BB: E8: Empire 8

[WrongArm]

sjfcards...

That's a great start for Fisher, no matter who they played. Early season games can be and adventure. Stevens lost their first two games ugly against Salisbury, got a win against John Jay and lost to Keane by a run. They've got a DH with Skidmore this afternoon. Counting today they've scheduled 7 more games before they head south.

RIT web site says they start in Myrtle Beach today against Catholic. I don't think Utica plays anyone before their Florida trip March 16.

I'll watch for the scores and try to forget about the ice and snow!

[BaseB13]

You can get live stats for Steven's home games at Stevensducks.com  Theyre getting beat by Skidmore right now.  They seem to play a pretty tough schedule.  2 games for Salisbury, one vs kean, 2 skidmore before their spring trip.. Thats 3 NCAA tournament teams in the first few weeks.  Lucky for them they have a nice turf field where they can get a lot of games in this early although Left Handed hitters have a field day at their place because it's barely 300 feet to left..

[WrongArm]

Skidmore 10  Stevens 5 in 9 innings (no double header, I guess)

Not much rest for Stevens. Eastern Connecticut and Johns Hopkins up next.

[WrongArm]

oops... another game after all. It must feel like summer in Hoboken.

[BaseB13]

Game 2 Stevens 7 Skidmore 3.. Stevens scored 7 runs on 4 hits.. wow.. lots of walks or something..

[VictoryLane]

Ithaca will be tough this year.  And SJfC don't have the outfield punch they had in the past.

For Ithaca Raux, Fergusan and wolfe should be strong and watch up for up and coming freshmen pitcher Josh smith and utility fielder sean moonman.

u heard it here first

[JQV]

Ithaca will be tough this year.  And SJfC don't have the outfield punch they had in the past.

For Ithaca Raux, Fergusan and wolfe should be strong and watch up for up and coming freshmen pitcher Josh smith and utility fielder sean moonman.

u heard it here first

Thanks for the info VL.  +k.  Always good to add Bombers to the boards.

[John McGraw]

Looking over the Ithaca roster, there's a decent amount of freshmen and newcomers.  No one really jumps off the page at me but notable names include football quarterback Brian Grastorf and Shane Wolf's brother Trevor. There's a couple transfers as well - Jon Krakower from Lynchburg and Derek Wu from Dutchess Community College.

The one name not on the roster is that of Kurt Bednarcyk. So much for that whole transfer from Rochester thing for him. He tied for the team lead in steals with 14 but hit just .211. I don't think that's a big loss for him to either be gone or off the varsity squad. If memory serves me correct, he didn't play much if at all during the regionals.

Pitching after the top three for Ithaca may be an issue with the graduations of Mays, LaVoie and Peters. You still have Sottung, Wolf and Brown up top, but they'll need to find some solid mid-week starters and long relievers. The bullpen should be fine with MacDaniel and Gardner if they can continue their solid work from last season.

[JQV]

Good analysis John.  Even if you are turning into somewhat of a traitor with your C-State allegiances...

Although, I did notice one error in your post:

but they'll need to find some solid mid-week starters and long relievers

If you read back a few pages BaseB13 swooped in from the academically superior Liberty League to explain to the drooling mob that makes up the rest of NYS that Ithaca only wins midweek games against LL opponents because we use our top starters then while LLers are forced to use homeless people they met in the commons so as to save their actual talent for LL weekend series.  I would think you would know of this practice given your position as the NYS Collegiate Baseball guru.  I will just send BaseB13 an email so he can update you.

As usual, +k.

[BaseB13]

You're right Jose, you know significantly more about how baseball in NY works for Division III even though you didn't even play. 

Let's see the for the LL games, although I bet most of their non-conference games line up this way:

Ithaca vs Rochester (6 - 4) featured Ithaca's #1 vs a platoon of pitchers for Rochester
Ithaca vs Clarkson featured (8 - 3) Ithaca's #2 (By starts atleast) vs a #5 maybe?  18 innings all year
Ithaca vs St Lawrence (2 - 0) featued Ithaca's #1 vs St Lawrence's #5 (according to IP/Starts)

For the record, St Lawrence played 4 games Vs Rochester the wknd before and 4 games vs Clarkson the wknd after.

