Arizona & Coastal Carolina the best teams in college baseball?

Of course not. This is just a testament to how incredibly unlucky our baseball program has been over the years to not have won a National Title. When baseball is played in small sample sizes, chaos has a high chance of happening & that's what has happened here.

With all the great teams MSU has had, it's mind boggling how we haven't lucked out just once. We haven't had one of our not so great teams just get on a role at the right time & win. (And don't say the 2013 team. That team is going to have 7 or 8 Major Leaguers on it.)

Anyway, baseball is a funny sport that I wish I understood better. Always leaves me baffled.

Back when it happened, I thought we were the benefactor of luck in 2013. Turns out, that team was crazy talented with all the guys that will be in the show on it. That team was loaded.

Yes, you need talent but its all about who gets hot at the end of the year. Nobody would have said prior to the start of the 2013 NCAA tournament that we were one of the best 2 teams in the nation either. But we had hitters and bullpen guys that all were playing lights out at the end of the year. I feel our team this year peaked a little too early.

Imagine how FSU feels.

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Originally Posted by missouridawg

Back when it happened, I thought we were the benefactor of luck in 2013. Turns out, that team was crazy talented with all the guys that will be in the show on it. That team was loaded.

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No doubt. You weren't the only one that thought that. Turns out that team had a bunch of gamers on it that don't have crazy tools. Just good enough to be Major Leaguers

The 2013 team peaked at just the right time. Polk's last CWS team peaked at just the right time. The 1996 basketball team peaked at just the right time.

We've had good teams not live up to expectations and we have also had some teams hit the gas right when they needed to.

I'm kind of curious how these coaches are going to pitch the CWS final series. If Johnson pitches Bannister Monday, he deserves to get skewered by the national media like he has been. I don't know who Coastal has left. Has Arizona even pitched their third starter at all this post season? Maybe once? That's what really sucked about our series. If we had gotten to Sunday, we would have won because their pitching depth is three pitchers: Bannister, Dalbac, and Ming. They pitch what 90% of their pitches? I think if it gets in a shootout Coastal will win the series. Arizona is very pedistrian when a team scores 5 or more on them.

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Originally Posted by smootness

Imagine how FSU feels.

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Yeah, but think of all the free shoes they get to give out!**

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

Of course not. This is just a testament to how incredibly unlucky our baseball program has been over the years to not have won a National Title. When baseball is played in small sample sizes, chaos has a high chance of happening & that's what has happened here.

With all the great teams MSU has had, it's mind boggling how we haven't lucked out just once. We haven't had one of our not so great teams just get on a role at the right time & win. (And don't say the 2013 team. That team is going to have 7 or 8 Major Leaguers on it.)

Anyway, baseball is a funny sport that I wish I understood better. Always leaves me baffled.

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They are the two left so your question is meaningless.

And it's a great illustration of why you have to look big picture at the baseball program and not be hung up on hosting, making supers every year and other arbitrary measures. Post season series can be won with one hot arm and a couple of hot bats and lost on something as random as a pitcher getting hit in the leg with a line drive.

It's why I love the game! You don't always have to have the most talented players to win championships. Get hot at the right time and play as a team. Sum greater than the parts. It's a great game!

We were probably the 3rd most talented team in our own conference this year. A conference that sent a grand total of one team to the CWS. It's not like we even remotely had it locked up even if we won the super regional. Bottom line was this was an overachievement season even with us not making Omaha. No reason in trying to put ourselves on a pedestal over two teams who got hot when it mattered and who also had pretty damn solid regular seasons as well.

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Originally Posted by HSVDawg

We were probably the 3rd most talented team in our own conference this year. A conference that sent a grand total of one team to the CWS. It's not like we even remotely had it locked up even if we won the super regional. Bottom line was this was an overachievement season even with us not making Omaha. No reason in trying to put ourselves on a pedestal over two teams who got hot when it mattered and who also had pretty damn solid regular seasons as well.

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WTF? I don't know even where to start with this.

Nowadays if you make a SR you are an elite team. It does take some things to "go right" for a NC to happen.

All I know to do about it is:

Build as strong a pitching staff as you possibly can. There hasn't been a team that has won it all without great pitching. I agree with Cohen when he says you need seven guys that you can rely on- three weekend starters, a midweek starter that is strong, and three strong relief pitchers. The bullpen we had in 2013 was good enough to win it all. The rotation wasn't quite good enough. Our staff this year was good enough to win it. Vanderbilt and Virgnia's staffs have been good enough to win it for years and eventually they did break through. Same could happen for Florida one day as well.

Go to SR's and Omaha consistently. I firmly believe that going to Omaha and having that experience is a BIG advantage to teams that go back to back and etc. years. That may not play out this year- and I'm not saying there aren't exceptions- but if you look at the Champions through the years in general it is an advantage.

Do like LSU fans do and place a lot of local pressure on elite players from Mississippi to go to MSU and forgo the draft for a couple of years. Think our team would look different with Austin Riley and Mason Robbins on it?

