BB: Top Teams in West Region

[Bishopleftiesdad]

The d3baseball West Region preseason report is up:

http://www.d3baseball.com/notables/2016/01/preview/west-preview

I gotta give props to Colton Westfall. I like the way that he writes.  His prose is so much more "baseball-y" than mine (too much technical writing...)

Great preview.  I stand by my conviction that this is the strongest and most competitive region in the country.

There are essentially no easy teams in the Region.

Thanks to Jim Dixon! 

Let's play 3!  Lobos and UDallas open this weekend in Alpine.

Thanks. Though it is tough to write the preview when only 10% of the West teams respond to the questionnaires that are sent out and half the teams hadn't updated their school websites/rosters!

Should be another great year in the West, for sure.

Thanks West Side.

[Ralph Turner]

All great job as always. I may have missed this in the past, but most of the conferences are missing some teams.
The Sciac review, for example, is missing:
Cal Tech,
Whittier,
CMS
Occidental

Has this always been the case, and I missed it, or do to constraints, were all the teams not reviewed?
Ralph why I agree that the West is very strong at the top. I cannot agree there are no easy teams in the region. There may be fewer easy teams, and no easy teams in the regional playoff. But there are easy teams. For example if Wilmington, Or Hiram, from the mid east played Cal tech. I believe both of those mid east teams could beat Cal Tech. And at least compete with Lewis and Clark.

If you are talking about solely teams in the Regional I cannot argue with that. Due to the Pool A bids in other parts of the country, there are usually Some weak teams at the other regional's.

Thanks again for all the work that is put into creating these. They are a great resource and always a fun read.

Thanks for joining the conversation on the West Region board.+1!  (That gives you 100!)

My magnanimous nature prompted me to use the word "essentially'. Yes, we have some weak teams in the West, but several discussants have also maintained that Cal Tech would compete for the post-season tourney contention in some Pool A conferences in 2-3 regions back east.

Especially in the ASC, most of the teams have very good #1 pitchers. Sometimes the coach of a "weaker" team  may match a #1 against a #2 or #3 of a stronger team, and get the win. That blows the form chart for the club that was needing to go 3-0 on that weekend compared to the competition. The extra loss then factors in the post-season conference tourney and the dominos start falling.

[Mr. Ypsi]

All great job as always. I may have missed this in the past, but most of the conferences are missing some teams.
The Sciac review, for example, is missing:
Cal Tech,
Whittier,
CMS
Occidental

Has this always been the case, and I missed it, or do to constraints, were all the teams not reviewed?
Ralph why I agree that the West is very strong at the top. I cannot agree there are no easy teams in the region. There may be fewer easy teams, and no easy teams in the regional playoff. But there are easy teams. For example if Wilmington, Or Hiram, from the mid east played Cal tech. I believe both of those mid east teams could beat Cal Tech. And at least compete with Lewis and Clark.

If you are talking about solely teams in the Regional I cannot argue with that. Due to the Pool A bids in other parts of the country, there are usually Some weak teams at the other regional's.

Thanks again for all the work that is put into creating these. They are a great resource and always a fun read.

Thanks for joining the conversation on the West Region board.+1!  (That gives you 100!)

My magnanimous nature prompted me to use the word "essentially'. Yes, we have some weak teams in the West, but several discussants have also maintained that Cal Tech would compete for the post-season tourney contention in some Pool A conferences in 2-3 regions back east.

Especially in the ASC, most of the teams have very good #1 pitchers. Sometimes the coach of a "weaker" team  may match a #1 against a #2 or #3 of a stronger team, and get the win. That blows the form chart for the club that was needing to go 3-0 on that weekend compared to the competition. The extra loss then factors in the post-season conference tourney and the dominos start falling.

Caltech is threatening to get downright respectable in basketball, but I'm not sure I'd want to get carried away before they EVER win a conference baseball game.  (Though there are some pretty god-awful conferences around the country.)

[108 Stitches]

I have not dug too deep into the West but on the surface it seems little weaker than in previous years. PLU and Linfield dropping down, Chapman is in the dungeon, Tyler seems to be holding their own. CTX looks like a so-so team. TLU laid an egg over the weekend, CLU so-so. Whtiworth made a move up. Trinity is the only team winning games they should that I can see. I will dig into it later in the week, but on the surface the West looks like not very many potentially dominant teams. Redlands?