Rochester played 4 games vs Vassar the wknd before and 4 games vs St Lawrence the weekend after.

Clarkson played Skidmore 4 games on the 20th and 21st, RPI on the 24th (Make up), Ithaca on the 26th, and then Union on the 28th and 29th.

Weird what a surprise, Ithaca threws it's 1 twice, and 2 the other game against bottom level pitchers or a platoon of relievers/starters. 

Another surprise, Sottung through against Rochester and didnt start again until facing St Lawrence.  In  between those games they played Clarkson where they threw their number 2. 

Jose, you claim to be a lawyer so I am sure you're a smart guy.  My lawyer always tells me when it comes to cases, stick to the facts.  The facts will carry the case.  These are the facts yet you want to say that they are meaningless.  My point the entire time was that Ithaca is VERY good.  Ithaca also has a scheduling advantage because their conference games do not mean anything.  It is no surprise that Ithaca saved it's best arms for some of the better teams mid week (such as these three LL opponents).  The LL teams CANNOT do this because they have to win the conference games.  For someone who claims that Ithaca is so much better than the rest of the region I found it very amusing that Ithaca could only muster up a 2 run victory vs Rochester who used a platoon of arms, and they also got out hit by St Lawrence and only put up 2 runs against St Lawrence's #5.  They didnt exactly blow out Clarkson, who was horrendous, when they had their 2 vs Clarkon's 5 either. 

But what do I know?  I just stick to the facts.  Ithaca is very good, but they're not that much better than the LL opponents and they do have a scheduling advantage.  The facts speak for themselves above.

[JQV]

1. I thought we had already covered this argument about saving their best arms.  To rehash for those of us not paying attention:

In 2007 IC started:

SJF
3/31 (DH) Mays, Sottung
4/1 (DH) Brown, Wolf

Cortland
4/3 Lavoie

Utica
4/21 (DH) Sottung, Wolf
4/22 (DH) Brown, Peters

UR
4/25 Sottung

2. I am not sure why UR not having deep enough pitching to play mid week makes Ithaca a bad team.  Isn't that more evidence towards my point that LL teams aren't good enough to compete with IC?  If they were good enough, they'd have pitching depth to throw mid week.

3.  Since you are so in love with facts, let's review these:
   *       A string of 67 consecutive seasons without a losing record and only one below-.500 record in the program's 70 years;
   *       Appearances in 28 of the 29 NCAA Division III playoffs;
   *       An overall 1,243-476-9 record (a .722 winning percentage);
   *       30 All Americans; and
   *       87 players that went on to play professional baseball.

There was some other fact too but I am having trouble remembering it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, These:

^

(^For those LLers that have never seen a real trophy case before, those are not LL League Champion trophies or trophies from an Academic Bowl.)

[John McGraw]

Good analysis John.  Even if you are turning into somewhat of a traitor with your C-State allegiances...

Cortland, yeah, I s'pose that's the stain on my record :-)

Currently I'm broadcasting Division-I men's ice hockey at Colgate.

Just to throw some clarity on this silly vendetta against Ithaca for using their front-line starters for non-conference games. For these games in question, Ithaca was in between conference weekends at the time and didn't play another series in the Empire 8 until May. You can't sit your best pitchers just because you're not playing conference games.

So, it looks like Ithaca just went with their regular rotation for those games with Sottung, starting on a bit of short rest, taking on Rochester; then Wolf against Clarkson, so on and so forth. And looking at the schedule at that point in late April, Ithaca had many games in a short amount of time in that non-conference period with Rochester, Clarkson, Brockport (DH), Oswego (twice) and St. Lawrence.

Earlier in the season when the schedule is more spread out (because the weather hasn't forced many cancellations), Ithaca throws spot-starters in mid-week games. That's when you saw Matt LaVoie, Ryan Mays, etc etc. Heck, I think between two seasons and two or three Ithaca-Cortland games, I saw Mays and LaVoie in each of those games. And it was the same for Cortland with a mid-week guy and not Coach Brown throwing out Dougher or one of his front-line pitchers.

