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Baseball: fading... - Printable Version

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Re: Baseball: fading... - Mick - 05-19-2014

I don't see it happening, even when we sweep Utah which is 4-23 in league.  We're currently in sixth place, and the best we could do is fifth place.  Last year, the top four teams made it into the CWS. 

Assuming we sweep Utah, we will finish 29-23.  That's a better record than five of last year's participants, but all five were conference winners except for San Diego State which finished third in its conference and won the double elimination season ending conference tournament (New Mexico was the regular season winner and also went to the CWS).  Also, Liberty from the Big South finished fourth in a six team division but won their conference tournament and ended up with a slightly higher overall percentage than Stanford will if they sweep Utah.  The point being is that an invitation is highly unlikely.

Re: Baseball: fading... - CTcard - 05-19-2014

While I suspect the bottom line statements here are likely correct w.r.t. making the tournament, fading isn't really the right word to describe the end of Stanford's baseball season.

Since fairly hideously losing a home series vs Cal at the end of April, the team has gone 9-4 (including tonight's win vs Pacific). That's a 70% winning percentage - much better than the season average of 54%.

On the other hand, one reason for the better winning rate is that the competition got weaker. So, at the same time that their record has been getting better, their RPI has been falling. It was around 30 or better just two weeks ago - then 48 before tonight's game. The RPI is a pretty poor ranking of just about anything, but the selection committee has a history of relying upon it heavily.

One problem with college baseball is that there are few competent people who bother to do tournament projections. There are a few out there that currently list Stanford as in, such as this one from earlier today (http://www.collegebaseballdaily.com/2014/05/19/2014-ncaa-baseball-regional-projections-may-19th/). But, there seem to be more that keep Stanford out.

An example of the high degree of care that seems to go into these projections, Baseball America printed one up last week that seems to be about 1/2 from last year: for example they project Arizona in and UCLA as a regional #1 seed and host. [http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/2014-college-preview-projected-field-of-64-awards/]. In fact I thought it was from last year, but it has Texas as a #1 seed  and they didn't come close to making the  tournament last year.

So, I don't think Stanford will make the tournament, but it's sure hard to tell just where the bubble is in baseball without doing all the work yourself.

Re: Baseball: fading... - Papa John - 05-19-2014

Per Warren Nolan, Stanford's baseball RPI is at 44 following the win over Pacific. I think that a sweep over Utah--the worst team in the conference and it's not even close--would maintain that ranking. However, even a single loss to Utah would be catastrophic.

I'm holding out hope that Stanford will take care of business versus the Utes and USC and WSU will stumble against much stiffer competition, although the Trojans and Cougars will be at home and Stanford will be on the road.

Also, I wouldn't put much weight on last year's results. While it's true that Stanford, which tied for fourth in the conference, did not make the tournament, its RPI was a lowly 63. In fact, outside of the four teams that made it in, the highest Pac-12(11) RPI in 2013 was UA at 59.

Re: Baseball: fading... - BobK - 05-19-2014

Our RPI was 48 this morning so that's encouraging.

Re: Baseball: fading... - Papa John - 05-20-2014

(05-19-2014, 09:24 PM)BobK link Wrote:Our RPI was 48 this morning so that's encouraging.

BobK, if you're looking at the official NCAA RPI ratings, those are from before the win against Pacific. So I'm going with Warren Nolan's RPI of 44. We need all the help we can get.

Re: Baseball: fading... - BobK - 05-20-2014

Yes I am Papa.  We improved our RPI with our Pacific win. 

Re: Baseball: fading... - Papa John - 05-23-2014

Well, the final series of the regular season is upon us, and, according to ESPN, Stanford baseball is still alive in the postseason hunt:

http://espn.go.com/ncaa/notebook/_/page/ncaabaseball140521/conference-tournament-teams-watch

"It's obvious that the Cardinal need to win this series or they will be left out, no bones about it. Winning two of three would be nice, but that still would be a loss to the 172nd-best RPI team, which could drag them out of range. Stanford won four of its past five Pac-12 series, so another win here will look good to the powers that be."

Per the Stanford website, all three games start at 11 a.m. (?!) PT. You can watch live video for free on Friday and Sunday (link available at gostanford.com). Saturday's game is on the Pac-12 Networks.

Re: Baseball: fading... - CTcard - 05-23-2014

Well, one down, 5-0 today. Two to go.

