Alumni Game

[scane]

The current team beat the alumni 2-0. The word of the night offensively was underwhelming. Outside of RBI doubles from Romy and Jenkins, the hitting with runners on base was awful. All the popouts, foulouts, and strikeouts felt like last year. Hopefully this works itself out because we have more talent offensively than last year although it wasn't evident tonight. Escala and Jenkins both had good nights.

Pitching was solid. McKendry gave up quite a few hits but managed to work out of it (helped by poor alumni base running). The bullpen was great as expected.

The all-freshman infield didn't commit any official errors although there were a couple plays that should have been made. Romy threw a bullet from RF to cut down a runner at home.

Other stuff:
-Veliz and Bargfeldt pitched yesterday which past history says means they are the Friday and Saturday starters. McKendry starting means he should be the Sunday starter
-Tackett was the the DH
-Escala was the leadoff hitter which was one of my big questions going in. He did well in the role and can really move on the basepaths. He stole a base off Garrett Kennedy and scored from first on Jenkins' double
-Interestingly Amditis hit 7th and Toral hit 8th

 

[HurricaneVision]

Traditionally, freshmen aren't going to be big-time offensive producers. I have this team being improved offensively, but mainly because I expect a nice bump in OBP for the team, which is highly correlated with runs scored. In fact, there's a formula you can run with your OBP and get a run expectation.

I ran a query on unsigned Baseball America top-500 prospects and they tend to start very slowly in college. The hypothesis for this is easy; if they are toolsy players who do not get signed by the pros it's because those tools haven't actualized into performance yet. Generally, those players get much better in college and have nice careers, but the best top-500 guy to get to school as a hitter was Joe Davis, a catch for Houston, who had a wOBA of .423. Drew Mendoza was next at .420. The median was .327. For reference, the average wOBA for a team in the ACC was .370 last year, with Wake at .412 as a team and Virginia at .403.

Miami came in at .327, which is just beyond putrid.

This year, I used BB and K percentages to run percentages along with rates put up in summer leagues by our players (compared to peers) to compile projections. I projected Danny Reyes as our best hitter with a .425 wOBA and our team to have a combined .369 wOBA and .360 OBP. Both huge improvements over last year, but still merely middle-of-the-road in the ACC.

Our pitching will have to carry us and I have Bargfeldt experiencing some pretty heavy regression due to his K-BB% being pretty pedestrian and his FIP being a pretty poor 4.94 last year. I expect him to far outperform his FIP projection, as lefties tend to cause weaker contact and shut down the running game, but he will not repeat last year's numbers. The good news is that Veliz should take a huge step forward this year, McKendry is a solid Sunday guy, and the combination of Mediavilla/McMahon is much better than what we had last year. Losing McMahon hurts, as my model sees him being a star, but the bullpen depth more than makes up for that.

I have us finishing at 37-17 and with an RPI of .5633, which should see us return to a Regional, but probably not host this year.

 

[CaneJuice69]

Traditionally, freshmen aren't going to be big-time offensive producers. I have this team being improved offensively, but mainly because I expect a nice bump in OBP for the team, which is highly correlated with runs scored. In fact, there's a formula you can run with your OBP and get a run expectation.

I ran a query on unsigned Baseball America top-500 prospects and they tend to start very slowly in college. The hypothesis for this is easy; if they are toolsy players who do not get signed by the pros it's because those tools haven't actualized into performance yet. Generally, those players get much better in college and have nice careers, but the best top-500 guy to get to school as a hitter was Joe Davis, a catch for Houston, who had a wOBA of .423. Drew Mendoza was next at .420. The median was .327. For reference, the average wOBA for a team in the ACC was .370 last year, with Wake at .412 as a team and Virginia at .403.

Miami came in at .327, which is just beyond putrid.

This year, I used BB and K percentages to run percentages along with rates put up in summer leagues by our players (compared to peers) to compile projections. I projected Danny Reyes as our best hitter with a .425 wOBA and our team to have a combined .369 wOBA and .360 OBP. Both huge improvements over last year, but still merely middle-of-the-road in the ACC.

Our pitching will have to carry us and I have Bargfeldt experiencing some pretty heavy regression due to his K-BB% being pretty pedestrian and his FIP being a pretty poor 4.94 last year. I expect him to far outperform his FIP projection, as lefties tend to cause weaker contact and shut down the running game, but he will not repeat last year's numbers. The good news is that Veliz should take a huge step forward this year, McKendry is a solid Sunday guy, and the combination of Mediavilla/McMahon is much better than what we had last year. Losing McMahon hurts, as my model sees him being a star, but the bullpen depth more than makes up for that.

I have us finishing at 37-17 and with an RPI of .5633, which should see us return to a Regional, but probably not host this year.

Wow man, I'll sign for that right now! I'm not a big Morris fan but definitely rooting for him to finish on the highest of notes.