BB: OAC: Ohio Athletic Conference

[Spence]

Massey has Heidelberg at 68% against ONU. I said 65-70.

Marietta at 98% vs. Wilmington (with the John Carroll results not included in the ranking for some reason).

JCU is 82% against Muskingum, so 2x = 67%. Quite a bit better than I thought, but again, the Marietta games are not in the ratings.

Mount Union is 62% against Otterbein. So 38% chance of a Mount Union sweep? I dunno if I see it being that good...

But the difference between the JCU/Mount percentage is about the same as I had...even though the raw numbers were higher in both cases.

----------
On to strategic matters...
Who does Heidelberg pitch now after the Game 1 debacle against Ott? Hendrixson is obviously their best pitcher but Palm seems to prefer that Andy Lowe role for him.

[motorman]

Now that Massey shows something that supports your skewed view of the world they are ok when before all we heard was how flawed it was.

I refuse to fall to your bait about Berg pitchers but if you could read a box score you might realize that relief pitchers stats are very deceptive. Two years ago Berg had a reliever go 7-0 because he was 1 for 7 in save opportunities and got the win in all 6 of his blown saves.

[Spence]

I figured you'd say something like that. I never said I liked it. But I don't see another site offering up probabilities, and as I said earlier, the regional differences are a non-factor since we're talking about one region.

Massey has 9 of the top 10 in SOS from the same conference...come on, do you really believe that? And like 21 of the top 24 from the West region...suspect at best. There are some pretty big issues with it of that sort.

I'm not baiting anyone or anything. Hendrixson is the best pitcher. I've said that for a month and a half and haven't even been close to being proved wrong yet. I wish he had chosen Marietta like Centerville grad and national champion Casey Levens did. But we all make mistakes. Hopefully Marietta can hit him when they need to.

I feel like it's quite legitimate to wonder what will happen with a starter that gave up 10 runs in 1 2/3 IP in his last start and has two of Heide's 3 conference losses.

[motorman]

I just got it from a reliable source that if Otterbein and Muskingum are still tied and there is a first place tie, the next tiebreaker is run differential, in which Marietta has a slight advantage right now. There is a maximum of +/- 7 runs per game allowed as differential. And since Marietta is almost assured of going +14 in the 2 games Sat, they would win the tiebreaker and host the OAC tournament. Heidelberg and Marietta would be co-champions of the league. Thus, the only way Berg will host the tournament is if Musky finishes ahead of Ott, so I will be rooting for my alma mater. Might even wear a Raider T shirt under the orange this week, Dr. A.

[EttaFan1]

INteresting, motorman.  I was not aware of that, but at this point the "screwy" tiebreak scenarios are just that, screwy.   At the beginning of the season I would have never expected a tie-breaker for the top seed in the tournament to come down to a tiebreaker in the #7 spot in the standings.  It has been a strange, and good year, in the OAC. 

[Spence]

Hrm that's weird...not sure why they wouldn't just break the tie the same way they would attempt to break the first place tie, but no one asked me.

I guess runs for/runs against chart I did ends up mattering after all!

So the only other way Marietta could be caught is if they outscore Wilmington by less than 9 runs total in the DH (and win both, obviously)?

[EttaFan1]

Frm the OAC handbook...

5.  When a tie cannot be settled by the use of the aforementioned procedures, the OAC
office will determine the seeding order by computing the runs scored differential
average of the teams involved in the tie in games against all conference opponents. The maximum differential of runs scored and allowed in any game shall be seven
runs. The team(s) with the highest average will receive the higher seed.

So we have this by the numbers....

