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The Best We've Got

This is the time of year when a lot of college baseball fans stop their version of navel-gazing, which is to only pay attention to their own team or their team's conference (and there's nothing at all wrong with that if that's the kind of fan you are, as long as you don't make the mistake of thinking that the fact that your team is the best you've seen [because they're the only team you've really seen], they must be the best anyone's seen and then start bugging the rest of us) and start looking around the country for teams that their team might run into in the postseason. For the rest of us, it's also the time when the top of the heap has kind of started to settle in and we can figure out who's got the chance to make a significant run in the postseason. I figured this week I'd run through a quick synopsis for each of the ISR Top 25 so we can start to get a feel for how serious a threat they are.

2.48. I hate to lead with a number (well, I don't, really, but I at least nod toward the style guide occasionally), but their staff ERA is 2.48 in 2004. And, just to show that that's not built on feasting on the out-of-conference opposition, it's at 2.58 for their Big 12 games. For comparison, Rice's vaunted staff last year put up a 2.74. The offense is fairly mundane -- 6th in the Big 12 in runs scored -- but it's good enough to get them through if the pitching doesn't fall apart, and they have enough depth on the staff to make that unlikely. Of course, there's always this problem.

Actually #1a; they've been swapping spots almost weekly for most of the year. Much like the Braves, you start to hope for a title for them after a while just to shut up those who don't understand randomness. There's no real reason to think they won't get another chance at the title series, but they will probably have to once again play tougher competition than they should on the way; they're sitting at #9 this week in the RPI, so seeding is going to be a problem.

2.48. Sorry to repeat myself; I just noticed that they have the same staff ERA. Anybody noticed that Wade Townsend is also batting .346/.370/.462? Anyway, the offense is not holding them up as well as last year, so they're a bit behind the two teams above them in their chances, but they're in as good a position as anyone has been for a while to repeat.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: These guys really are this good, and they're at #18 in the RPI and 2nd in the conference at the moment, so there's not much chance they're going to be treated fairly at selection time. They did get swept at home a couple of weeks of by UCSB -- not a bad team at all, but not someone they should have feared -- so they do have some vulnerabilities, but they have a good bit of talent and the best pitcher in the country, so they have a shot.

#21 in the RPI, even coming off a series win over Stanford. See above, without the Jered Weaver angle. In a just world, they'd be a #1 seed. In a slightly more just one than this, they'd at least be a #2 behind some overrated Southeastern twinkie (Clemson comes to mind, but who wants all that hate mail?). In this one, they'll probably get stuck behind Long Beach or something.

Now, this is interesting. They are actually that good, and deserve a #1 seed. The interesting part, though, is that, by going 8-1 against Florida State, East Carolina, and Tulane -- three teams good enough to not look out of place on their schedule and beloved by the RPI -- they're sitting at #3 in the RPI. It's been interesting to hear the "it was too early in the season" excuse coming from some places farther south than usual. The problem for ASU is that they're currently sitting in fourth place under .500 in conference; they'll need to improve that down the stretch to get a #1. On the field, they're dangerous but would be a stretch as a title contender.

See #4 and #5. There are two things you need to know about Irvine (three if you count the fact that they've done amazing things for what is essentially an infant program, but I digress): You don't want to play them, and you probably won't have to. They'll be the annual #2 seed at Stanford who deserved better. They should have a chance at knocking them off, but so should all the others.

Currently at #1 in the RPI. There's an odd dynamic this year. Most years you can pick a small pool of championship potentials from the ISR top 5, add in a team from the latter half of the top 10 who played a weak schedule and is a bit unpredictable because of it, and have a pretty good chance of being right. This year, though, the seeding problems that Long Beach and Washington are going to have makes the first group a bit small, and Miami's schedule no longer has as much junk at the bottom (and would have actually been quite good had the ACC not been uncharacteristically weak), so their ranking here is probably pretty accurate. I can see them being seeded into Omaha, and their attack is balanced enough that anything's possible, but they're not in the Texas-Stanford-Rice class.

Here we leave the realm of the title contenders and start to look at teams who just hope to do some damage. A&M was much stronger early in the year and has struggled in conference. Teams like that tend to be underseeded and dangerous, but geography probably condemns them to be the #2 seed at Rice and home not long after.

There are two warring errors that the committee makes that means that the SEC is going to be both overrewarded and underrewarded this year. On the one hand, the league deserves no national seeds (LSU's probably the best of the bunch, and here they are) and will probably receive at least two because of the flaws in the RPI, in addition to possibly as many as four other #1 seeds. On the other hand, the league has ten teams that should get bids this year, and that's unlikely to happen. LSU will be seeded into Omaha but won't do much once they arrive; the pitching just never has quite gelled this year (they've lost six of eight Friday night SEC games, not a record you want to have for your ace slot going forward from here).

The RPI-boosted teams from the CAA days notwithstanding, this is most likely the best ECU team ever. They're at #16 in the RPI this week, so they're walking a tightrope to hang on to a #1 seed. If they get it and a favorable superregional matchup, this could easily be their first Omaha trip.

