The 2009 College Baseball Season

[MJ4H]

The big talk around here is who will host the super regional, Arkansas or FSU. Apparently FSU has put in their bid of $92k (2 day) and $100k (3 day). Arkansas has larger facilities and will easily sell out so I'm sure our bid will be larger, but no one has made the numbers public.

Lots of discussions about the rules for hosting, but the reality is, this is coming down to bid + merit. Both teams have similar RPI and SOS numbers, but FSU finished the season much stronger and have a better record, in addition to winning their conference. Based on merit, FSU should host. The facility difference might be enough to make up the difference, though. Supposed to be announced tonight.

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

South Carolina has beaten East Carolina on the road 8-6 this afternoon, advancing to face North Carolina in the Super Regional.

I'm showing South Carolina at East Carolina starting at 6:00 Eastern. Did they move it?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

I'm showing South Carolina at East Carolina starting at 6:00 Eastern. Did they move it?

I wondered about that myself, since the official scoreboard gets wonky occasionally. But I found two matching results in two different places on the site, so I took it as being accurate.

edit to add: Both the SC athletic site & the Columbia newspaper say 6pm, so apparently I had too much faith in the NCAA's own scoreboard. Sorry for any confusion.

[MJ4H]

Game is going on now, so yeah.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by MJ4H

The big talk around here is who will host the super regional, Arkansas or FSU. Apparently FSU has put in their bid of $92k (2 day) and $100k (3 day). Arkansas has larger facilities and will easily sell out so I'm sure our bid will be larger, but no one has made the numbers public.

Lots of discussions about the rules for hosting, but the reality is, this is coming down to bid + merit. Both teams have similar RPI and SOS numbers, but FSU finished the season much stronger and have a better record, in addition to winning their conference. Based on merit, FSU should host. The facility difference might be enough to make up the difference, though. Supposed to be announced tonight.

Word is Arkansas's bid was around 50% higher. Personally, I'm not hopefully, but a lot of people think it's about 50-50.

[JonInMiddleGA]

GT took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first, Southern Miss answers with 9 runs on six hits, including a pair of homers off the ACC pitcher of the year, in the top of the second

[digamma]

You still have time to get to the game, Jon. The bats need you. And there's plenty of hitting left to get done.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Now 11-3 USM and still batting in the fifth.

Hall need to be on the same rail out of town that Coach Useless, I mean Hewitt should be on. And Hall can take Luke "David Justice" Murton's mouth with him as he departs.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Louisville beats Vandy 4-2 and advances to meet CS-Fullerton.

South Carolina trying to hold on to a 9-6 lead in the 8th, Tech trying to find some offense down 11-3, Rice is rolling 10-3 over K-State , Clemson bats in the 8th down 5-4 to Oklahoma State & Ole Miss-Western Kentucky are scoreless in the 5th.

[JonInMiddleGA]

A pair of walks & a 3-run homer pull GT within 11-6 in the sixth. Next batter up gets plunked ... but a ground out ends the rally.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Clemson gets a 2-out single in the 8th, driving in a pair for a 6-5 lead.

[MJ4H]

East Carolina hits a 3 run HR to tie South Carolina in the bottom of the 9th at 9 apiece.

[MJ4H]

ECU wins it 10-9 in bot 10th.

[MJ4H]

Ole Miss beats WKY 4-1.

[MJ4H]

GAMES BEGIN FRIDAY, JUNE 5 - All Times are Eastern

Louisville (47-16) at No. 2 Cal State Fullerton (45-14)
10:30 p.m. (ESPN2), 5 p.m. (ESPN), 10 p.m. (ESPN2)

Arkansas (37-22) at Florida State (45-16)
Noon (ESPN), Noon (ESPN2), Noon (ESPN)

Virginia (46-12-1) at Mississippi (43-18)
2 p.m. (ESPN2), Noon (ESPN2), 3 p.m. (ESPN)

Rice (43-16) at No. 3 LSU (49-16)
7 p.m. (ESPN), 5 p.m. (ESPN), 7 p.m. (ESPN2)

The following four best-of-three super regionals will be played Saturday, June 6, Sunday, June 7, and Monday, June 8 (if necessary).

