2024 Season Notes

Like I said before, Stone is a bad mamaJama....  Caron and Carey hitting well too....  

I like the bats,,,   and the starting pitching has been pretty good.  It's not as if the Bullpen has been entering games because of shaky starting pitching.

The bullpen been coming in during games being down a few runs late in games, because we go through droughts at the plate. 

However, the big key hits during the late innings has been remarkable so far.  

 
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South Alabama is currently 10-2, seemingly (though mostly lower level competition) a good pitching group. Offensively, they manufacture runs old school. Overall they're team OBP is very respectable at .426 while allowing only opponent OB% at .315.. 24 stolen bases in 35 attempts (again old school gaming) is very respectable. Only 8 dingers on the year. 

Weather projected to be cooler this weekend Friday 49° with 40% showers, Sat 51° (expecting a doubleheader here) and Sunday 59°... I expect this weekend series to be pitchers duels in game 1 & 2, the Sunday game might be different however South Alabama isn't giving up runs on Sunday either.. We need another sweep here. Then a 2 game midweek series with Wichita State where at worst we need a split. If we do that, head into the final weekend of non-conference with a 11 - 4 (at worst) record I will be elated!! 

 
lol, some teams make me scratch my head. Like today and Notre Dame throwing its Friday starter for the first 3 innings (50 TP, 12 batters faced). Why when your weekend opponent is a conference game and is playing very competitive baseball against very respectable competition?  Grant it, they are facing a B1G team (Purdue) that will likely have a reasonably good RPI at years end but they're home, with a 3 set conference match this weekend. Surprises me.. 

 
Loebarth said:
lol, some teams make me scratch my head. Like today and Notre Dame throwing its Friday starter for the first 3 innings (50 TP, 12 batters faced). Why when your weekend opponent is a conference game and is playing very competitive baseball against very respectable competition?  Grant it, they are facing a B1G team (Purdue) that will likely have a reasonably good RPI at years end but they're home, with a 3 set conference match this weekend. Surprises me.. 
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I agree. I like what Childress is doing. Because of the rain out last Friday, he is keeping his guys on normal early season rest. Christo is going Friday and they are keeping Sears on his normal early season recovery and moving him to Saturday this weekend. Too early to be messing around with guys like you suggested with ND

 
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This (moving the season start to march) won't help northern schools. The biggest issue with north conference baseball is the lack of promotion. In the south and southwest baseball is a year round sport. (well, almost) It's promoted in the south much more than the north for several reasons. MLB spring ball is in the south. Weather in the south is more suited for baseball than in the north. Attendance at all levels in the south is higher than the north. (some of that has to do with lack of media exposure in the north). So just moving the start of the season won't help northern schools. The southern schools, especially now with NIL cost issues, will not travel (or only rarely travel) north for home & home match ups. 

The issue with Division 1 baseball fairness is, like it or not, money driven. The money in the sport is in the warm weather climates and the cold weather climate conferences just don't have any interest in investing in the sport. Now, if by moving the season start to March creates incentive for north conferences to invest and they actually do invest, then yes.. Move the start but and however, until the north conferences (especially the B1G) actually show investment, the start will change simply won't happen nor would it benefit us in the north if it did happen. The theory of.. "start the season later in the spring to make it more fair to the north" is simply not truth. 

and.. My reaction to the poll is a sounding NO.. Give the young athletes the summer to play camp ball and get away from college. They deserve to have a summer break just like the rest of college students so my vote would be no.

 
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So, last night as I was watching the oogles of Basketball being played in preparation of bracketology my head, in it's stupidness, pondered how (if I could) would I bring more fairness to northern schools in baseball. I went through it in my head as well as I could. From starting the season mid-March vs mid-February but that wouldn't be enough on its own so I thought, let's incentivize travel to the northern schools by adding quad like points but quickly scratched that idea. So, still including a Mid-March start I then though "ok" lets limit the amount of teams one conference can place in the field of 64 to (6 max). I could live with that though it might come back and bite Nebraska in the butt. (not likely as rarely will the B1G get to that number right?) umm... wait, USC/Oregon/Washington/UCLA and possibly/probably Notre Dame not to mention, maybe Florida State and either Miami or Clemson.. Yeah... scratch the 6 team idea. In fact, scratch it all and keep it as is but then, something from nowhere hit me.. A light bulb flashed and I was like.. Oh wow, this could work however, the SEC is not going to like it. (but then when do they ever like anything they didn't think of, right?) 

So, to begin, lets scratch the Mid-March idea as well. I think everyone involved in d1 baseball likes the season ending when it currently does so players have a little time off, they then travel out to a developmental league for a few weeks and return to start the fall session of college. Starting in Mid-March just doesn't make sense. Instead and because it appears the mid-feb start is in concrete and northern schools will need to travel south, schedules will still favor the southern home schools. However, if you can't make changes to the "Regular Season", look elsewhere, to the "Post Season".  

