BB: OAC: Ohio Athletic Conference

Dr. Acula · April 11, 2012, 03:00:55 PM

Berg beats ONU 3-0. Minteer pitched a gem.

Break up the Quakers! Wilm beats Ott 3-1 in the opener!

EttaFan1 · April 11, 2012, 03:50:38 PM

Quote from: Dr. Acula on April 11, 2012, 03:00:55 PM
Break up the Quakers! Wilm beats Ott 3-1 in the opener!

OUCH!

Another one that leaves a mark! Wow the race for the four spots is going to be VERY interesting.

Dr. Acula · April 11, 2012, 05:45:23 PM

If that left a mark then what does a sweep do?! Because Wilmington took game 2 by a 2-1 count to bring the brooms out on Ott! Wow. I said after the Mount DH I wasn't overly impressed with Ott's lineup, but 2 runs all day today? That's not good. And getting swept by Wilm is going to be VERY hard to overcome.

And poor ONUalum is going to be shaking his head at those unearned runs in game 2 against Berg. 2 errors result in 3 unearned runs in the 6th when Berg took a 6-4 lead.

EttaFan1 · April 11, 2012, 06:43:43 PM

My Thoughts exactly, dr A. That may have knocked them out of the playoffs right there. Two games you should win and don't.... The race for spots three through five are always tight. Losin lg these may very well keep the out of it.

OnuAlumni25 · April 11, 2012, 10:48:08 PM

Quote from: Dr. Acula on April 11, 2012, 05:45:23 PM
If that left a mark then what does a sweep do?! Because Wilmington took game 2 by a 2-1 count to bring the brooms out on Ott! Wow. I said after the Mount DH I wasn't overly impressed with Ott's lineup, but 2 runs all day today? That's not good. And getting swept by Wilm is going to be VERY hard to overcome.

And poor ONUalum is going to be shaking his head at those unearned runs in game 2 against Berg. 2 errors result in 3 unearned runs in the 6th when Berg took a 6-4 lead.

What a day... what a day! Errors... my lord. I coach JV High School Baseball... we are averaging 6 errors per game... reminds me of when I pitched for the Polar Bears!

I don't know what to say.. it feels like deja vu!

Dr. Acula · April 12, 2012, 08:18:41 AM

Mount needs to make a push the next 3 days. They have JCU and ONU at home. I think they need to go at least 3-1 to position themselves well. But the team that really needs to take care of business is BW. They have Cap at home today and then head to Wilm. They need to end the weekend at 7-3 in OAC play. The problem is it's starting to look like there are no guaranteed W's for anyone besides Etta. Wilm is clearly not a pushover right now. Cap can hit the ball enough to beat you if you don't get solid pitching. ONU has been playing everyone tough.

EttaFan1 · April 12, 2012, 08:24:18 AM

From the "Ongoing rankings discussion" thread on the national topics board.....

The poster indicated this may be somewhat "predictive" of the first regional rankings. I'm not sure the "as of date" of these but I thought it was interesting to see.

Top 11 RPI of the Mideast region teams:

Win% OWP OOWP SOS RPI Rank School Reg W L Conf.
0.824 0.551 0.539 0.547 0.616 1 Marietta ME 14 3 OAC
0.750 0.581 0.467 0.543 0.595 2 Anderson ME 12 4 HCAC
0.815 0.505 0.528 0.513 0.588 3 DePauw ME 22 5 NCAC
0.737 0.501 0.547 0.517 0.572 4 Adrian ME 14 5 MIAA
0.682 0.545 0.485 0.525 0.564 5 Mount Union ME 15 7 OAC
0.800 0.459 0.525 0.481 0.560 6 Washington and Jefferson ME 12 3 PrAC
0.727 0.491 0.510 0.497 0.555 7 Kenyon ME 8 3 NCAC
0.615 0.542 0.506 0.530 0.551 8 Baldwin-Wallace ME 8 5 OAC
0.714 0.472 0.529 0.491 0.547 9 Rose-Hulman ME 10 4 HCAC
0.652 0.503 0.517 0.508 0.544 10 Westminster (Pa.) ME 15 8 PrAC
0.650 0.502 0.507 0.504 0.540 11 Case Western Reserve ME 19 10 (Indepenendent, Pool B Eligible)

The OAC with Marietta, Mount Union and BW is well represented. I would be extremely suprised if the OAC were to have two at large births to the regional though.