GAMES BEGIN SATURDAY, JUNE 6 - All times are Eastern

TCU (39-16) at No. 1 Texas (44-13-1)
6 p.m. (ESPNU), 3 p.m. (ESPN), 1/7 p.m. (ESPN/ESPN2)

Southern Miss. (38-24) at No. 8 Florida (42-20)
3 p.m. (ESPNU), 7 p.m. (ESPN2), 1/7 p.m. (ESPN/ESPN2)

Clemson (44-20) at No. 5 Arizona State (47-12)
9 p.m. (ESPNU), 10 p.m. (ESPN2), 7 p.m. (ESPN2)

East Carolina (46-18) at No. 4 North Carolina (45-16)
Noon (ESPNU), Noon (ESPN), 1/7 p.m. (ESPN/ESPN2)

The determination of the Men's College World Series order of first-round games both Saturday, June 13, and Sunday, June 14, will be announced Monday, June 8. The ESPN family of networks and www.ncaa.com will release the MCWS game dates and times as soon as they are available.

[Tigercat]

Well, I will say again that post season performance doesn't validate a bad resume (and therefore doesn't invalidate a good/bad resume), but after the way the KSU administrator run committee rewarded the Big 12, I do find it interesting that only 1 out of 8 big 12 teams advanced. At least OSU and Baylor made good showings out of their undeserving bids.

Looking forward to having all the super regionals on TV this weekend. I am a little worried about LSU's matchup with Rice. The bats need to wake up against LHP and with runners in scoring position or there will be an upset out of Baton Rouge.

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

Well, I will say again that post season performance doesn't validate a bad resume (and therefore doesn't invalidate a good/bad resume), but after the way the KSU administrator run committee rewarded the Big 12, I do find it interesting that only 1 out of 8 big 12 teams advanced. At least OSU and Baylor made good showings out of their undeserving bids.

Looking forward to having all the super regionals on TV this weekend. I am a little worried about LSU's matchup with Rice. The bats need to wake up against LHP and with runners in scoring position or there will be an upset out of Baton Rouge.

You still haven't shown why a team that is a Top 35 team in nearly every objective measure going into a tournament with 34 at-large bids is an undeserving recipient of one of those bids. Especially considering that multiple teams in front of them received automatic bids.

[Huckleberry]

Quick Supers Preview

[Tigercat]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

You still haven't shown why a team that is a Top 35 team in nearly every objective measure going into a tournament with 34 at-large bids is an undeserving recipient of one of those bids. Especially considering that multiple teams in front of them received automatic bids.

Objective measure? How about "Did this team finish at least in the top 80% of wins in their conference?" College RPI has been broken for years, all major college baseball publications have been saying this for at least a decade. You act like I am the one that is off base here, when everyone I have heard from baseball america and collegiate baseball talk in depth about the brackets agree with me.

As a comparison of methods, they wouldn't be picked in the NCAA basketball tournament, and in that respect the basketball tournament does it correctly. Everyone who follows college basketball selection would agree that a top 35 RPI team with that kind of poor second half of the season resume should not be in the tournament. You do not pick teams for the tournament that gel into sub par teams. And second half of the season should be MORE important in college baseball, because a college baseball team takes longer to gel due to the intricacies of building a pitching staff.

It is just common sense, national college baseball writers understand that. The committee didn't.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

Objective measure? How about "Did this team finish at least in the top 80% of wins in their conference?"

I'm not sure what that proves either though, given the disparity in conference strengths.

Let's face it, the 18 one-bid conferences (who could often fit that criteria) didn't exactly set the tournament on fire. 14-34 to be exact, and 3 of those wins came from Louisville. And the 4 two-bid conferences weren't a lot better, just 5-16 with only one win that didn't come from the Sun Belt. Did the B12 lay an egg? Absolutely. But I'm not sure I see any reason to think replacing half their teams with four other candidates would have produced a different result ... (edit to add) unless maybe you just hand out bids to teams in the Pacific time zone regardless of their records (as western teams were really the primary source of 3 bid or less representatives that did much). But there's already concern about the western & southern bias in college baseball, politically I'm not sure the committee felt like they wanted to go down that road too far. Now that bias doesn't bother me, it's just the reverse of NCAA hockey afaic, but it's a reality I'm sure they have to address.