#   School (1st votes)   Rec   Pts   Prev.
1   Cortland (25)   6-0   625   1
2   UW-La Crosse   0-0   554   2
3   Emory   9-2   553   3
4   Trinity (Texas)   9-2   531   7
5   Birmingham-Southern   8-2   477   8
6   Frostburg State   5-1   457   10
7   Salisbury   2-2   406   4
8   UW-Whitewater   0-0   393   9
9   Shenandoah   5-1   319   16
10   UW-Stevens Point   0-0   306   13
11   Kean   3-3   294   5
12   Southern Maine   0-0   276   15
13   Webster   4-3   271   6
14   Whitworth   11-0   252   -
15   Ramapo   2-0   227   18
16   Randolph-Macon   9-0   225   rv
17   Texas-Tyler   9-3   201   22
18   Mary Washington   8-0   191   rv
19   Marietta   3-1   189   24
20   Linfield   9-5   185   14
21   Berry   12-1   151   -
22   Wartburg   0-0   137   20
23   Wooster   0-0   127   21
24   Christopher Newport   8-0   125   -
25   Heidelberg   1-2   78   12

Dropped out: 11. Rhodes, 17. Pacific Lutheran, 19. Baldwin Wallace, 23. Methodist, 25. Alvernia

Concordia Chicago 72, Brockport 63, St. Thomas (Minn.) 56, Misericordia 40 , La Roche 38, Ohio Northern 34, Carthage 26, Baldwin Wallace 25, Methodist 24, Rhodes 21, Keystone 17, Alvernia 12, Bridgewater (Va.) 12, Coe 12, Buena Vista 11, Thomas More 11, MIT 11, Adrian 9, Centenary (La.) 8, Pacific Lutheran 8, Johns Hopkins 8, Ohio Wesleyan 6, Maryville (Tenn.) 5, Millsaps 5, St. Scholastica 5, Mt. St. Joseph 5, La Verne 4, Cal Lutheran 3, Huntingdon 2, Rutgers-Camden, Stevens 2, Texas Lutheran 2, Endicott 2, Brandeis 1, Tufts 1.

[Jack Parkman]

I have not dug too deep into the West but on the surface it seems little weaker than in previous years. PLU and Linfield dropping down, Chapman is in the dungeon, Tyler seems to be holding their own. CTX looks like a so-so team. TLU laid an egg over the weekend, CLU so-so. Whtiworth made a move up. Trinity is the only team winning games they should that I can see. I will dig into it later in the week, but on the surface the West looks like not very many potentially dominant teams. Redlands?

#   School (1st votes)   Rec   Pts   Prev.
1   Cortland (25)   6-0   625   1
2   UW-La Crosse   0-0   554   2
3   Emory   9-2   553   3
4   Trinity (Texas)   9-2   531   7
5   Birmingham-Southern   8-2   477   8
6   Frostburg State   5-1   457   10
7   Salisbury   2-2   406   4
8   UW-Whitewater   0-0   393   9
9   Shenandoah   5-1   319   16
10   UW-Stevens Point   0-0   306   13
11   Kean   3-3   294   5
12   Southern Maine   0-0   276   15
13   Webster   4-3   271   6
14   Whitworth   11-0   252   -
15   Ramapo   2-0   227   18
16   Randolph-Macon   9-0   225   rv
17   Texas-Tyler   9-3   201   22
18   Mary Washington   8-0   191   rv
19   Marietta   3-1   189   24
20   Linfield   9-5   185   14
21   Berry   12-1   151   -
22   Wartburg   0-0   137   20
23   Wooster   0-0   127   21
24   Christopher Newport   8-0   125   -
25   Heidelberg   1-2   78   12

Dropped out: 11. Rhodes, 17. Pacific Lutheran, 19. Baldwin Wallace, 23. Methodist, 25. Alvernia

Concordia Chicago 72, Brockport 63, St. Thomas (Minn.) 56, Misericordia 40 , La Roche 38, Ohio Northern 34, Carthage 26, Baldwin Wallace 25, Methodist 24, Rhodes 21, Keystone 17, Alvernia 12, Bridgewater (Va.) 12, Coe 12, Buena Vista 11, Thomas More 11, MIT 11, Adrian 9, Centenary (La.) 8, Pacific Lutheran 8, Johns Hopkins 8, Ohio Wesleyan 6, Maryville (Tenn.) 5, Millsaps 5, St. Scholastica 5, Mt. St. Joseph 5, La Verne 4, Cal Lutheran 3, Huntingdon 2, Rutgers-Camden, Stevens 2, Texas Lutheran 2, Endicott 2, Brandeis 1, Tufts 1.

I would agree with all of that.  It also makes me wonder if the West is getting stronger and teams are beating up on each other, or maybe there are only a handful of really good teams.  I saw UT Dallas play and thought they were pretty good but Trinity took care of them so maybe that says it all.

I would say the biggest disappointment so far is PLU.  There were/are a lot of high expectations for them and they are failing to live up to them. 

La Verne split 4 games with Linfield and PLU and have won 6 games against the 2 worst SCIAC teams.  They have a lot to prove in the next few weeks.

Redlands has been pretty good but I don't know if they have the pitching depth to make a deep run.  I am curious to see if Minjarez gets used too much and slows down.  He is without a doubt one of the top pitchers in the SCIAC.

