Quote from: cciwposter13 on April 29, 2013, 09:19:27 AM
Most likely wheaton and north park will be the last two teams in the tournament. Also, is freshman Mike Kaufman in the lead to earn cciw pitcher of the year with a 5-1 record and 1.73 ERA?

Kaufman, in CCIW play, is 2-1 with a 3.31 ERA.  Mehn is 2-0 with a 1.04 ERA, however, 3 of his appearances have been in relief. 

Trying to weigh performance vs. competition, the most surprising development of the new season is the performance of the IWU pitching staff.  Not only do they lead the league in ERA (2.56 vs. next closest at 2.94), but they have an astounding strikeout to walk ratio of 91-16.

Limiting walks is a very large part of limiting runs, and they are currently only allowing a little over 1 walk per game.  This is by far the least in the league, even though in most instances they have played 1 or 2 more games than most teams in the league.  If this continues, I expect IWU to win the conference pretty easily.

All that being said, the next 9 games are against the next top 3 in the standings, so this seems to be when the conference season really begins for them.

I must say I miss the days of the point system determining the conference champion and the automatic qualifier.  It was a nice way to value the entire season as part of picking an automatic qualifier.

Very interesting the way Coach Johnson is getting a large number of transfers.  Getting guys with collegiate experience will definitely help North Park get immediate production from their newcomers.

Is Coach Johnson targeting these players or are they seeking out North Park?

Quote from: Ricky Nelson on July 17, 2012, 03:49:49 PM
Macalester's Mitch Glasser (39th round, White Sox) and Amherst's Kevin Heller (40th round, Red Sox) were among draftees not signed by the deadline.

Seniors are not subject to the signing deadline.  These players are still eligible to sign.

Quote from: Mr. Ypsi on June 08, 2012, 12:02:56 AM
Because of the scoring methodology, this year the CCIW may have done about as well as it possibly could in the Directors' Cup.  They include many sports that no CCIW school fields teams in, schools count only their 9 best teams for each gender (does any CCIW school field more than that? IWU has 9 for each gender; some NESCAC and other schools have 13+), and the scoring is equal for every sport (IWU's national title in women's basketball - 420? schools - receives the same 100 points that whoever won skiing, fencing, or rifle - 30? schools - received.  It is no surprise that the Cup is always won by one of the NESCAC schools (usually Williams; this year Middlebury).  Rather surprising is that a WIAC school UWW) managed to make #5.

Budget counts heavily for the Directors' Cup.  NESCAC schools finished #1 Middlebury, #3 Williams, #4 Amherst, #7 Tufts; WashU finished #2.

IWU has managed to finish in the top 25 every year since 2008, coming in 5th in 2010.

Quote from: norfrank on May 30, 2012, 09:25:18 PM
Granted Johnson might be a little rough for Wheaton. I guess we just would like someone that displays a little passion. I have seen Johnson play those mind games with opponents. I guess when I see him, I see a coach you hate if you play against him but love if you play for him.

Take away the profanity and I have no issue with someone who has coaches with passion and can be rough on his players. Players don't need to be babied, they need to be pushed to get better. From what I saw of Johnson, he was always thinking ahead, he had his players backs and was not afraid to take chances to succeed. This is what I mean when I say a coach of Johnson's nature would have helped Wheaton to be more successful. I have seen enough CCIW games to understand it is a tough conference. However, it is a conference that Wheaton could have been very successful in over the past few years. They should have been in the playoffs at least two of the last three years. 

The talent was there. The team had two All Americans (Martin and Golz) this year and one player (Zeller) that was previously named an All American. Combine this with another player(Mller) that was two time all region. Another player that was a quality starter (Rahn) and another all conference player (Swider).

All of the good teams I played on had players who pushed themselves to get better and didn't need a coach to push them.  Maybe this is an indictment more on the players than the coach. 

Naming a few players that received accolades after the season is great, but a great baseball team is not made by 4 or 5 players.  With the accolades received, that looks like a team that would have finished 3rd in the CCIW....

This might be crazy, but would Luke Johnson entertain the idea of going there?

Thats why my point was based upon the fact that Marchant has 82 more chances in roughly a 40 game season. 

