BB: MIAC: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[miacbaseballfan]

I'd keep an eye on Hamline's Kaczrowski. Last year's MIAC co-player of the year and All-American and last summer's MVP of the Central Illinois Collegiate League, in which he set single-season records in hits and assists. Pretty impressive to hit .389 against plenty of good Division I pitching in one of the top collegiate wood bat leagues in the country, especially when the next closest guy hit .324.

[Old Spartan]

Does anyone have thoughts on how Carelton might stack up this year?

[miacbaseballfan]

It's hard to say how the team will do, but look for Guevin to give Murrey and Mathison a run for their money for pitcher of the year. In 154 career innings pitched, Ethan has a 3.56 ERA and 127 K's; last year he battled through injury to post a 3.21 ERA. Although his conference-only numbers weren't as good as those two, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him have a huge year after a summer in a solid collegiate wood bat league.

[supermiac]

Not so sure about that.

Career stats-

Mathison: 170.2 IP, 123 K, 1.85 ERA
Murrey: 116.2 IP, 122 K, 2.55 ERA
Guevin: 154 IP, 127 K, 3.56 ERA

Pretty tough to out-duel the top two especially considering you only win 3 games a year at Carleton with that offense. I also wouldn't count out other pitchers like Adam Johnson for Concordia or Matt Schuld for UST.

[miacbaseballfan]

I'm not making an argument against Murrey and Mathison, but given the quality of his stuff, Guevin makes a pretty good sleeper pick. As for your point about 3 wins, Murrey and Mathison each had only 3 conference wins last year and Roiger won pitcher of the year on the strength of only 4 conference wins.

[Iluvd3BBALL]

What do we have for preseason MIAC rankings by team?  There's usually 3 tiers in the MIAC with STU, STO, Hamline in tier 1. With Bethel, Concordia, GAC, Augsburg in tier 2. and MAC, SMU, Carleton in tier 3....how do you think it will finish out this year?

[OshDude]

What do we have for preseason MIAC rankings by team?  There's usually 3 tiers in the MIAC with STU, STO, Hamline in tier 1. With Bethel, Concordia, GAC, Augsburg in tier 2. and MAC, SMU, Carleton in tier 3....how do you think it will finish out this year?

1. St. Olaf
2. St. Thomas
3. Concordia
4. Hamline

[Old Spartan]

What do we have for preseason MIAC rankings by team?  There's usually 3 tiers in the MIAC with STU, STO, Hamline in tier 1. With Bethel, Concordia, GAC, Augsburg in tier 2. and MAC, SMU, Carleton in tier 3....how do you think it will finish out this year?

What are the factors causing these three tiers and what might bring about a change?

Just trying to get to know this league a little better.

OS

[miacbaseballfan]

St. Thomas obviously has tremendous advantages in terms of enrollment and facilities so it's unlikely they will ever leave that top tier. Baseball success at St. Olaf, Concordia, and Hamline can largely be attributed to exceptional coaching. The middle-tier programs are all usually very solid but clearly exhibit more year-to-year fluctuation between playoff contention and middle-dwelling. As top-ranked liberal arts schools with incredibly tough admissions standards, Carleton and Macalester are at a bit of a disadvantage athletically. While they do still recruit some excellent players and have the potential to surprise some teams, it's virtually impossible for them to be perennial powers. It's important to note, however, that one of the reasons MIAC baseball is so exciting is that on any given day, it's quite possible for any team to split with (or sweep) a better team.

[mnblaster]

I see that Carleton College has two players listed on the 2009 "Players to Watch" list.The list  was chosen by NCAA Division III baseball coaches across the country, and spotlights a select group of student-athletes at each position. The list is included in the January 2nd issue of Collegiate Baseball, a newspaper that covers all levels of college baseball.

Guevin and Melson were both All-MIAC honorees last spring. Guevin paced the pitching staff in wins, innings, ERA and strikeouts. Melson hit .389 with seven home runs and 32 RBI.
They are among 11 baseball student-athletes from the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) to land on Collegiate Baseball's list. The others are: Augsburg College junior catcher Craig Henry and junior pitcher Sam Weber, Bethel University senior pitchers Travis Adams and Ben Turnwall, Hamline University senior shortstop Dan Kaczrowski, St. Olaf College senior third baseman Nick Fuerst and senior pitcher Todd Mathison, and University of St. Thomas senior third baseman Dan Leslie and junior pitcher Matt Schuld.

[Gustie13]

What do we have for preseason MIAC rankings by team?  There's usually 3 tiers in the MIAC with STU, STO, Hamline in tier 1. With Bethel, Concordia, GAC, Augsburg in tier 2. and MAC, SMU, Carleton in tier 3....how do you think it will finish out this year?