Truth is, there probably aren't 64 baseball teams that are competitive at the highest level, and a 32 team tournament would be sufficient at this point.

[Tigercat]

Mid major level three and four seeds that have a consistent resume can threaten to win it all though. See: Fresno State last year, San Jose State in 2000. The old "that's baseball" idea. I don't remember the last major-conference-barely-got-in three to make it to Omaha though. That's usually because those teams struggled consistently for a reason, and they won't suddenly find a formula in the post season to be consistent enough to make it to Omaha.

Rhode Island probably had a much better chance of going 2 and out than Baylor and Okie State. But they had the more praise worthy season and a better chance at making serious noise in the tournament.

[JonInMiddleGA]

On a more positive note, I'm awfully glad we had this thread this season. With the exception of helping my dad chase down results (he's not web active) this is by far the most conversation I've had about college baseball ever. And I mean this thread this season versus the entire rest of my life combined.

I've followed it to some extent for a pretty long time now but other than my father I've honestly never known a single other person who does.

[Lathum]

UW women go for the win tonight!

[cartman]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I've followed it to some extent for a pretty long time now but other than my father I've honestly never known a single other person who does.

In Austin, the Longhorns baseball team is well followed and gets more than decent press coverage. But since Dallas and Houston are pretty far away, and San Antonio only has the Spurs, the Longhorns sports teams get a ton of local press.

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

Objective measure? How about "Did this team finish at least in the top 80% of wins in their conference?" College RPI has been broken for years, all major college baseball publications have been saying this for at least a decade. You act like I am the one that is off base here, when everyone I have heard from baseball america and collegiate baseball talk in depth about the brackets agree with me.

As a comparison of methods, they wouldn't be picked in the NCAA basketball tournament, and in that respect the basketball tournament does it correctly. Everyone who follows college basketball selection would agree that a top 35 RPI team with that kind of poor second half of the season resume should not be in the tournament. You do not pick teams for the tournament that gel into sub par teams. And second half of the season should be MORE important in college baseball, because a college baseball team takes longer to gel due to the intricacies of building a pitching staff.

It is just common sense, national college baseball writers understand that. The committee didn't.

Are you under the assumption that I am arguing from an RPI standpoint? The RPI is worthless, I've said as much on this very thread, and the RPI has nothing to do with my position on this matter. I posted Oklahoma State's ranking in multiple (good) computer systems earlier on this thread.

You want to reward teams for having good records in bad conferences. I want to look at a team's true strength by all available measure and put the best teams in the tournament.

Rhode Island's ranks in Massey/ISR/Mine are 106/96/127. You want that team in over 38/29/29? Apparently only because they are in an easier conference? That's crazy, man.

Appealing to the fact that someone else shares your opinion is pointless. I want you to point out the teams that belonged in the tournament instead of Oklahoma State. So far you've mentioned Rhode Island and that is simply a bad choice.

For the record, I agree with JiMGa that the tournament is too big. That's the problem.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

On a more positive note, I'm awfully glad we had this thread this season. With the exception of helping my dad chase down results (he's not web active) this is by far the most conversation I've had about college baseball ever. And I mean this thread this season versus the entire rest of my life combined.

I've followed it to some extent for a pretty long time now but other than my father I've honestly never known a single other person who does.

+1 on this. My wife and I have been into college baseball since we went to college and student tickets were free. It's been difficult to find others to talk about it with, but I'm glad there are others here. Your contributions to the thread have been a big part of that.

[Tigercat]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

Are you under the assumption that I am arguing from an RPI standpoint? The RPI is worthless, I've said as much on this very thread, and the RPI has nothing to do with my position on this matter. I posted Oklahoma State's ranking in multiple (good) computer systems earlier on this thread.

