BB: Top Teams in West Region

[BigPoppa]

It would be nice and would make the WEST region easier to read and compare to the rest of the nation. It could also harm teams that arrive there and get pounded for a week if they struggle.

[Whatagame]

The attraction to Arizona is that the teams can see the Spring Training facilities of the major league baseball teams.

Do you mean play on MLB spring training fields?  This year's set of games that included Linfield, CTX, etc. were played on high school fields way up in Anthem.  They were very nice fields, though.

The Arizona trip was great, however it I think it does pose a definite high risk/reward situation for teams.  It is so early in the season, and unfortunate hiccups can occur as teams are playing their first games of the year, and risking struggling against strong teams, or risking a major faux pas against a team that really is a complete mis-match.  For instance, Claremont McKenna beat Linfield this year in AZ, I believe, and Whitman and CTX, believe it or not, were tied 1-1 going into the 8th in AZ - amazingly, the game was "in the balance" very late.

Pacific chose to pay for travel to Hawaii, and play a bunch of games that had no bearing on their resume.  That was an expensive trip, I'm sure, that in hindsight they may have liked to have re-thought?   

[TexasBB]

A lot of emphasis in this discussion is being placed on February games in Arizona against non-traditional regional opponents as a way to strengthen the schedule and potentially improve your regional ranking.  It is a high risk reward endeavor. Most teams that play in February are nothing like the teams that they are in late April. 

Coaches have an entire season ahead of them, so it is common and prudent, to space out your pitching. Only allow your starters to go for no more than 3 innings and work your entire staff. Those early games are as much about determining who you can look to, when conference play starts, as they are about playing non-traditional opponents. So in many respects these games are in many respects like scrimmage games, with undue weight being applied to the outcomes.

In the West Region, too much rides on these early games. There is no other time to play teams in the non-traditional areas once conference play begins. How teams do later in the season is a much better indicator of how strong a team is IMO.  So playing .500 baseball in February against non-traditional opponents in glorified scrimmage games, should not receive the same weight (on a negative side) as playing .500 ball in your conference in late April, when the games really count and your team is supposedly at full strength. 

So that is why I think things in the West Region need to be looked at differently. I don't have any answers, I have made some suggestions. I don't think there is a perfect answer but I do believe that this region is unique and should be approached differently than the eastern regions which don't face these logistical issues.  One size doesn't fit all, the approach has to be more flexible.

TexasBB

[Ralph Turner]

Thanks for the comment Texas BB.

We see this frequently in the snowbird teams that get 7 in-region games out of 9 games in Florida on the spring training trip.

Please scan the scoreboards from March among the northern teams that go south.  Each game against a unique in-region opponent impacts the calculation of the OWP/OOWP/SOS.  That is the problem that we have in the West.  The Universe of "in-region" games for each ASC/West Region teams is roughly about 15 foes for most schools.  The New England schools may have 25 unique in-region opponents. If you can schedule about 18-20 of those games with the teams that are .500 or better, you get a very good SOS.  Not picking on Sul Ross, Schreiner and HPU, but the good thing about SRSU is that they gave us the Arizona opponents and the OWP's as we calculated our OOWP's. Otherwise, we would have had much better OWP's if we could have not played those teams.

Chapman will have trouble ever getting as high of an OWP as they did have because now they must play Cal Tech in conference.

McMurry put it all on the line in February with Chapman back in the last decade.  Those teams are at the same time in the development of their staffs.

[OshDude]

Many teams play only in-region games. I know it's much tougher to do in the West. The committee knows that too.

Look at many of the top teams. Marietta played good Piedmont and Rhodes teams early. St. Thomas played St. Scholastica, La Crosse, Whitewater, Stevens Point, Oshkosh and Chicago. The in-region bullets fly right away for most top teams. It's not an ominous thing. It's the prudent thing to do because the system rewards teams that play high-risk schedules. Almost always have. For proof, look at the Central Region rankings. You won't find many spectacular records toward the bottom of this week's rankings. Sometimes a good loss goes farther than a bad win.

The first game for a St. Thomas is no different than the first game for a Texas team. Every team is feeling out the lineup and rotation; strengths and weaknesses. West Region teams don't have to, and can't realistically, play the same type of schedule that St. Thomas does. But there's a huge difference in the system between playing every team you can and playing every team you should. You can beat some teams eight out of 10 times. You should play several 60-40 and longer-odds games. Get together for one great trip with four or five great nonconference, in-region games per year. That shouldn't be too much to ask.

Some teams like Cortland eased into the pressure games by playing nonregional contests early. If you do that, you better take care of business in-region and play some top in-region teams at least once. Fortunately for Cortland, they do that quite well. But you don't have much margin for error if you don't play a high volume of top teams.

[TexasBB]

Ricky,

It appears to me that you are content with defending the status quo. You appear to be basically saying that there should be no changes, juts live with it. Schedule your early games and travel and don't push back against the current NCAA set up.  I still believe the west is differnent from other regions and the approach should be flexible. I also maintain that early travel games should not be applied the same weight, they are glorified scrimiage games whether they are played in Florida or Arizona. Why accept the status quo, lets at least consider that there may be a flaw and there might be a better way. Explore the alternatives as opposed to be willing to accept and defend the current set up as if it is cast in stone.

