BATON ROUGE — LSU coach Paul Mainieri said Tuesday he is looking forward to the 2010 season with great optimism, in large part due to the 13 new players who are enrolling in school this week.
“I’m extremely excited about this incoming group,” said Mainieri, who guided the Tigers to the 2009 College World Series title. “The class is really an outstanding class. Despite losing three of our high school signees to the Major League draft, this is still an outstanding group.”
The 13 newcomers start classes at LSU Monday and will join 21 returning players for conditioning drills and individual workouts over the next several weeks.
The Tigers begin their full-squad fall practice session on October 13. The 2010 season starts on February 19 when the Tigers play host to Centenary in Alex Box Stadium.
“(LSU associate head coach) David Grewe is the architect of this class and has done a tremendous job,” Mainieri said. “He’s worked endless hours to put this class together. I think it’s going to be a highly-ranked class when the recruiting rankings come out.
The new group of Tigers includes six pitchers and seven position players. Five members of the class have been selected in the MLB Draft, and four of the players have earned All-America recognition during their careers.
“The bottom line is we are going to play with the kids who want to be at LSU,” Mainieri said. “I don’t belittle anybody for going into professional baseball, though I can’t say I’m not disappointed about the players who chose not to come to school — we worked long and hard recruiting those players.
“On the other hand, I believe very strongly that we are going to win and be very successful with the players that are here and want to be a part of LSU. We’re going to go out there this fall and prepare a new team to be successful. I have all the confidence in the world that we’ve got the pieces in place to be able to have an outstanding team. There’s no doubt we can win with the kids that are here.”