You want to reward teams for having good records in bad conferences. I want to look at a team's true strength by all available measure and put the best teams in the tournament.

Rhode Island's ranks in Massey/ISR/Mine are 106/96/127. You want that team in over 38/29/29? Apparently only because they are in an easier conference? That's crazy, man.

Appealing to the fact that someone else shares your opinion is pointless. I want you to point out the teams that belonged in the tournament instead of Oklahoma State. So far you've mentioned Rhode Island and that is simply a bad choice.

For the record, I agree with JiMGa that the tournament is too big. That's the problem.

I often used RPI as a general term for ALL computer rankings. They don't work in college baseball for the same reason the RPI itself doesn't work:

ALL WINS ARE NOT EQUAL IN COLLEGE BASEBALL. YOU CANNOT LEAN ON COMPUTER RANKINGS AND SOS THAT EMPHASIZE WEEKDAY AND WEEKEND WINS AS EQUAL IN COLLEGE BASEBALL.

Sorry for the caps, just want to emphasize that this is the point I have been making all along. Midweek major conference teams are way, way, way different their weekend counterpart. Hell, oftentimes unless they save a specific pitcher, so are small conference teams. Baylor and OSU's true team/pitchers did not pitch during midweek games (and in some cases not in OOC weekend games) they played during the conference weekend slate. And they failed to be consistently good.

I point to Baseball America and Collegiate baseball sharing my opinion because they know more about the sport than you and I. I would have easily put in Dallas Baptist, Tulane, and RI in over OSU and Baylor. All had the consistent resume that deserves a birth and that it takes to threaten a run in the tournament.

[MJ4H]

Midweek games are a test of pitching depth. Pitching depth is required to go deep in regionals/CWS.

[Tigercat]

Originally Posted by MJ4H

Midweek games are a test of pitching depth. Pitching depth is required to go deep in regionals/CWS.

Not necessarily on both counts. Many teams use their true 4th starter in the regionals/supers/CWS as their main middle relief guy in the weekend during the regular season. Talking about LSU specifically, our midweek pitchers pitched one whole inning in the regionals, and they wouldn't have started a game or necessarily pitched any if we had to play one more game.

Pitching depth isn't as important as having a team that can win behind your three best pitchers. So while you can certainly argue that midweek games show some importance in how good your team is, they still aren't equal to weekend games in testing a team's strength now and for the future.

[MJ4H]

I think treating midweek games somewhat importantly has led to being included in the tournament field, so maybe the ends justify the means?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

I point to Baseball America and Collegiate baseball sharing my opinion because they know more about the sport than you and I.

The same publications that spent about half the year thinking UGA was a top five team (even the rabid locals knew they were overrated) & thought Georgia Tech was a top 15 team?

Collegiate Baseball seems to be very spotty to the point of being strictly amateurish & Baseball America has gone downhill in credibility in my mind for at least a decade, especially over the past few years. I'd trust even an NCAA committee as far as I trust either of them to be honest but your mileage is certainly free to vary.

[Lathum]

Huskies win the girls softball title!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Huskies win the girls softball title!

Has to be tough for Florida to swallow, going 63-5 for the year but losing twice in, what, about 25 hours from the last out of each game?

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

I often used RPI as a general term for ALL computer rankings. They don't work in college baseball for the same reason the RPI itself doesn't work:

ALL WINS ARE NOT EQUAL IN COLLEGE BASEBALL. YOU CANNOT LEAN ON COMPUTER RANKINGS AND SOS THAT EMPHASIZE WEEKDAY AND WEEKEND WINS AS EQUAL IN COLLEGE BASEBALL.

Sorry for the caps, just want to emphasize that this is the point I have been making all along. Midweek major conference teams are way, way, way different their weekend counterpart. Hell, oftentimes unless they save a specific pitcher, so are small conference teams. Baylor and OSU's true team/pitchers did not pitch during midweek games (and in some cases not in OOC weekend games) they played during the conference weekend slate. And they failed to be consistently good.