Texas BB

[OshDude]

Ricky,

It appears to me that you are content with defending the status quo. You appear to be basically saying that there should be no changes, juts live with it. Schedule your early games and travel and don't push back against the current NCAA set up.  I still believe the west is differnent from other regions and the approach should be flexible. I also maintain that early travel games should not be applied the same weight, they are glorified scrimiage games whether they are played in Florida or Arizona. Why accept the status quo, lets at least consider that there may be a flaw and there might be a better way. Explore the alternatives as opposed to be willing to accept and defend the current set up as if it is cast in stone.

Texas BB

One year it may not work out and you want to protest? The system is there to either use to your advantage or disadvantage. A third option is to get frustrated and want to change the rules that have been very, very good to your region.

[CrashDavisD3]

Ricky,

It appears to me that you are content with defending the status quo. You appear to be basically saying that there should be no changes, juts live with it. Schedule your early games and travel and don't push back against the current NCAA set up.  I still believe the west is differnent from other regions and the approach should be flexible. I also maintain that early travel games should not be applied the same weight, they are glorified scrimiage games whether they are played in Florida or Arizona. Why accept the status quo, lets at least consider that there may be a flaw and there might be a better way. Explore the alternatives as opposed to be willing to accept and defend the current set up as if it is cast in stone.

Texas BB

One year it may not work out and you want to protest? The system is there to either use to your advantage or disadvantage. A third option is to get frustrated and want to change the rules that have been very, very good to your region.

The rules have been good for the past decade for Chapman as a independent Pool B team able to schedule good teams and leave the poor teams off their schedule to keep a high SOS. Well next year Chapman will play a full Pool A SCIAC conference schedule. They need to step in up in 2013 and win the SCIAC conference or expect a 2nd year of staying home during the regionals.

ASC, SCIAC, NWC all have teams that will keep SOS low for Pool C bids. I am not sure I even agree with the concept of POOL C and SOS. I am for winning it on the field. Pool A does that. I am not sure Pool B/C do that.

I personally view Pool A, B, C bids should stay in the region. It is so hard to try to compare across regions that is why I just dont think it works well all the time. I see teams with 30 wins stay home and teams with 21 wins in the playoffs.

SOS, OWP, OOWP, RPI all remind me too much of the BCS in football.

I am for change not that my opinion matters at all.

[Ralph Turner]

Ricky,

It appears to me that you are content with defending the status quo. You appear to be basically saying that there should be no changes, juts live with it. Schedule your early games and travel and don't push back against the current NCAA set up.  I still believe the west is differnent from other regions and the approach should be flexible. I also maintain that early travel games should not be applied the same weight, they are glorified scrimiage games whether they are played in Florida or Arizona. Why accept the status quo, lets at least consider that there may be a flaw and there might be a better way. Explore the alternatives as opposed to be willing to accept and defend the current set up as if it is cast in stone.

Texas BB

One year it may not work out and you want to protest? The system is there to either use to your advantage or disadvantage. A third option is to get frustrated and want to change the rules that have been very, very good to your region.

...
I personally view Pool A, B, C bids should stay in the region. It is so hard to try to compare across regions that is why I just dont think it works well all the time. I see teams with 30 wins stay home and teams with 21 wins in the playoffs.

SOS, OWP, OOWP, RPI all remind me too much of the BCS in football.

I am for change not that my opinion matters at all.

Teams with 21 wins in the tournament definitely won it on the field!  They won the conference automatic qualifier (probably the post-season tournament as low-seed that fought against the odds).

And yes, you are right. Pool C bids are for "do-overs".

[OshDude]

One last post on the subject and I'll let everyone else have the last words.

The West, Central and Midwest regions have a similar number of teams. The criteria have lent those regions roughly the same representation at regionals over the years. Last season the Midwest and West got two at-large bids apiece. The Central got one two bids (barely). This season the West and Central might get one apiece while the Midwest maybe gets two.

I don't read calls to fix the system on the Central boards when the region gets one bid, and the Central has more than the West's 3.5 conferences. It may be infrequent, but these types of years happen. And if Chapman and/or Linfield were their typical selves this season, the West could be close a lock for six teams and all's right with the world. Now that's not so certain.

My point is, maybe the system works fine – like it does in the similarly sized regions. Perhaps a region can have a down season relatively.

And no, I don't agree that early season games should be treated any differently. Every team has a first weekend. Every team plays its first 10 games. Some teams play their first games with a 60-degree difference in temperature from their regular routine and a timezone change. Those games count too. No excuses. If you schedule a game, be prepared to win that game.

[CrashDavisD3]

One last post on the subject and I'll let everyone else have the last words.