Cal Lu had had a few really bad outings on the mound and that needs to be fixed if they plan on getting to a regional

Overall, I think Trinity is probably the 2nd best team in the country (behind Cortland).

[Whatagame]

Through 11 games, this year's Whitworth team is reminiscent of the '12 team that went to Appleton - actually a better overall team than that '12 squad.  That team could put-up runs, and had just enough pitching, really only one guy that was dominant, Scheibe, and he was a Frosh.  They had a 4.5 team ERA in '12, but outscored their opponents by almost 80 runs. The '12 offense, particularly from a power standpoint, was really dominated by one guy, Pfeffer.  This year's squad, overall, looks much more balanced offensively with more power spread throughout the line-up.  They're currently putting up a .959 team OPS.

Their one real quality win thus far is of course over Emory, and the remainder of their regular season schedule is all NWC play.

[infielddad]

I have not dug too deep into the West but on the surface it seems little weaker than in previous years. PLU and Linfield dropping down, Chapman is in the dungeon, Tyler seems to be holding their own. CTX looks like a so-so team. TLU laid an egg over the weekend, CLU so-so. Whtiworth made a move up. Trinity is the only team winning games they should that I can see. I will dig into it later in the week, but on the surface the West looks like not very many potentially dominant teams. Redlands?

#   School (1st votes)   Rec   Pts   Prev.
1   Cortland (25)   6-0   625   1
2   UW-La Crosse   0-0   554   2
3   Emory   9-2   553   3
4   Trinity (Texas)   9-2   531   7
5   Birmingham-Southern   8-2   477   8
6   Frostburg State   5-1   457   10
7   Salisbury   2-2   406   4
8   UW-Whitewater   0-0   393   9
9   Shenandoah   5-1   319   16
10   UW-Stevens Point   0-0   306   13
11   Kean   3-3   294   5
12   Southern Maine   0-0   276   15
13   Webster   4-3   271   6
14   Whitworth   11-0   252   -
15   Ramapo   2-0   227   18
16   Randolph-Macon   9-0   225   rv
17   Texas-Tyler   9-3   201   22
18   Mary Washington   8-0   191   rv
19   Marietta   3-1   189   24
20   Linfield   9-5   185   14
21   Berry   12-1   151   -
22   Wartburg   0-0   137   20
23   Wooster   0-0   127   21
24   Christopher Newport   8-0   125   -
25   Heidelberg   1-2   78   12

Dropped out: 11. Rhodes, 17. Pacific Lutheran, 19. Baldwin Wallace, 23. Methodist, 25. Alvernia

Concordia Chicago 72, Brockport 63, St. Thomas (Minn.) 56, Misericordia 40 , La Roche 38, Ohio Northern 34, Carthage 26, Baldwin Wallace 25, Methodist 24, Rhodes 21, Keystone 17, Alvernia 12, Bridgewater (Va.) 12, Coe 12, Buena Vista 11, Thomas More 11, MIT 11, Adrian 9, Centenary (La.) 8, Pacific Lutheran 8, Johns Hopkins 8, Ohio Wesleyan 6, Maryville (Tenn.) 5, Millsaps 5, St. Scholastica 5, Mt. St. Joseph 5, La Verne 4, Cal Lutheran 3, Huntingdon 2, Rutgers-Camden, Stevens 2, Texas Lutheran 2, Endicott 2, Brandeis 1, Tufts 1.

I would agree with all of that.  It also makes me wonder if the West is getting stronger and teams are beating up on each other, or maybe there are only a handful of really good teams.  I saw UT Dallas play and thought they were pretty good but Trinity took care of them so maybe that says it all.

I would say the biggest disappointment so far is PLU.  There were/are a lot of high expectations for them and they are failing to live up to them. 

La Verne split 4 games with Linfield and PLU and have won 6 games against the 2 worst SCIAC teams.  They have a lot to prove in the next few weeks.

Redlands has been pretty good but I don't know if they have the pitching depth to make a deep run.  I am curious to see if Minjarez gets used too much and slows down.  He is without a doubt one of the top pitchers in the SCIAC.

Cal Lu had had a few really bad outings on the mound and that needs to be fixed if they plan on getting to a regional

Overall, I think Trinity is probably the 2nd best team in the country (behind Cortland).

Trinity pounded Concordia tonight, 11-1. Troy Nelson, who I saw pitch against UT-Dallas and thought he was goooooood (in relief for one inning) went 6 1/3 and struck out 9.  Concordia made 6 errors in the box score so that makes things muddied but TU also had 13 hits and they went the entire length of the line up.  Nelson has huge upside on the mound, and apparently is equally comfortable starting and closing, so far. It is a long season but TU can be really good if they get really hungry and get younger guys to push the seniors really hard and play every game like the trip to Appleton depends on it.