I point to Baseball America and Collegiate baseball sharing my opinion because they know more about the sport than you and I. I would have easily put in Dallas Baptist, Tulane, and RI in over OSU and Baylor. All had the consistent resume that deserves a birth and that it takes to threaten a run in the tournament.

Let's define "mid-week" games as all games taking place Tuesday through Thursday. Not perfect, but close enough for government work. I will not throw out those games starting on 5/19 because of conference tournaments. We are basically taking your argument to the extreme, saying that mid-week games have nothing to do with pitching depth and are completely worthless for figuring out who the better team is. Not your argument, but for illustration purposes and all. So, using only weekend games through 5/18 but all games from 5/19-5/24, here are some numbers:

Oklahoma State tumbles all the way to 41/42 in the ratings (looks an awful lot like a 3-seed in a 64-team tournament to me)
Baylor is 44/44 (ditto)
Rhode Island is 93/110
Tulane is 52/56
Dallas Baptist is 68/68

I think we can assume that assigning a mid-range importance to mid-week games will only cause the ratings to be somewhere between these numbers and the baseline numbers. There is pretty much no objective measure that says your three teams are better than Baylor and Oklahoma State. The bottom line remains that you want to reward teams for playing in weaker conferences.

[MJ4H]

Super-Regionals underway!

[Tigercat]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

The bottom line remains that you want to reward teams for playing in weaker conferences.

I want to reward them for actually winning in those conferences, as opposed to Baylor and OSU bringing their best stuff and consistently losing in their conferences, yes. I would also personally favor Dallas Baptist, Tulane, and RI in a three game series against OSU and Baylor, as the teams were playing pre tournament. Not by much, but with parity in college baseball I give the much more coherent team the advantage if there isn't a huge talent gap. (Which there isn't between said teams.) So it isn't so much that I only think its a reward, I would legitimately think those teams are better.

Arkansas takes a 1-0 lead against a FSU team with an impressively noisy crowd. Good to see the rest of the nation starting to give college baseball a little bit of that college football atmosphere.

[MJ4H]

Another rain delay at FSU, taking the tarp off now, though. 1-1 Top 4th, Arkansas has bases loaded nobody out.

Virginia at Ole Miss just started.

[MJ4H]

DP scores a run, 2-1 Ark. Rain starts again, Bot 5th. FSU has 1st and 2nd no out.

[MJ4H]

Still not resumed, might resume around an hour from now. Ole Miss wins over Virginia with a walk-off HR in bottom 11th.

[MJ4H]

Arkansas finally wins 9 hours and 14 minutes after the first pitch, 7-2 over FSU!

[Tigercat]

Disappointed that the ESPN night game for college baseball involved LSU and Rice (especially LSU) playing such sloppy baseball. It is a bit of a surprise, since LSU's defense has been very crisp all year.. But not so much when you consider all the lineup shifts over the year and that most of them involved freshman players.

Good to get the early win though, and to see us touch up a lefty. Would be obviously big if Coleman can get us a two game sweep tomorrow.

[Tigercat]

Dola, glad to see the SEC start the supers with a 3-0 day! I like the conference's chances at making up half the CWS field.

[MJ4H]

Florida State 5, Arkansas 1 End 5th
Ole Miss 2, Virginia 2 (not sure, around the 5th)

[MJ4H]

Florida State 5, Arkansas 4 Bot 7th.
Ole Miss, 3, Virginia 2 Top 7th

[MJ4H]

dola 6-5 Ark!!

[MJ4H]

Florida State 5, Arkansas 6 Mid 8th
Ole Miss 3, Virginia 2 Top 8th

[MJ4H]

Florida State walks in a run in the bottom of the 8th. Now 7-5 Arkansas, bases still loaded, 1 out.

[MJ4H]

Lyons grounds into a double play (again, sigh). Top of the 9th now, Arkansas is 3 outs away.

[MJ4H]

FSU has tied it. Arkansas was within 1 strike twice.

[MJ4H]

dola

fml

Florida St. 8, Arkansas 7 mid 9th