The West, Central and Midwest regions have a similar number of teams. The criteria have lent those regions roughly the same representation at regionals over the years. Last season the Midwest and West got two at-large bids apiece. The Central got one bid (barely). This season the West and Central might get one apiece while the Midwest maybe gets two.

I don't read calls to fix the system on the Central boards when the region gets one bid, and the Central has more than the West's 3.5 conferences. It may be infrequent, but these types of years happen. And if Chapman and/or Linfield were their typical selves this season, the West could be close a lock for six teams and all's right with the world. Now that's not so certain.

My point is, maybe the system works fine – like it does in the similarly sized regions. Perhaps a region can have a down season relatively.

And no, I don't agree that early season games should be treated any differently. Every team has a first weekend. Every team plays its first 10 games. Some teams play their first games with a 60-degree difference in temperature from their regular routine and a timezone change. Those games count too. No excuses. If you schedule a game, be prepared to win that game.

Good post. Valid points !
Thanks for the hard work and great information you have provided to us passionate D3 baseball fans.

I am still going strong 6 years now even though I have had no real connection to any team for the past 2 years

[OshDude]

I corrected an error in my post above (the Central got two bids in 2011). To break my promise on that post being my last on the subject this season and to put a finer point on it, here are the bid breakdowns from last season. Some conferences besides the SCAC and NEAC overlap regions slightly.

Central has 4 Pool A leagues, 37 teams: 2 at-large bids in 2011.
Mid-Atlantic has 7.66 Pool A leagues, 60 teams: 3 at-large bids in 2011.
Mideast has 5 Pool A leagues, 48 teams: 2 at-large bids in 2011.
Midwest has 4 Pool A leagues, 39 teams: 2 at-large bids in 2011.
New England has 7.66 Pool A leagues, 67 teams: 2 at-large bids in 2011.
New York has 4.66 Pool A leagues, 37 teams: 1 at-large bid in 2011.
South has 3.5 Pool A leagues, 37 teams: 3 at-large bids in 2011.
West has 3.5 Pool A leagues, 38 teams: 2 at-large bids in 2011.

[TexasBB]

Ricky,

Thanks for all of you well researched information, you know what you are talking about.

Looking just at the numbers everything you have said is logical. However, distance is the wild card. The West Region is larger area wise than almost all of the other regions combined! That is the problem in a nutshel. Trying to schedule any games with teams from outside of your area is a logistical problem. Although two of the conferenes have a large number of teams in Texas they are spread out even in this state. Furthermore both confernces cover multiple states. As I said in earlier post it is an 8 hour bus ride from Tyler to San Antonio. So once conference play starts travel is limited. These are student athletes and they cannot miss classes. So you play your mid week games, as much as possible against teams that are within a reasonable bus ride away so that they can avoid missing 2 days of classes. Even then, in many cases, it envolves staying overnight. So a team like UTT schedules its mid-week games with opponents that are "relatively" close, irrespective of their win loss records. You get what you can. So that leaves the pre-season trip of 3 to 4 games only to where you can schedule something. A lot of the so called ASC non-conference schedule in the pre-season, are with teams in the West Division of the ASC. Those are scheduled a year in advance on a rotating basis. All of the conference teams participate. So this year they played a lot of the teams in the West that they didn't play the year before and it will flip this coming year. They also played UD an independent and teams from the SCAC like Austin and Hendrix which are relatively close (2-4 hours away). All the ASC teams are in the same boat and they all have low SOS because there are some weaker teams in the conference. The teams in the NW are in the same boat as they are also isolated. As I said in an earlier post, this region is so spread out is it unique. It would almost make more sense to combine the Northwest with the Midwest and Texas with the Southeast but that would leave California by itself. If they are going to continue to have a West that is so spread out they should be flexible and not apply the same tests that are applied to other regions that don't face this dilemma.

Texas BB

[ILVBB]

SOS, OWP, OOWP don't work in the west!

What will transpire the next two weeks will be a qualitative and quantitative discussion about Pool C; primarily based upon SOS, OWP, OOWP. In that it is truely flawed for about half the nation, it gives you results which be by definition are biased.

My hope would be that people would understand the inherent bias that exsists as the "who is better than who" discussion of Pool C unfolds over the next 2-weeks.

As Crash so wisely said "I am for winning it on the field. Pool A does that. I am not sure Pool B/C do that." That being said, I really want a national championship that eliminates the inherent bias that is created by geography and limited budgets.

[Ralph Turner]

SOS, OWP, OOWP don't work in the west!

What will traspire the next two weeks will be a qualitative and quantitative discussion about Pool C; primarily based upon SOS, OWP, OOWP. In that it is truely flawed for about half the nation, it gives you results which be by definition biased.

My hope would be that people would understand the inherent bias that exsits as the "who is better than who" discussion of Pool C unfolds over the next 2-weeks.

As Crash so wisely said "I am for winning it on the field. Pool A does that. I am not sure Pool B/C do that." That being said, I really want a national championship that eliminates the inherent bias that is created by geography and limited budgets.

I think that the people who sit around the table know that SOS/OWP/OOWP varies with the regions in D-III.