The last two years, the OAC had two highly rated teams ('Berg and Marietta). This is not the case this year. Can a team like Mount Union or BW continue playing well enough to get a pool C (at large) bid or can Heidelberg make a run (preferably after getting swept on Saturday

) to fight into a pool C bid?

I think the first regional rankings are due out very soon (perhaps next week).

EttaFan1 · April 12, 2012, 10:52:18 AM

Some other "Ranking Goodies" The Boyd's Iterative Strength Rating (explained http://www.boydsworld.com/baseball/faq.html)

Rank Rating D3 W-L W-L SoS Team
1 129.9 17-4 17-4 9 Marietta
57 114.1 15-5 18-6 189 B W
72 111.8 16-8 16-8 134 Mt Union
106 107.8 14-11 14-11 96 'Berg
123 105.6 14-8 16-10 232 Otterbein
152 103.2 11-11 12-11 131 Muskingum
154 103.2 11-11 12-11 118 Capital
188 99.1 9-10 10-11 173 JCU
204 97.2 7-13 8-13 67 ONU
324 79.6 4-13 4-15 279 Wilm.

The math is probably harder than I want to try and understand. However, it gives an interesting look at how overall strong a team may be.

Some of my observations: The league as a whole needs to "step up" their level of non conference competition. I've been watching BW with a little interest. They began league play with a ridiculous record (something like two or three losses). They have guady offensive numbers to boot (hitting .341 as a team, good power numbers, etc.). I think an argument could be made that the teams BW has played have not challenged them significantly. I'm interested to see what happens in two weeks when Marietta goes to Berea.

The comments have gone on about ONU being "sneaky good." They have played a challenging schedule to date, and have pushed some teams to the limits. They will be a handful for anyone if they can consistently catch the ball.

JCU's and Otterbeins losses to Wilmington look even worse when considering this information. Wilmington is not good. I know it is baseball and on any given day...But getting swept? Ouch.

I've personally been concerned about Marietta's lack of offense thus far. And though I'm still concerned, maybe not as much after seeing the level of competition played to date.

Some times the numbers give us insight to what is happening.

Dr. Acula · April 12, 2012, 01:44:16 PM

Looks like JCU is going with their #1-2 while MUC is going #3-4 starters today. Spagna vs. Carlino in game 1. MUC leads 1-0 after 2.

BW leads Cap 5-0 in the 3rd. With Havens on the mound Cap needs to stop the scoring now to have a chance.

108 Stitches · April 12, 2012, 01:45:36 PM

Etafan, I took a look at the NCAA database a couple of weeks ago, and posted this in the "ongoing ranking discussion" thread when the teams were ranked in the order below. These numbers are dated but I would not be too concerned with the lack of scoring for Marietta. Championship teams are pitching and defense and they got both of those. I will go back and look at the current data later in the week to see where the top 5-7 teams are at just for comparison.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do they win?

I took a look at the NCAA database of the top 6 teams and did a quick scan of the numbers and pulled out some that stood out. These are ranking numbers from the 373 teams the NCAA tracks. This was a quick scan, if I had the time I would put them all in a table, but I don't so here is my quick review. Just as a FYI I have only seen one of these teams play and my assessment is only based on the numbers.

I am calling it how they win from the numbers.

I got the data from here:

http://web1.ncaa.org/stats/StatsSrv/ranksummary

Trinity

Scoring: 131
Batting Ave: 161
HR/game: 6

ERA: 29
K's/9: 2
Hits/9: 4
Fielding %: 3

Looks like they are middle of the road scoring wise, but can knock balls out of the park. They field very well and get lots of K's, which probably helps them out of tight situations. ERA is upper 10% - good not great. Knowing their starting pitchers this means their bullpen is so so.

