them in a 3-game sweep. NC State pitchers had serious issues with walks and Clemson capitalized mightily with 24 runs in the doubleheader and another 7 in game 3. Another midweek game against Charlotte exposed our lack of a consistent midweek starter as we fell on the road 11-10 in a back & forth game. After that we crushed Georgia Southern and hosted an improving Virginia Tech squad and again surpassed expectations with a sweep.

At 17-2 the wheels fell off. Elon swept us in two midweek games because the a) defense gave them extra outs, b) no midweek starter,  and c) we could not get RISP to home plate. Clemson's hitting wasn't the problem, but hitting with any runners on base became a serious issue until May. As is typical of a Leggett and Riginos team, they tightened up at the plate and fundamental baseball was forgotten there.

But the defense was actually getting better while we were losing midseason.

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Its time for Jack to leave.

The head coach is responsible for everything in the program. He is ultimately responsible for recruiting talent, gauging his team's psyche in clutch situations, the on-field performance (hitting, pitching, defense), hiring assistants, and the in-game decisions.

The question is, are you a person who is satisfied with 40-win seasons and a CWS appearance every 2-3 years, or are you someone who wants Clemson to be the best?

If you're the former, you were probably also happy with 8 wins a year and a bowl game, and that Bowden was "a good christian man" and graduated his players.

I'm not one of those people. While I don't expect Clemson football to be in contention for a national title every year, I do expect 10 wins a year to be achievable at the onset of every season (barring a early NFL draft loss or critical injury of course). I don't put up with just being in the NCAA basketball tournament either. I want to win A game when we get there.

And I'm not putting up with Jack Leggett's inability to win in Omaha. Clemson baseball is a better program historically than the other two, and it seems people are just more accepting of his losses because they don't care about college baseball. Those who don't care just look at his record and see us in the CWS and say "well ok, who are we going to get that is better?" This is a nonsensical question, who wouldn't want to be at Clemson besides someone who has won a title at their program or is in a good position financially with AD resources? Clemson baseball is not like Duke football folks, we're an elite program and can go after the big fish. The only worrisome problem in this is who TDP would hire for the job, probably a cheap no-name coach from Alaska, when he wakes up from his nap.

I'm not calling for Jackson Leggett to be fired, he's a good coach. I'm not going to fire a coach that has won 40+ in all but three seasons in 17 years. He has kept Clemson baseball at a reasonably high level since taking over for Coach Bill Wilhelm. If you go by the number of CWS appearances we're better now than with Wilhelm, but college baseball is also very different now. The problem is that he's not going to get us to a national championship, and that is what we play baseball for. Since its readily apparent that Jack Leggett is not going to win the key games in Omaha, I think he should resign.

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Either way it goes, they still swear by the love of cock.

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Saturday, 7pm ESPN

Likely pitching matchup

What you saw last night was a typical Jack Leggett Omaha performance. How they can regress to the mean so quickly is hard to fathom, but they did. The only pitcher on the Oklahoma staff that gave them trouble was junk-throwing lefty J.R. Robinson, and thats exactly what Michael Roth threw us last night. His slider did not have particularly great bite and his sinker was not unhittable, either by speed or movement. He kept them down and most of his sliders werent strikes. His arm angle was particularly hard on LH bats, as most sidearmers are on same-side. Clemson just wasn't prepared for it and had no approach at the plate, they all got behind in the count and had to swing at garbage pitches.

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Sakerlina (50-16) vs. Clemson Tigers (45-23)

Must win one game to play for the National Championship.

Friday, 9pm ESPN2

Saturday, 7pm ESPN if necessary.

Last Game: Clemson defeated #1 Arizona State 6-3 on the arms of Casey Harman and Alex Frederick Monday morning, then defeated Oklahoma 6-4. While the Tigers looked exceptional in Game 1, the 2nd half of Game 2 was pretty lethargic and Clemson pitchers Will Lamb and Dominic Leone were erratic with their command all afternoon.

In the NCAA Tournament, Clemson defeated Southern Miss 10-1, Auburn 5-2, lost to Auburn 11-10, and wrapped up the Regional 13-7. Clemson hosted the Super Regional against Alabama and won 2 of 3. The Tigers lost game 1 because of the defense 5-4, and won the last two 19-5 and 8-6.