Quote from: Ralph Turner on May 24, 2012, 08:55:52 PM

Quote from: PNeal7 on May 24, 2012, 03:12:29 PM
I do not know who I would replace him with, but I am baffled by the 2nd Team All-American SS selection. While he clearly had a good offensive and defensive year, he finished with 0 HR's and 27 RBI's. Now, I can see someone getting on the AA Team with those numbers if they were a base stealing machine; however, he only had 11 SB's on the year. The kid that got Honorable Mention SS finished with a higher batting average (.380 vs .362), more HR's by a landslide (14 vs 0), and RBI's (49 vs 27). He also scored more runs, but that certainly has a direct correlation to number of at bats, hitters behind you, etc. I have seen kids in the USA South have better years offensively and not even make the All Conference Team (ex: Jesse Henry, Shenandoah, 2010).

2nd Team All American Selection:
SS John Adornetto, Cortland State  Jr.  .362  40  50  9  2  0  27  11  .963
Honorable Mention All American Selection:
SS Corey Marchant, Manchester  Jr.  .380  53  73  7  2  14  49  6  .937

With the respect to Fielding Average, I don't think that the percentage number reflects the diffference in real quality.

I look at the inverse of that equation, the number of errors per chance.

Adornetto had 7 errors in 189 chances which is 1 per 27.

Merchant had 17 errors in 271 chances which rounds to 1 error in 16 chances.
Up the middle, I like defense!

In fact, I would prefer the stat to be changed to reflect the errors to chance ratio.

1:16 is  .937

1:27 is  .963

1:40 in .975

See how much different that the numbers "look" for the quality "gained"!

---

As for HR's, Manchester hit 34 on the season (0.69 HR/g) , their opponents hit 24.

Cortland hit 18 HR's and opponents hit 6. 

In fact Manchester looks like a hitters' park. Manchester played 19 games at home, 20 away and 10 games on neutral fields.  Merchant hit 9 of his 14 HR's at home (0.47 HR /g at home).  He hit 5 HR's in 30 games away from home (0.17 HR/ g).

Manchester hit (by my count) 15 HRs in 19 games (0.79 HR/g) Manchester foes hit 13 HR's at Manchester in those 19 games.  Away from home,  Manchester hit 19 Hrs in 30 games (0.63 HR/game).

It is hard to look at fielding percentage or errors per chance as a real indicator of defensive value.  Defense is a very hard statistic to accurately value, but the thing that jumps out to me here is that Merchant got to 82 more balls than Adornetto did.  That is considerably more opportunities.  Are these plays that Adornetto would have gotten to?  I don't know the answer to that question, but it begs the question, doesn't it.

The problem with looking at the error statistic is it is a judgement stat.  Maybe Merchant has a much tougher scorer, while Adornetto's scorer tends to default the way of a hit.

I am not trying to say either is a better defender, as I have not had the opportunity to see either play.  However, IMO using the error stat is a very flawed way of examining the data.

BP, I am assuming you are going off of the D3baseball All-Region list.  IWU would be at 6 points going off of the coaches teams.

IWU's Callahan earns 1st Team AA Honors.  While not a 3rd baseman, Coach Martel used him there this year and it lead to him being a 1st Teamer. Congrats Kevin.

Also, congrats to Drew Golz (WC) and Nick Soldano (NPU) for being 3rd team and honorable mention selections, respectively.

http://d3baseball.com/awards/all-americans/d3baseball-allamericans-2012

Quote from: y_jack_lok on May 17, 2012, 09:55:15 PM

Quote from: Mr. Ypsi on May 17, 2012, 09:39:29 PM
Am I reading the schedule correctly that BSC plays the winner of the currently-ongoing Webster/DePauw game at noon tomorrow (winners' bracket) followed at 3:30 by IWU vs. the loser of Webster/DePauw (elimination game)?

That's correct according to what the announcer is saying, and makes sense as the winner of Webster/DePauw will be undefeated and IWU and the loser will have one loss each. However, it would make more sense for the losers game to be played first and the winners game to be played second.
The announcer just noted that both UAA teams were the first two to be eliminated.

Having the schedule this way rewards the team that goes 2-0 and then loses by giving them a break in between games.

IWU takes a 2-1 lead in the top of the 5th and BSC comes rigth back in the bottom and ties it up on a HR by Maxwell.

2-2 thru 5

IWU and BSC are tied 1-1 in the bottom of the 3rd.  Joe Sweeney gets the start for the Titans.