Marietta

Scoring: 161

ERA: 2
Hits/9: 3
Fielding: 8

Your basic pitching and defensive team. Middle of the road scoring, nothing stood out in the data in this regard. Type of team that will do in a playoff situation. (I know D'oh but the numbers show this)

CNU

Scoring; 63
Hits: 24
Dbls/Tripples/game : 4
Slg: 65
HR/9: 49

ERA: 25
Hits/9: 12
Field %: 24

Looks like they can bang the ball a bit, maybe has some speed. Decent pitching and fielding, but nothing too special, but upper 10%. Looks like a balanced team offensively and defensively.

Kean

Scoring: 135
BA: 97
Sac Bunts: 11

ERA: 4
Fielding %: 32

Looks like they can pitch, decent fielding, not great. Upper third in scoring and move guys over a lot using the bunt. Probably has played some close games based on the moderate scoring numbers and high # of sac bunts.

Salsbury

Scoring: 143
BA: 200
Sac bunts: 32
Stolen bases: 63
Base on Balls: 41

ERA: 44
Hits allowed: 44
Fielding 54

Nothing in particular stands out as outstanding, looks like they do a lot of things well. Looks like a balanced team that does a good job of working the counts of opposing pitchers. Scoring is in the top 10% so they can score, looks like they have some speed as they are upper 20% in stolen bases, BA upper 1/3rd. Decent pitching, but not upper tier, and fielding looks so so.

Piedmont

Scoring; 143
BA: 200
Base on balls: 8

ERA: 44
Hits allowed: 13
Field: 54

The one thing that stands out in their data is the number 8 base on balls. Probably works the pitchers well. Middle of the road in scoring and lower third in batting Ave. Decent pitching, with good hits allowed. Fair fielding.

Dr. Acula · April 12, 2012, 02:12:11 PM

2nd and 3rd and 1 out and MUC takes a 3rd strike and fails to add the insurance run. Still 1-0 Raiders after 5. I hope that doesn't come back to bite them. If you play small ball like they do you need to at least put the ball in play there.

Dr. Acula · April 12, 2012, 02:49:42 PM

Carlino goes the distance and MUC takes it 1-0. 7 IP, 4 H, 5 K. On the heels of his great outing against Etta that's a great sign for him. Hopefully things are clicking for him now.

EttaFan1 · April 12, 2012, 03:53:35 PM

Quote from: 108 Stitches on April 12, 2012, 01:45:36 PM
Etafan, I took a look at the NCAA database a couple of weeks ago, and posted this in the "ongoing ranking discussion" thread when the teams were ranked in the order below. These numbers are dated but I would not be too concerned with the lack of scoring for Marietta. Championship teams are pitching and defense and they got both of those. I will go back and look at the current data later in the week to see where the top 5-7 teams are at just for comparison.

I know where you are coming from and remember reading that post. To win games you have to score more runs than your opponents. Currently the Pioneers are allowing 2.29 Runs per game, while scoring 6.87 per game (A number greatly helped by the 17 runs they put up yesterday against Muskingum!). It was nice to see the team batting average climb above .300 for the season finally!

I suppose I'm nitpicking a little bit based on what I have been used to seeing over the past 20 years following the Pioneers.

108 Stitches · April 12, 2012, 04:21:20 PM

Could be a heck of a lot worse. Ask Crash about Chapman....actually don't it is not a pretty sight to see a grown man cry.

Dr. Acula · April 12, 2012, 04:38:29 PM

BW is up 9-2 in the 6th and on their way to a sweep of Cap. Game 1 final was 6-1 thanks to another strong outing from Havens.

Mount went with Murzynski in game 2. Usually it's Smith and Murzynski then Carlino and Horning. Today they went with Carlino and Murzynski. Hey whatever works I guess. MUC leads 7-4 in the 5th.