South Carolina lost to Oklahoma in Game 1 4-3, leaving the bases juiced in the 8th and 9th innings against Duke. The Cluckers pounded Arizona State in an elimination game 11-4, then OU again 3-2 in 12 innings against Duke. Other than the innings against Oklahoma's closer, the Chickens looked weak at the plate against the Sooners.

In the NCAA Tournament, SC beat Bucknell 9-5, Citadel 9-4, and then Virginia Tech 10-2 in a Regional they hosted in Cola. They then went to Coastal Carolina and swept the Super Regional in two nailbiters, 4-3 and 10-9.

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Since this was becoming so lengthy in the Preview, I decided to make it separate.

Scott Weismann will not pitch on such short rest but Casey Harman should be able to go on 3 days rest Friday. I would run my ace out there Friday night and have him back by Tuesday of the Championship Series. If he has to pitch Saturday, he can only come back for a decisive Game 3 Wednesday and that game is not guaranteed to even happen, obviously. Its short rest either way. I would rather have him ready Friday and clinch to rest everyone. You win one game at a time here in Omaha and worry about the rest later. Casey threw 95 pitches in Game 1. You can do the same again on 3 days rest. Just because Casey isn't asked to do it during the season doesn't mean he can't, most guys can go on 3 days rest if they need to.

If you don't pitch him Friday, you almost have to Saturday. Would you want to lose here without having your ace being beaten? You force them to beat Harman either way it goes. If you choose to save him for Monday, you really need confidence in the bullpen Friday/Saturday, which I do not have.

If we win behind someone else Friday, without using too many arms, its the best-case scenario. I just could not bring myself to trust the game to the bullpen because our 3rd starter is not going to give us past 6 innings. You will be forced to have Frederick available.

This is obviously the time where the lack of good depth on the mound hurts us the most. I find it unlikely to see both Harman and Weismann out on short rest, so do not be surprised to see Leone out there. Weismann still went only 5 innings though, with 83 pitches. Coming back on 3 days rest with 83 vs 95 is not even really a debate either, it might as well be the same number.

Will Lamb did not look at all comfortable on the mound in yesterday's stint (65 pitches) and Leone did not last long (24 pitches). Lamb will definitely not pitch Friday and I do not see him starting Saturday. He looked bad against Auburn as well. I could see him out there starting in the Championship series if we get there though.

Recently:

Harman's: ASU - 6IP, 7H, 3ER, 3BB, 5K; Auburn - 9IP, 5H, 2ER, 1BB, 8K; Alabama - 8.1IP, 10H, 1ER, 0BB, 9K.

Weismann: OU - 5IP, 3H, 1ER, 2BB, 4K; Southern Miss -  7IP, 4H, 1ER, 1BB, 6K; Alabama - 6IP, 9H, 3ER, 0BB, 0K

Firth:  Auburn - 1.1IP, 4H, 2ER, 1BB, 1K

Leone:  Alabama - 5.2IP, 3H, 0ER, 1BB, 3K

Lineups: OU goes RH at the top, LH at the bottom, with a couple switch hitters. SC is balanced, but slight weighting to the LH side.

Against SC: Harman went 5IP, 8H, 3R, 2BB, 5Ks in Game 1 earlier this year. Lamb went 5.1IP, 3H, 2ER, 4BB, 1K in Game 2 at Fluor Field. Weismann went 6IP, 5H, 2 ER, 2BB, and 5Ks in Cola.

So who do you throw?

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Clemson will play the winner of OU vs SC Friday night at 9pm EST. SC and OU will face off tomorrow night.

The Tigers must win one game to play for the National Championship!

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Again I wont lay out the entire lineup for the Sooners because we may only face them once, but this is a strong pitching team and they hit very well (as does everyone here). We beat the best team in the field, now just hope Jack doesnt follow his usual pattern of tightening up the team on the big stage in Omaha.

We're in the winner's bracket, where we have to stay to avoid running our pen out there too much. We're arguably the hottest team coming in, but so is Oklahoma. They are the team that knocked out Virginia in Charlottesville during the Super Regionals.

NCAA CWS Bracket

Tuesday 9pm EST on ESPN2 - Clemson (44-23) vs. Oklahoma (50-16) - Clemson is the home team.

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