Why are we having this argument again?

[StarvinMarvin]

The LL has no one to blame but themselves for playing the number of conference games that they do.  I'm sure it's for a legitimate reason in their "academically superior minds" but you can't have it both ways.  If you're going to play twice as many conference games as any of your non-conference opponents then Johnny Wholestaff is going to be your midweek starter plain and simple.  

BaseB13, maybe Kleenex should sponsor the LL because you come up with more excuses in defense of that conference.  The facts are the facts and I'm not denying that those schools are academically challenging but between the lines is where the game is won and lost regardless of who throws.  When you get into a regional setting, you better be able to roll your #4 and #5 out there with the intent of them keeping you in the ball game.  If you lose a game in a double elimination regional and expect to come out of the losers bracket, more than likely a "platoon of pitchers" will throw at least one game for you and they could quite possibly be matched up against a teams' number one who's coming back on two or three days rest to close it out.  I think that you're wrong when you say that IC saves their best guys for mid-week games.  Their biggest rival in region is Cortland.  Since Sottung has been there, he has basically been IC's number one and other than the regionals has never started a mid-week contest against Cortland.  They have always thrown Lavoie, Mays (#4 and #5) or some freshman.  I have to believe that's a big game for IC and if they're going to throw their best at anyone, I have to imagine that it's Cortland they would do it against mid-week.  

Who IC and many teams outside of the LL (I say the LL because their teams are the exception due to their 24 conference games or whatever) throw midweek can be determined for various reasons.  Sometimes a teams' #1 or #2 might be used midweek because they need to get work in due to a long layoff for whatever reason or the weather for the upcoming weekend looks terrible and they know they're not going to get their games in for example.  You just never know and decisions are made by coaches for reasons other than what you and I can decipher from reading box scores.  I'm not necessarily an IC fan and as you have stated in every post, IC is a very good team, but Jose's facts do say a lot and you seem to be a facts supported by stats type of guy.  The bottom line is that every year teams beat or lose to teams that talent-wise they shouldn't, that's baseball.  It's not IC's fault who Rochester or any other team throws against them, their job is beat whoever's on that mound.  If they want the respect of an IC then go beat them regardless of who throws for you.

I would consider IC a dominant team in the NY region and not because of who they throw mid-week or because they play in a weak conference with no automatic bid.  They make the most of their talent due to good coaching and their reputation helps them with their recruiting efforts in getting talented players.  They're a good team and I agree with Jose that they aren't challenged by many of the teams on their schedule.  Teams in the NY region have closed the gap between them and IC but there's still quite a bit of room to make up though in my opinion.

[BaseB13]

Without reading any of these long posts, THIS IS ALL I SAID in response to Jose saying Ithaca had no competition IN REGION.  I said they are a great team but the scheduling does help them.  He then debated the LL vs. Ithaca.  All I did was point out that Ithaca had a large advatange in the pitching match ups in those games.  That's it.  I didnt say Ithaca didn't deserve to win and I have never said Ithaca is bad AT ALL.  However, are any of you going to sit there and disagree with me on the fact that Ithaca vs those three teams were competitive match ups especially given the fact that it was a front line guy vs. a #5?  That's all I said.  Bringing up records from the 80's has NOTHING to do with how NY region baseball is today.  I am not blaming anyone, I've said it a million times.  Honestly, if you guys graduated from Ithaca, you're representing your alma mater very poorly  because your reading comprehension skills are pathetic.  Talk about overly defensive. 

[BaseB13]

Quickly scimmed everyones posts, we obviously don't disagree on much then.  I just think it's off base to bash the rest of the region that's all.  For whatever reason, Ithaca's pitching lined up well against the LL.  I think it has to do with scheduling issues (which is each teams own perogative/fault).  Regardless, the games were very competitive considering the pitching match ups.  I'm sorry but I do feel a 2 to 0 game vs St Lawrence would have been a lot of fun to watch.  Same with a 6 to 4 game against Rochester.  Maybe Jose doesn't think so.. That's all.  Enough of this debate.  Ithaca will obviously have a very good season and if they win the region I will surely be pulling for them in the World Series.