What it comes down to is that Navin is the best catcher in the conference, but statistically his offensive value is a bit more hidden (particularly batting 8th) and Turner has more front line numbers. As a result, the writers will surely put Turner on. Coaches may very well chose Spencie, though.

In three games AT Mississippi, the ‘Dores were successful on 5-6 steals. Ole Miss was only 1-4. At the plate, Navin was 4-10 with 3 RBI (inc. 1 SF, 1 BB, 2 K). Turner was 4-12 with 1 RBI, 1 R, 2 BB, 3 K). In addition, one of the VU steals was by Navin and Turner allowed the game-winning and series-sweeping run to score with a throwing error in the 11th inning of game 3. Let’s hope the voters look at head-to-head competition.

To explain how Bobby Wahl started 10 SEC games, he started last Friday against MSU in a game that was suspended after 1 inning. The game was resumed Saturday with a new Ole Miss pitcher. Wahl then started the Sunday game and pitched 5.1 innings.

Out of curiosity, what do you think our record would be right now if our regular contributors were all freshmen and sophomores? For the sake of this, let’s assume Swanson had stayed healthy all year. What would we have done if these had been our primary guys?

1B – Zander Wiel
2B – Dansby Swanson
SS – Vince Conde
3B – Xavier Turner
RF – Kyle Smith
CF – John Norwood
LF – Rhett Wiseman
C – Chris Harvey
DH – Tyler Campbell / Will Cooper

SP – Tyler Beede
SP – Walker Buehler
SP – Phil Pfeifer
SP – Tyler Ferguson
RP – Jared Miller
RP – Brian Miller
RP – Carson Fulmer
RP – Nevin Wilson
RP – Adam Ravenelle

Just curious. Obviously it’s speculation, and they wouldn’t be anything approaching 46-6/24-2.

As to Turner-Navin, I agree with you. I think Navin is head and shoulders above the competition defensively (even though Turner is excellent defensively, he’s not Navin). Furthermore, Navin is probably the most criminally underrated offensive player in the SEC (which underrating is exacerbated by the fact that our balanced lineup approach has him hitting 8th). That said, Turner’s offensive stats are spectacular both in conference and overall. As a result, I tried to defeat my bias by noting that there’s a horse race there. In fairness, there’s also a race for closer between Holder, Webb and Miller.

I was present in Mississippi for the series and I have seen Stuart Turner play on a number of occasions. I agree that he is an elite catcher, but I disagree that he is a tossup with Spencer based in part on the fact that Navin outplayed Turner in every phase of the game in the three game series. Interesting to note, I asked Turner after the Saturday game who he considered to be the best catcher in the conference and he simply pointed to the Vandy dugout and said “that guy over there is pretty damn awsome.”

YAZ should be a 3rd to 7th round guy, Harrell a 4th to 8th rounder.

Kemp is hard to project. Could be as high as the 3rd, but I think if he’s not off the board by the 4th or 5th, he likely will fall to the 11th round due to overslot concerns (strategically, you don’t want to overslot a guy in rounds 6-10, which is why more NCAA Seniors are drafted in those rounds).

Draft projections are quite hard because the consensus matters not and signability is more important than talent in determining where someone actually lands.