Late night random baseball thoughts
Good to win another SEC series and have a very legit chance at getting a bye in the SEC Tournament. We also have a chance to win the SEC West- but we are probably going to have to sweep Alabama on the road to do it. And they have a pitcher that many on here are familiar with named Spencer Turnbull who is one of the top 100 draft prospects in the country. It won't be easy.
The fact that our RPI actually dropped after winning a series over a decent Tennessee team should tell everyone what our chances of hosting are. I don't think RPI is the end all be all, but it's a very fickle formula and it can be affected by Quinnipiac beating Fordham. That's an exaggeration- but I think you get my point. What really sucks for us is when we scheduled Arizona, I guarantee you that we weren't thinking- "gee, that's an RPI 150+ team right there that we just scheduled." It shows the importance of winning those OOC games too. I think the stretch where we played LSU and Ole Miss and lost five out of those six also really hurt because we could have made up some ground there. We didn't do it, and now we have to live with the consequences.
In all the talk about offense or lack thereof and ahem...bunting....it seems like a lot of people have lost sight of the fact that our pitching has been pretty badass the last two weeks. One week after holding Auburn to one run, we followed that up with a game that we lost, but only allowed one earned run, followed that up with a 10 inning shutout 2 hitter, then we had a game where our starter who is still kind of recovering allowed three runs in the first inning- and then followed that up with 10 more shutout innings. You can't ask for much more than that. And that is why we are going to have a chance in the postseason despite not having any power and having zero people that can hit in the clutch.
Ross was great again, and now it looks like Holder has turned a new leaf and is as nasty as ever. Lindgren was outstanding as well. But Luke Laster has made a TON of strides since even a couple of weeks ago. Fitts was OK, and Ben Bracewell was very solid and kept us in the game Friday. I think we should start Laster on Saturday (game 3 since we play Thurs/Fri/Sat this week) because to me he has earned it. We have some pitchers from Alabama- and they are going to want to do well this weekend.
Our defense has been very good as well- Pirtle and Demarcus in particular- EXCEPT for one position. And I think we all know which one that is- which is catcher. I don't think we can do much about it at this point- although I thought Cody Walker did a good job and was better than Randolph. The qaundry is with Gavin Collins and all I know to do is let him DH when we usually pitch Lindgren- which is when Fitts pitches. We might have to hit the JUCO's for a catcher IF Walker doesn't step up and also if Chase Vallot doesn't show up. So we may not know anything until July. But right now, that's the only weak link that we have right now.
(Deep breath) The hitting. We do OK getting people on. We do OK putting ourselves into positions to succeed- like when we had the bases loaded and no one out. But we have an incredibly difficult time getting people in. I think a lot of it goes back to the fact that we lack power. When you have the ability to hit doubles, triples, and home runs- it changes everything. We lack that for the most part- although kudos to Wes Rea for hitting his three run home run today which saved our bacon. Even if you are a small ball team- if you can even hit a few doubles, it makes your offense better. For example- Brett Pirtle is our best hitter. He has 10 extra base hits on the SEASON. That's out of 68 hits total. Of our 468 hits as a team, only 82 have gone for extra bases. That includes non-conference play including Alcorn. I don't know what our average is with RISP, but I have a feeling it's awful. We HAVE to have someone step up- whether it's Pirtle, Rea, CT, Heck, whoever. I don't think we are necessarily a bad hitting team in terms of average- we're close to the middle of the league right now and we aren't very far off the league average, but we are NOT clutch.
And in memory of Will James- bunting. Bill James did all of his initial studies on bunting around 1984. Those are usually the ones that Will would quote, or he would use Tom Tango- another sabermetric guy. In the 80's, they all decided that bunting was bad and it became kind of a banner for sabermetrics. Well, what happened over time is they began to realize that their studies had some flaws in them and these were pointed out to them. Long story short, the new prevailing thought on bunting (2009 or so) is that bunting is a good strategy in certain situations. What happened to change the sabermetric people's minds was they started to realize that there is a difference between Barry Bonds coming up with a runner on first and no one out and between Mario Mendoza coming up in the same situation. Before they would have said that you should still hit Mendoza rather than giving away an out. Now they would likely say that bunting with Mendoza might not be a bad idea. No one thinks you should bunt with Barry Bonds.
What it comes down to with ANY team is what your personnel can and can't do. That determines a lot of your strategy. As does the game situation, the hitters that are hitting next in the order, how many outs there are, the score etc. All of those things factor in. And it's not just bunting- it goes way beyond that to stealing, hit and running, and etc. When you have a team with very little power like we do and HAS some speed- you have to manufacture runs. That's simply our best bet at scoring runs. That's not always bunting- in fact we have attempted almost twice as many stolen base attempts as we have bunts. We hit and run quite a bit as well- and we're pretty good at it. If we didn't do those things- I guarantee you it would be a LOT harder on us to score and it would not take advantage of the strengths of our current players.
As an aside- another thing that happened in the late 80's is the game started to shift to more and more power and then in the 90's steroids came into play. This happened because guys like Brady Anderson realized that they could make a ton of money hitting 50 home runs out of the leadoff spot. Also, the pitching wasn't as good in the 1990's as it is now. Now that they have cracked down on steroids and pitching has become more and more sophisticated than ever before, we may start to see more and more speed coming back into baseball. Billy Hamilton is exhibit A of this. But we'll see- I don't think we're about to enter a dead ball era either.
As far as what we are headed towards at MSU- as I have said before, I do think we will add more power based on what we are recruiting. But I also think that we are going to continue to do some of the small ball things as well, and my thought on that is also based on what we are recruiting as well. And I think that is a good thing because it should make us more well rounded on offense. We all see the issues of having a small ball team right now. The problem with having an Earl Weaver ball team is they tend to strike out a lot and can be really streaky- like the Atlanta Braves. BUT if you have a team that has both power and speed and blends it all together, it can kind of play off of each other. It gives you the ability to win a slugfest, and it also gives you the ability to win a low scoring game because you can manufacture if you have to. And actually, but balancing it all out, you put even more pressure on the other team because now when you make them pay, it's not always with a single- it may be a double or a home run.
Speaking of recruiting- Austin Riley made the UA All-American team, and this is the third recruit that we have had make that. Brandon Woodruff and Chase Vallot are the other two. Well deserved- he's a badass. Jeremy Padgett, the LHP from Florida in the 2015 class was also under consideration for the UA game so we'll see if he gets selected. Also, the pitcher that just committed- Kale Breaux has been invited to try-out for Team USA. I'm also very excited about Luke Alexander- who hit .364 this year with 3 home runs from his non-dominant side while he is trying to improve himself as a switch hitter, Jake Mangum who is one of the best bunters in the state, and Noah Hughes who is a workhorse and reminds me a lot of Kendall Graveman. Hunter Stovall is going to be a good player for us as well. Keegan James and Brant Blaylock are both good athletes and on James we'll have to figure out what he is once he gets to school. I'm excited to see what we add in July. One thing that stands out to me is how excited these players are to be committed to MSU.
We have now had three winning SEC seasons in a row- the last time that happened- 1988-1990. The other time that happened- 1983-1985. And we're just beginning.