Instead of forcing northern schools to travel to all these awarded southern school locations to faceoff against hostile home crowds curtail the playoffs to a "Mason/Dixon" type line. Teams south of the line from coast to coast travel the southern regionals and likewise, teams from north of the line travel to northern regionals. That equates to 8 regionals in the south, 8 in the north. Then take it another step further and keep 4 super regionals in each group of above/below the line and reshuffle the seatings as to avoid rematches if/when possible. Now, 4 winners from north of the line proceed to the CWS, 4 from below the line proceed to the CWS. 

The CWS play

Day 1 Play: #1 vs the #4 and #2 vs #3 seated teams of the north group. 

Day 2 Play: #1 vs the #4 and #2 vs #3 seated teams of the south group.

Day 3 Play: Day 1 winners face off followed by Day 1 losers (1 team is eliminated)

Day 4 Play: Day 2 winners face off followed by Day 2 losers (1 team is eliminated)

Now is where the ultimate fairness comes in. The 2 win teams of the above and below get a buy as would be expected.

The losers of the winners brackets swaps brackets. (This gives them an opportunity to meet the winner of their original bracket in the championship)

Day 5: Swap occurs, loser bracket winner vs loser in the winners bracket. (2 games, total also creating 2 teams elimination)

Day 6: Semi Finals, Day 2 winner vs loser bracket winner (2 games)

Day 7: if needed, rematch from day 6 games to meet double elimination requirements.

Day 8 Championship Game 1

Day 9 Championship Game 2

Day 10 if needed, Championship Game 3

 
Loebarth said:
So, last night as I was watching the oogles of Basketball being played in preparation of bracketology my head, in it's stupidness, pondered how (if I could) would I bring more fairness to northern schools in baseball. I went through it in my head as well as I could. From starting the season mid-March vs mid-February but that wouldn't be enough on its own so I thought, let's incentivize travel to the northern schools by adding quad like points but quickly scratched that idea. So, still including a Mid-March start I then though "ok" lets limit the amount of teams one conference can place in the field of 64 to (6 max). I could live with that though it might come back and bite Nebraska in the butt. (not likely as rarely will the B1G get to that number right?) umm... wait, USC/Oregon/Washington/UCLA and possibly/probably Notre Dame not to mention, maybe Florida State and either Miami or Clemson.. Yeah... scratch the 6 team idea. In fact, scratch it all and keep it as is but then, something from nowhere hit me.. A light bulb flashed and I was like.. Oh wow, this could work however, the SEC is not going to like it. (but then when do they ever like anything they didn't think of, right?) 

So, to begin, lets scratch the Mid-March idea as well. I think everyone involved in d1 baseball likes the season ending when it currently does so players have a little time off, they then travel out to a developmental league for a few weeks and return to start the fall session of college. Starting in Mid-March just doesn't make sense. Instead and because it appears the mid-feb start is in concrete and northern schools will need to travel south, schedules will still favor the southern home schools. However, if you can't make changes to the "Regular Season", look elsewhere, to the "Post Season".  

Instead of forcing northern schools to travel to all these awarded southern school locations to faceoff against hostile home crowds curtail the playoffs to a "Mason/Dixon" type line. Teams south of the line from coast to coast travel the southern regionals and likewise, teams from north of the line travel to northern regionals. That equates to 8 regionals in the south, 8 in the north. Then take it another step further and keep 4 super regionals in each group of above/below the line and reshuffle the seatings as to avoid rematches if/when possible. Now, 4 winners from north of the line proceed to the CWS, 4 from below the line proceed to the CWS. 

The CWS play

Day 1 Play: #1 vs the #4 and #2 vs #3 seated teams of the north group. 

Day 2 Play: #1 vs the #4 and #2 vs #3 seated teams of the south group.

Day 3 Play: Day 1 winners face off followed by Day 1 losers (1 team is eliminated)

Day 4 Play: Day 2 winners face off followed by Day 2 losers (1 team is eliminated)

Now is where the ultimate fairness comes in. The 2 win teams of the above and below get a buy as would be expected.

The losers of the winners brackets swaps brackets. (This gives them an opportunity to meet the winner of their original bracket in the championship)

Day 5: Swap occurs, loser bracket winner vs loser in the winners bracket. (2 games, total also creating 2 teams elimination)

Day 6: Semi Finals, Day 2 winner vs loser bracket winner (2 games)

Day 7: if needed, rematch from day 6 games to meet double elimination requirements.

Day 8 Championship Game 1

Day 9 Championship Game 2

Day 10 if needed, Championship Game 3
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I like your insight

 
and... Not to get anyone's hopes up but there's this also: (LINK) If this prediction holds.. we can bank on at least a regional. Win the conference and maybe a Super... gotta stay focused and keep winning though.

Predicted RPI and Final Record.png

 
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