LSU Baseball Has the Offensive Potential to Be Most Dominant in Country
LSU walks into the 2022 season with quite possibly the scariest offense in the country on paper.
The Tigers welcome back numerous All-Americans from the 2021 season and a collection of young and veteran talent that's had a full season of SEC ball under their belts. Star power alone in Dylan Crews, Tre Morgan, Cade Doughty, Gavin Dugas and Arizona transfer Jacob Berry is enough to get the blood pumping.
But the talk out of the program of the strides that shortstop Jordan Thompson and infielder Cade Beloso have made with their offense is genuinely encouraging as well. That's not even digging a little further into the weeds and looking at the potential of a second year guy like Brody Drost, veteran hitter Drew Bianco or incoming transfer catcher Tyler McManus.
The possibilities with this offense are endless and the offensive minded Jay Johnson will have several routes he can take during the course of this season, which is extremely encouraging.
"Jay Johnson is known for his hitting at every college he's been to. But he came into an inherited really good offense with a lot of great offensive tools," Berry said. "This year's gonna be really exciting. The lineup might flip forward, backward it really doesn't matter because we're gonna put runs on the board and have competitive at bats."
That core of Crews, Berry, Morgan, Dugas and Doughty all batted over .300 in 2021 and combined 275 RBI, 73 home runs and 277 runs scored during the 2021 season. That's an incredible amount of production returning to Baton Rouge.
"Hitting in front of him, hitting behind him, just having a guy like that has been great," Crews said. "We're blessed to have him a part of this organization. His work ethic, we clicked right away and it worked out very well."
A number of the players, including Dugas and Doughty talked about the staff's biggest preaching point offensively coming with plate discipline. Dugas and Doughty were both electric for LSU in 2021 but admitted they could've been even better without the high number of strikeouts.
Johnson and the new staff have come in and given all of the hitters an approach they feel comfortable with and are seeing it pay dividends already.
"Plate discipline for me personally. I was swinging at a lot of balls and getting myself out so kind of going to the foundation of getting the right pitch to hit and really not missing it," Doughty said. "The team, what you're gonna see with us, we're gonna be very disciplined."
As the 2022 season draws closer, Johnson and company likely won't pigeon hole themselves into one or two set lineups. There are several different options that could work on a game to game basis, the luxury of having such a deep roster with plenty of offensive talent.
But for the players fighting for those spots and opportunities, the message hasn't changed because they want to be over prepared by the time opening day comes Feb. 18.
"Everything we do matters, everything we do has a reason behind it no matter what we do in practice, how we stretch. Everything has a purpose," Dugas said. "Whenever opening day comes, our mindset's gonna be we'll be in week four by the time we throw that first pitch."