Berg Differential
BW +2, -2
Musk +4,+5
Mount +6,+5
Cap +5,+7
Mtta -3,+2
JCU +3,+4
Wilm +7,+7
Ott -6,+1
ONU ? ? 
average:  2.9375

Marietta Average Differential
Ott: +4, +4
BW: +3,-1
Musk: -1,+7
MTU: +7,+5
Berg: +3,-2
Cap: +5,+6
ONU: +7,+3
JCU: +2,+2
Wilm: ? ?
Average:  3.375

By my math (unless I'm doing it incorrectly)  For Berg to "win" this tiebreak scenario, Their combined margin of victory in two games against ONU would have to be a combined 8 runs greater than Marietta's combined victories over Wilmington.  In other words, If Berg defeats ONU twice by a combined 9 points, and Marietta wins both games against Wilmington, Marietta's combined margin of victory needs to be 2 just to remain tied.  This would give each an equivalent average run differential. 

If Heiedelberg wishes to host (assuming Musky and Ott are deadlocked), they need to win both games and do so by a combined margin of at least10 runs (because hoping Marietta only sends their JV team to play Wilmington isn't much of a hope).
Then they have to hope Marietta only wins a pair of 1 run games.  If Marietta's combined MOV over Wilmington is greater than 8, they will secure this fifth tie breaker. 

If that happens it comes down to a vote of the coaches.

6. If item 2 does not resolve the tie, a vote of the other coaches not involved in the tie, shall be taken to decide the "better" team(s).

[Spence]

Good lord that is crazy.

I guess it has to be average in case a team doesn't get all their games played. But other than that what I said above seems to hold (since everyone will get their games in).

I could have just missed it, but I don't remember this ever having to be used for a tiebreak. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Is this used even if a tie between Muskingum and Otterbein can be broken with record against 3rd place, etc.? Or is there any attempt to break such a tie?

Having it come to a vote would be just crazy. You talk about battle stations.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

It could be worse. It could be a coin flip. Gheny in the NCAC missed the tourney two years in a row on a coin flip.

[Spence]

It could be worse. It could be a coin flip. Gheny in the NCAC missed the tourney two years in a row on a coin flip.

You're right, that is worse than a vote.

[motorman]

I figured you'd say something like that. I never said I liked it. But I don't see another site offering up probabilities, and as I said earlier, the regional differences are a non-factor since we're talking about one region.

Massey has 9 of the top 10 in SOS from the same conference...come on, do you really believe that? And like 21 of the top 24 from the West region...suspect at best. There are some pretty big issues with it of that sort.

I'm not baiting anyone or anything. Hendrixson is the best pitcher. I've said that for a month and a half and haven't even been close to being proved wrong yet. I wish he had chosen Marietta like Centerville grad and national champion Casey Levens did. But we all make mistakes. Hopefully Marietta can hit him when they need to.

I feel like it's quite legitimate to wonder what will happen with a starter that gave up 10 runs in 1 2/3 IP in his last start and has two of Heide's 3 conference losses.

You know Spence maybe you should wonder about how Marietta is going to win any tournament with only 2 pitchers instead of worrying about who Berg's best pitcher is. What is Brewer going to do, start Herstine and use Byers in relief and then start Byers the next day and use Herstine in relief? From what I saw in person, any Marietta reliever can blow a game open, even those who tied NCAA records.

[Spence]

There's a lot I could say here, but I'm going to try to be nice.

All I'm saying is "I'll take my chances" with those two guys and then see what happens from there. I'd much rather have two very formidable aces than to not have them.

I'm not even thinking about that yet though. Still 4 games to go before any of that matters.

--

I'm not worrying at all about who Heidelberg's best pitcher is. I already know, so do most of us. So does Palm. I'm just not sure who their second best, and I think going into a series against a team with very solid pitching it'll be interesting to see what if any changes Palm makes.

[Spence]

I see Thomas got one of those less than 5 inning starting pitcher wins motorman whined about earlier in the year.

Wonder if he still has a problem with it.

[motorman]

All I said was that I had never heard of it before. I too have scored close to 100 games, some before you were born. In all my baseball experience a starter had to pitch more than half the game to qualify for the win. Therefore it looked like Marietta padding their #1 starter's stats. If it was a rule I didn't know it is one of a very few.

[Spence]

All I said was that I had never heard of it before. I too have scored close to 100 games, some before you were born.

So did you have your kid at like 40 then?