[TexasBB]

I do not see Centenary College on this list anywhere.

They are 11-3 including 2 wins against UTT who is ranked 17th. 

Impressive start and will be a major factor in conference play. They are right up there with Trinity in the SCAC IMO.

[108 Stitches]

I agree, although their schedule has been a bit weak it looks like they played a competitive game vs BS. The last UTT game was against one of the UTT freshmen, but based on what I have seen so far Cent and Trinity as a step above the competition in the SCAC, but as TLU showed last weekend they are a scrappy and tough team, so you can't look past anyone. (as the Golden State Warriors learned last night) (had to throw in a shout out to my Lakers)

As a whole I think the West is down a bit this year in terms of the number of really high quality teams. At this point Trinity appears to be the most dominant, but if their pitching does not improve during the season they could easily get knocked off in a regional, as CLU learned a couple of years ago, a strong offense can get shut down with "number 1" class pitchers coming at you.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I do not see Centenary College on this list anywhere.

They are 11-3 including 2 wins against UTT who is ranked 17th. 

Impressive start and will be a major factor in conference play. They are right up there with Trinity in the SCAC IMO.

I will probably get slammed for this. But since Centenary does not have much of a D3 history, it may take a while for them to break in. It seems to me that most the teams that get rated, many of them have a history of success. I don't like it but many times that is the way it is. Once they start having regular success at the D3 level they will be mentioned more in these type of polls.

[BigPoppa]

I do not see Centenary College on this list anywhere.

They are 11-3 including 2 wins against UTT who is ranked 17th. 

Impressive start and will be a major factor in conference play. They are right up there with Trinity in the SCAC IMO.

I will probably get slammed for this. But since Centenary does not have much of a D3 history, it may take a while for them to break in. It seems to me that most the teams that get rated, many of them have a history of success. I don't like it but many times that is the way it is. Once they start having regular success at the D3 level they will be mentioned more in these type of polls.

Maybe, but Birmingham-Southern found itself in the mix right away when they entered D3 just a handful of seasons ago.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I do not see Centenary College on this list anywhere.

They are 11-3 including 2 wins against UTT who is ranked 17th. 

Impressive start and will be a major factor in conference play. They are right up there with Trinity in the SCAC IMO.

I will probably get slammed for this. But since Centenary does not have much of a D3 history, it may take a while for them to break in. It seems to me that most the teams that get rated, many of them have a history of success. I don't like it but many times that is the way it is. Once they start having regular success at the D3 level they will be mentioned more in these type of polls.

Maybe, but Birmingham-Southern found itself in the mix right away when they entered D3 just a handful of seasons ago.

Good catch I forgot about them. I remember that now that you mention it.

[Just_Some_Guy]

Overall, I think Trinity is probably the 2nd best team in the country (behind Cortland).

They will certainly be interesting to watch/likely in the hunt near the end of the season.

It's still early, but their starting pitching doesn't seem quite as dominant this year as it has been in years past.

Wins aren't a great stat for SP, but Gray was 11-0 in 18 starts over the last two years. His ERA was 2.00 last year. He's off to a 2-3 start with a 4.88 ERA this year.

That said, I think they brought back their entire starting lineup. Every single one of them from the previous year.

Wolf, McEachern, Moore, Jewett, Butler, Serkowski, Singer, Santos, Fehmel are all guys who have been contributing since their sophomore year - many in starting/prominent roles.

Add *another* senior, Andrew Waters, swinging a hot bat and this team is about as senior laden as they come.

JSG

[108 Stitches]

I think the issue with Centenary is their SOS. They have a bit of a problem due to their location and they fact that the school is small with more limited financial resources. Their program has historically been very competitive in the SCAC. Last year they had the best record and hosted the SCAC tournament and was one game from winning the SCAC. A couple of years ago they won the SCAC, but were not eligible for post season due to the D1 drop down, so they have been a very very good D3 baseball program. They will break through to a Regional one of these days and will continue to get recognition, but they have to play under the shadow of UTT, CTX and Trinity so it will take some time. They should be getting votes IMO.

[108 Stitches]

JSG,

They lost ~ 275 of their ~460 innings from last year and you don't replace those easily, and/or it takes time to develop a more inexperienced staff. Gray has historically struggled early in the season and with the past staffs it did not matter, with a limited staff it becomes more visible, he will get it together by the end of the season I am sure. They are not the second best team in the country  right now IMO, but can develop into a very tough team to beat if the pitching develops. (I thought they were as good a Corland last year and unfortunately ran into some scheduling and weather issues so we will never know)  From what I have seen looking at comments and schedules I think the West Regional will be a little easier this year than in the past, but again it is all about playing well at the end of the season, and there is TON's of baseball to be played.