And let me add- I liked that we scheduled some West Coast teams. I think that paid off for us when we played Cal State Fullerton and even though we lost to Arizona it wasn't because they bunted us into oblivion at least. It did hurt our RPI though which sucked. I'd like to see us do a four game weekend with a PAC 12 and ACC team or the tournament with a PAC 12, ACC, and Big 12 or Big 10 team every year. Oregon this year was perfect.

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Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg

And it's a great illustration of why you have to look big picture at the baseball program and not be hung up on hosting, making supers every year and other arbitrary measures. Post season series can be won with one hot arm and a couple of hot bats and lost on something as random as a pitcher getting hit in the leg with a line drive.

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The main thing is to just get into the postseason. I prefer us to host because I like to watch us play in regionals and it is good for MSU and Mississippi when we host because then we show the nation what we have in Starkville. But you are correct- in 2007 we had to go to FSU and win that regional and in 2013 we had to go to Virginia.

I'd say Arizona & Coastal are the two best teams right now in this eight team tournament which is all that matters.

Neither team in the Final hosted. Crazy season

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

The main thing is to just get into the postseason. I prefer us to host because I like to watch us play in regionals and it is good for MSU and Mississippi when we host because then we show the nation what we have in Starkville. But you are correct- in 2007 we had to go to FSU and win that regional and in 2013 we had to go to Virginia.

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Totally agree that it is better. I'm just thinking about all the gnashing of teeth that went on earlier this year and some of ridiculous expectations people place on the program thinking it is still 1985 and comments like "we should host every year or fire Cohen." There are easily 3x the number of competitive programs that are capabile of making Omaha than 30 years ago. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be competing at a high level, but does mean you have to realize how as college baseball continues to grow your Idea of what makes a program healthy has to adjust.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Nowadays if you make a SR you are an elite team. It does take some things to "go right" for a NC to happen.

All I know to do about it is:

Build as strong a pitching staff as you possibly can. There hasn't been a team that has won it all without great pitching. I agree with Cohen when he says you need seven guys that you can rely on- three weekend starters, a midweek starter that is strong, and three strong relief pitchers. The bullpen we had in 2013 was good enough to win it all. The rotation wasn't quite good enough. Our staff this year was good enough to win it. Vanderbilt and Virgnia's staffs have been good enough to win it for years and eventually they did break through. Same could happen for Florida one day as well.

Go to SR's and Omaha consistently. I firmly believe that going to Omaha and having that experience is a BIG advantage to teams that go back to back and etc. years. That may not play out this year- and I'm not saying there aren't exceptions- but if you look at the Champions through the years in general it is an advantage.

Do like LSU fans do and place a lot of local pressure on elite players from Mississippi to go to MSU and forgo the draft for a couple of years. Think our team would look different with Austin Riley and Mason Robbins on it?

And let me add- I liked that we scheduled some West Coast teams. I think that paid off for us when we played Cal State Fullerton and even though we lost to Arizona it wasn't because they bunted us into oblivion at least. It did hurt our RPI though which sucked. I'd like to see us do a four game weekend with a PAC 12 and ACC team or the tournament with a PAC 12, ACC, and Big 12 or Big 10 team every year. Oregon this year was perfect.

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I agree with most all of this except about our pitching staff. Our starting rotation was definitely good enough to win it all. Our bullpen however was still a relative weakness even though it got much better as the season progressed with the emergence of Brown. Brown was the only guy in our pen that could be relied on to get through the order more than once. Rigby was pretty solid as a change of pace guy with his arm slot that could get through the lineup once, but once hitters saw him a 2nd time he started to get knocked around (this definitely came to fruition in the Arizona series). Humphries and Blake Smith were both decent in the closer role but a little inconsistent. Everyone else beyond those guys were massive question marks. If we had just one out of Girodo, Ross Mitchell (pre-senior year version), Holder, or Lindgren on this year's team in addition to the current roster, we'd have 10,000 fans driving up I-55 / I-70 right now on the way to watch us try to win it all. Instead, we had a weakness that was exposed when we ran into a team that could exploit it by making our starters throw a lot of pitches. That will always happen to you at some point in the postseason if there is any part of your roster that isn't up to par.

This year defies the historical trends of college baseball. But let's not act like these are some crazy flukes.

Bottom line, have a team that can win upper 30s or low 40s games in the regular season, have good pitching, and roll the dice. You can argue that Arizona and Coastal Carolina were host-type teams. I bet over the time the odds still favor national seeds, when you consider there are only 8, and the others come from a pool of 56. Starting in 2011 (move to TD Ameritrade), the chances of a national champion being a national seed are 17% (1 of 6). But considering that that champion came from a pool of 48 (6 years x 8 teams), and the other champions came from 336, that means a single national seed has a 2.08% chance of winning a national championship, while any other postseason team only has a 1.5% chance.

If you factor in hosting, like above, the percentage goes to 4.17% chance to win it all, based on the last 6 years. Teams outside of that are looking at a 0.69% chance.

So, I wouldn't be banking on pulling a 2015 Virginia or 2016 whoever, every year. Because for the most part, it won't happen, plus those teams are likely good enough to host anyway (UVa had a lot of injuries they got back, and Zona/CC are pretty damn good too).

Smart money is on being good enough to host and rolling dice. And elite pitching.