Quote Originally Posted by The Federalist Engineer View Post


Holding our batting to the same middle of the pack. Not giving them more success versus Friday Aces. Still getting aggravated sodomy from Vandy in Week-2. But giving MSU the 10th best ERA in the conference at 6.83 versus +9.00. MSU wins 16 games and loses 14 SEC games. That even starting the season 1-5 and losing 6 of 7 down a different stretch with Tennessee, Arkansas, and LSU. At 16 and 14, MSU would likely have hosted.

Giving MSU the 12th best ERA, all else constant. Same record, too many non-competitive games but you are in the 15-to-16 win range. Even still having the worst ERA in the conference, but almost matching the 13th worst, MSU would have won 14 or so games. Made a regional.

Now, with hitting. MSU was mid pack hitting at 266 but 10th in runs scored in the conference. About 10 fewer runs than the average team. MSU has been mid-pack for years in this stat. But without E5 (easy out), the Captain (toothless and slow), Foreskin (non-factor) you can start talking about change. Yes, ledbetter is a loss and an amazing player. The three bad hitters were also 50% of the DPs. MSU was worst in the conference in DPs. So, with Kohler at 3B, Hines at 1B, Cupp/Mershon at SS, and Hujsak hopefully matching Clark. I see about 0.20 more runs, still mid-pack. If you can get Montgomery, i think this team can at least be the 8th best team in the conference for runs, that 0.5 more runs per game. You are in the +17 range for wins. Even a shitty Auburn team that MSU could have swept won 17 games. So there is that.
I’m sorry, but this is all nonsense.

We scored the 10th most runs in the conference, and you think if we also give up the 10th fewest, we win 16 games? So better than average by being clearly worse than average at both?

The best predictor of future results is run differential, not wins. And what people fail to realize is that our win total was actually high given our run differential. We had the worst in the league, worse than OM and WAY worse than anyone not OM, Missouri and UGA included. If we played the year all over again, we were more likely to have fewer wins than more or even the same number.

If we magically gave up 2.5 fewer runs/game, we would have still had a RD of -28. That would have been 11th in the conference, evenly between Missouri and A&M. So you’re probably talking 12 wins, not 16.

You think we could have scored the 10th most runs, given up the most, and still won 14 games? That is just insane. This is the definition of homerism. Some are just not willing to see just how bad we were last year. We need to be vastly better, not just a little better here and there. We need an entire overhaul, we were beyond awful.