This is probably the best team you've never thought about. The schedule's a little light (outside the conference, they have three games against Miami and two against #32 Florida State, and then it drops way off; #99 Purdue is the next-best team on their out-of-conference schedule), but a team .404 OBP will take you a few places. The pitching rotation is a little thin, but the bullpen is excellent, which is somewhat unusual for a college team. They do not, of course, deserve the top 5 national seed that the RPI is pushing them towards.

Remember when these guys were dead? Somewhere around the first week of March? They got better. The RPI's in too bad a shape to pull off a #1 seed, but they'll make an extremely dangerous 2 seed.

They are quite legitimately one of the 20 best teams in the country, but all of their success has come against other Western teams (and the six games against Utah Valley State are going to hurt the RPI), and they're actually going to be scrambling to make it into the tournament at this point. It's not a fair world, all told. If they do make it, they're the most dangerous #3 seed.

Sometimes, winning the conference championship just means you won the right set of games -- Arkansas probably isn't as good as LSU or Florida and may not be as good as Ole Miss or Georgia, but they'll probably win the SEC. That may get them a national #1 seed. Whatever postseason success they have will come from their seeding. In a lot of ways this team reminds me of the 2000 Nebraska team. I'm not a big believer in the Cult of the Coach, but if the comparison holds up, Hawg fans could be in for some good times ahead.

This is probably the team on the list most dependent on the continued good health and success of one player -- Stephen Head, in this case. His pitch counts haven't, for the most part, been that outrageous, and going .370/.439/.615 with a 2.48 ERA will take you quite a ways. The rest of the rotation isn't bad, either, but the relief corps has been a bit flammable.

At #39 in the RPI, they're not guaranteed a tournament spot. That said, I can see them playing on Sunday but not the week after; they just haven't been able to put together a consistent weekend this year.

You know how starters tend to look like they're running out of gas in the seventh or so. Turns out you hit that point at about #18 in this list when you're writing it. This is a typical South Carolina team, capable of flaming out while hosting a regional or of pushing close to the title.

The two Oklahoma schools have been enjoying a quiet renaissance this year, flirting with first place in the Big 12. OSU's offense has improved as the year went on, but I'm not sure how far the pitching will take them in the postseason.

One of the problems with playing in the SEC is that, even if you have a good year, it can get lost in the shuffle. This isn't last year's Vandy team that had to have a last minute miracle to make it into the conference tournament; this is a legitimately good team. Obviously, if the old saw about postseason experience is true, they'll struggle a bit, but they're a legitimate #2 seed and could sneak through a regional without having to surprise anyone.

Conversely, this Oklahoma team is doing it with pitching and defense. That's a bit more reliable than counting on the bats, but they'll need some breaks to make it to Omaha.

The RPI will bump them up to hosting and a #1 seed, but I'm not quite sure they'll be able to take advantage of it; they've had a propensity for losing games that shouldn't have bothered them this year, to go with the big wins that got them this high.

Oral Roberts blows away their conference each year, enough so that they really should look elsewhere for some competition, so it's hard to tell it, but this is much better than their usual team. They'll probably get a #2 seed this year, and they might even be able to take advantage of it with the right #1.

If Oregon State doesn't get in, Lamar is probably the scariest #3 seed. They'll beat Texas A&M two out of three and lose to Rice on Sunday.

This looks to me more like a good program having an off-year than the beginnings of a decline, but trend-watching like that is essentially worthless, which is why it's fun to watch the actual seasons play out.

This means absolutely nothing, ignore it.

Actually, this is an experiment for me to see how predictable the postseason makeup is. I want to see how accurate my picks are (using myself as the test subject as a moderately knowledgeable observer with no input into the results) at various distances from the selection. I'm not going to bother picking a team from the one-bid conferences, since the conference tournament will just be a crapshoot, but if I only list one team from a conference, they'll get an at large bid if they don't get the automatic bid.

Atlantic 10      Oral Roberts      Baylor                Washington
America East     Rice              Minnesota             Arizona
CAA              Wichita State     Penn State            Oregon State
Horizon          Florida State     Notre Dame            UCLA
Ivy              North Carolina    Pittsburgh            Louisiana State
MAAC             Georgia Tech      Birmingham-Southern   Mississippi
MAC              Virginia          Coastal Carolina      South Carolina
Mountain West    Clemson           UC Irvine             Florida
NEC              Central Florida   Long Beach State      Arkansas
OVC              Florida Atlantic  Cal State Fullerton   Tennessee
Patriot          Texas             Southern Mississippi  Auburn
SWAC             Texas A&M         East Carolina         Vanderbilt
Sun Belt         Nebraska          Tulane                Georgia
WCC              Oklahoma          Texas Christian       Texas State
Bethune-Cookman  Oklahoma State    Stanford              Lamar
Miami            Texas Tech        Arizona State         College of Charleston

Rather than keep returning to the subject of pitch counts and pitcher usage in general too often for my main theme, I'm just going to run a standard feature down here where I point out potential problems; feel free to stop reading above this if the subject doesn't interest you. This will just be a quick listing of questionable starts that have caught my eye -- the general threshold for listing is 120 actual pitches or 130 estimated, although short rest will also get a pitcher listed if I catch it. Don't blame me; I'm just the messenger.

(*) Pitch count is estimated.

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