I don't mean to flame a fellow D3 baseball fan, but I'm a little perplexed at these Tiers, D3BBALL. Hamline has made the conf playoffs twice since the MIAC began their postseason playoffs in 2000 while GAC has made it 5 times. At the end of last year I took a look at each teams conf finish since 2000 and here are the tiers I found:

TEAM   Avg Finish    Avg Record
Tier 1-
UST         1.44           16-4
StO         1.89           16-4
Tier 2-
GAC         4.44           12-8
CON         4.89           12-8
Tier 3-
SJU          6.22           10-10
BU           6.56           9-11
HU           6.89           8-12
Tier 4-
SMU         7.44           9-11
Aug          8.00           7-13
MAC         8.11           7-13
Tier 5-
Car          10.11         4-16

Even if you just look at the last three years, when HU has improved greatly, the rankings are:
UST  1.00
StO  2.00
GAC  3.67
HU    4.00
BU    5.67
SJU   6.00
CON  6.67
AUG  7.00
MAC  9.33
SMU  10.00
CAR   10.67


In response to the question about WHY the schools are bad/good:
UST- Prestige of winning a national championship in '00 and runner up '99 & '98, good school, well known coach, pipeline to Cretin Derham Hall. Have sent a few players on to professional baseball.
StO- Good coaches, consistently top 2 in conf. Have sent a few players on to professional baseball.
GAC- Ex-pro coach
HU- Young, energetic, ex-pro coach. Improving team.
BU- Young, energetic coach. Limited (or helped?) by schools strict religious profile.
SJU- ?
Con- Hurt by playing near Canada.
Aug- Good young coach but have underperformed lately for whatever reason.
MAC- Good coach, but hurt by schools strict academic standards
SMU- Hurt by previous coach's lack of recruiting
Car- Strict academic standards.

[Iluvd3BBALL]

I don't know if you all heard about the MIAC holding opening weekend at the Metrodome? I'm not sure what I think about that, I can see both sides in that it will guarantee all games getting played, but it also means giving up some teams' home games...What do you think about it?  Here is what the schedule looks like.

3/27/2009  Saint Mary's vs. Augsburg
3/27/2009  Macalester vs. Saint John's
3/28/2009  Hamline vs. Carleton
3/28/2009  Gustavus vs. Concordia
3/28/2009  Bethel vs. St. Thomas

It should be fun to catch some of those games, but teams like Mary's, Mac, Hamline, GAC, and Bethel all give up home field advantage.

[Gustie13]

I am all for playing games in the Dome early in the season. GAC's schedule was mangled last year because of games being postponed and rescheduled.
I'm a little surprised they didn't schedule CON for an opening weekend home game and then play it at the Dome, the Cobber's field situation last season messed up a number of teams.

[miacbaseballfan]

Gustie13,

It wouldn't hurt to mention that Gustavus and Hamline have been greatly helped the last few years by MIAC POYs like Konicek, Roiger, and Kaczrowski. It certainly helps put a program on the map when they have the premier player or pitcher in the conference, or in some cases, the nation. (And don't forget that Hamline currently has two, soon to be three, former players playing professional baseball, as well as a major league bullpen catcher.) I do agree that Gustavus got shortchanged a bit in some earlier posts; they are without question a top-tier MIAC team.

[Gustie13]

Gustie13,

It wouldn't hurt to mention that Gustavus and Hamline have been greatly helped the last few years by MIAC POYs like Konicek, Roiger, and Kaczrowski. It certainly helps put a program on the map when they have the premier player or pitcher in the conference, or in some cases, the nation. (And don't forget that Hamline currently has two, soon to be three, former players playing professional baseball, as well as a major league bullpen catcher.) I do agree that Gustavus got shortchanged a bit in some earlier posts; they are without question a top-tier MIAC team.

Andrew,
No doubt the elite level players that have come through the HU and GAC programs have raised the visibility of each; in the 6 years from 2002-2007 a GAC player won POY 4 times. Plus we had great pitchers like John Schaffler (at one time the only D3 pitcher to shut out UST for 6 years), Andy Schmidt, and Josh Spitzack. Roiger, Foster, Kaczrowski, and yourself have been big names in the conf lately as well. Without a doubt, the top 4 in the conf the last 3 years have been UST, StO, GAC, HU.
*interesting story about Schaffler. In 2002 he threw a 2-hit shutout against UST, at that time the defending national champ. The following year GAC and SJU finished tied for 4th and the last playoff berth went to tiebreakers. At the time the tiebreaker after head to head was a vague statement like 'record against teams ahead in the standings.' By GAC's interpretation of the rules they were in the playoffs, by SJUs interpretation they were in the playoffs, so it came down to a vote of all the coaches, which SJU won in a close vote. After the meeting Coach Denning went up to Coach Carroll and said "The only reason I voted for Coach Haugen's (SJU coach) interpretation is because we're the #1 seed and if you were the #4 seed we would have faced Schaffler and I didn't like our chances." Believe it if you want, but that would be some high praise of John Schaffler from Coach Denning.

You had to bring up Dammann. On the one hand I'm happy a former MIAC catcher is the Twins bp catcher, on the other hand I played against Nate and I think I could do a better job 

Off topic, are you playing for Rosetown this year?