The Utes announcers seemed to think Stanford would go to the tourney if they take the series, though as typical it was not clear if that was based upon anything in particular.



Re: Baseball: fading... - Papa John - 05-23-2014

You beat me to the punch, CTCard! I would add that I thought that the quality of the Utah broadcast was pretty good, although I had to tune in sporadically since I was at work.

Stanford did a nifty job pitching out of a couple of bases loaded jams in the latter innings.

Per Warren Nolan, Stanford's RPI stands at 46, one below Clemson and one above Bryant University, which is a private school in Smithfield, RI.

Re: Baseball: fading... - CTcard - 05-25-2014

So, Stanford finishes the sweep of Utah taking a double header today 9-7 and 3-2.
Stanford finishes at 30-23, 16-14 in conference. Looks like they'll finish tied for 5th in the conference as the Trojans took 2 of 3 from an already celebrating Oregon State team.
Warren Nolan's calculation of the RPI includes today's Stanford games (but not necessarily everybody else's last games yet) - and he puts Stanford at #44.

I haven't counted teams, but it sure feels like a traditional bubble resume.
Tomorrow morning at 9 am PDT they announce the selections on ESPNU.




Re: Baseball: fading... - yvonne - 05-25-2014

(05-25-2014, 03:41 PM)CTcard link Wrote:So, Stanford finishes the sweep of Utah taking a double header today 9-7 and 3-2.
Stanford finishes at 30-23, 16-14 in conference. Looks like they'll finish tied for 5th in the conference as the Literature's Most Famous Losers took 2 of 3 from an already celebrating Oregon State team.
Warren Nolan's calculation of the RPI includes today's Stanford games (but not necessarily everybody else's last games yet) - and he puts Stanford at #44.

I haven't counted teams, but it sure feels like a traditional bubble resume.
Tomorrow morning at 9 am PDT they announce the selections on ESPNU.

http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php/topic,10040.0.html

Re: Baseball: fading...but into the tournament - Farm93 - 05-26-2014

Ahhhhh, going to Bloomington.

Re: Baseball: fading... - CTcard - 05-26-2014

Stanford in the Bloomington regional.
#1 Indiana (national #4 seed)
#2 Indiana State
#3 Stanford
#4 Youngstown State

Might be an interesting exploration of the strength of midwest baseball.

Indiana crushed the Big Ten, going 21-3 and winning both regular season and tournament titles.
Overall record is 42-13.
They are #2 in the RPI according to Warren Nolan.
OOC Indiana started the season going 1-3 at Texas Tech, 1-2 in an Arizona tournament (beating UW, losing to Utah and Oregon State), 2-1 at Jacksonvill Univ, 1-2 at Long Beach (Long Beach is a 2 seed at Florida).
They took both games of a home and home with Louisville - a regional host.
They split two midweek games vs regional #2 Indiana State.
Last year, Indiana made it to Omaha (went 1-2).

Indiana State went 35-16, 14-7 in the Missouri Valley conference. Second in the regular season and 0-2 in the conference tournament.
RPI #22.
The only opponent they had this year (other than the two games vs Indiana mentioned above) that I have heard about as a college baseball notable was a single game midseason at Vanderbilt, losing 2-6 (Stanford got swept in a three game series at Vandy early on).
They lost a game to Auburn (not in tournament) in a season opening tournament in Florida, then won three versus sometimes decent UConn and Ohio State.

Youngstown State made the tourney by winning the Horizon conference tournament, taking 4 games in a row.
RPI #270
Their record overall is 16-36, 6-17 and they must be one of the worst teams in the tournament.
The only (baseball) power conference team they played was at NC State (who didn't make the tournament), losing 16-1. They have a team ERA of 6.90.


------------
And a note on RPIs and making the tournament. [All RPIs according to Warren Nolan]
Stanford finished at RPI #44.
ESPN reports the last 4 to make the tournament were Clemson (#49), UNC (#41), Texas AM (#42), and UC Irvine (#43).
The worst RPI for an at large team that I noticed was Fullerton at #54.
ESPN reports the top 4 left out were Mercer (#46), Central Florida (#48), USC (#60), and West Virginia (#38).

So, you can see some exceptions (WVU one way, Fullerton the other), but the committee seemed to have taken RPI rather seriously. The critical value seemed to be about 45 - better than that usually got in, worse usually not.