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The 2005 Tournament Field

What's so civil about war, anyway? -- GnR

I hate to be an alarmist (OK, I don't really, but I don't relish the role either), but I'm afraid we're heading for a fall. The game is growing nicely -- not too fast, so it gets out of control, but at a good, strong rate. Lots of people, of course, are going to want pieces of that larger pie, and the ones who contribute to it are entitled to a fair slice. We've already got the Northern teams threatening to secede over scheduling, and they got essentially none of their demands over the last year as the proposal for moving the season was summarily dismissed by one of those shadowy NCAA committee we all love so much. That's a beginning, but after seeing the particularly egregious mistreatment of the West in this year's field, I think we're headed down a road where the West Coast breaks away and starts their own party as well. Hopefully, it doesn't come to that and some of the needed reforms are made -- replacing the RPI, getting more Western representation on the committee, and creating a more transparent selection process would be a good start -- but right now we're headed for trouble, and it won't be long coming. On to the specifics of this year's mess.

I'll have a table included in my discussion of each regional, so I need to describe the columns.

W-L -- Won-loss record
RPI -- Pseudo-RPI ranking
ISR -- ISR ranking
Probs -- The probability of the team winning the regional, super-regional, and championship, respectively, according to the method based on ISR gaps I usually use.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Tulane                   50- 9    1    3  74/52/11
Alabama                  38-21   30   33  16/ 7/ 0
Louisiana-Lafayette      47-17   41   45  11/ 4/ 0
Southern                 29-16  144  167   0/ 0/ 0

Tulane's in the group of four that could be the best in the country, so they're OK here as the national #1. The other three seeds are also defensible, and Alabama's even one of the lower #2 seeds. The rematch with LSU is both dramatic and fair. Hey, this is OK! The fact that all the teams involved are from the Southeast probably helped. There's a theory I have that a lot of this stuff is purely a matter of familiarity by the committee -- they just plain don't know how good Cal Poly is, for example, one way or the other.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Louisiana State          38-20   15   18  41/16/ 1
Rice                     41-17   25   12  39/16/ 1
Northwestern State       40-18   38   40  19/ 6/ 0
Marist                   33-19  128  156   1/ 0/ 0

The beauty of this last week is that the past isn't dead, it isn't really even past. In 2001, a wonderful freshman pitcher named Lane Mestepey was run out for some absolutely horrific pitch counts, culminating in starting the first and third games of the LSU-Tulane superregional series. He survived enough to pitch the 2002 season but had to have the death sentence for a pitcher after that, undergoing shoulder surgery (return rates for shoulder surgery are much, much lower than for elbow surgery). Last Wednesday, the remaining tatters of Lane Mestepey's arm didn't make it out of the first inning against Mississippi State, sending LSU into an elimination game against Tennessee's All-World ace Luke Hochevar. LSU bounced out on that one, dropping them away from a national #1 seed and dooming them to go back to Tulane if they survive this weekend, where they'll be a heavy underdog.

Rice deserved better than this but were hit by the RPI; they're essentially co-favorites here.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Oregon State             41- 9   13    1  86/58/20
Virginia                 41-18   24   51   9/ 2/ 0
St. John's               39-16   55  100   1/ 0/ 0
Ohio State               39-18   64   69   4/ 1/ 0

OSU was treated much better than I expected here, albeit somewhat unintentionally. They were given a deserved national #1 seed, allowed to host, and given laughably easy #2 and #3 seeds (St. John's appears to be the first snow bid in a couple of years). The fly in the ointment is below.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Long Beach State         36-20   17    7  41/16/ 3
Southern California      37-19   16    5  35/15/ 3
Pepperdine               38-21   34   10  24/ 9/ 1
Rhode Island             34-19   90  136   0/ 0/ 0

The good news is that Beach got to host (although that's probably so they had a place to park all the California teams they couldn't squeeze into Fullerton). The bad news -- well, look at that ISR column. From a spectator point of view, I suppose it's nice that you have three of the top ten teams in the country meeting somewhere besides Omaha, but it's not exactly good from a fairness point of view. The fifth-best team in the country has a roughly 15% chance of getting to Omaha, and almost no chance of winning it all. This just cements my recent contention that Pepperdine has been the most mistreated team in the country in recent years. Add to this the fact that the winner of this bloodbath gets to go to Corvallis to face what should be a well-rested Oregon State team, and it just gets worse.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Baylor                   39-21    5    9  46/28/ 3
Texas Christian          40-18   28   28  22/11/ 0
Stanford                 32-23   39   16  30/16/ 1
Texas-San Antonio        27-32  132  108   2/ 0/ 0

Baylor's OK -- they're on the edge between the national and non-national #1's, so there's no real complaint there. TCU is a good solid #2 whose RPI matches their ISR, so things are looking good. At #3 -- whoa, the wheels just left the track. OK, they're not quite as good as usual, so you're going to stick them (and Baylor, and TCU, and Clemson) with a #3 seed?

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Clemson                  39-21    6   20  52/25/ 1
College of Charleston    47-13   10   21  38/18/ 1
Oral Roberts             40-18   69   71   9/ 2/ 0
North Carolina A&T       27-25  228  214   0/ 0/ 0

When the revolution comes, it'll be misaimed. That's unfortunate. The SEC gets everyone's attention because of the huge number of bids. If you'll look at the ISR's, though, the conference isn't particularly being overrewarded -- some of the seeds come out too high because of the RPI some years, but teams like this year's Vandy squad get unfairly left out, so it's about even. The ACC, on the other hand -- they're first against the wall, with the Southern mid-major conferences in line behind them.

The College of Charleston seeding provides an interesting case study. It's fair, in a real quality sense, but there's absolutely no reason from the traditional standards used that they wouldn't have been swapped with Coastal Carolina other than that the committee didn't start paying attention to them until last week.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Mississippi              44-18    4    6  64/33/ 5
Southern Mississippi     41-19   33   37  20/ 7/ 0
Oklahoma                 33-24   40   44  15/ 4/ 0
Maine                    34-17   98  155   1/ 0/ 0

This one's good; nothing to see here. Once again, the problem is below.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Texas                    45-14    3    4  71/44/ 8
Arkansas                 37-20   22   26  22/10/ 1
Miami, Ohio              44-16   43   58   7/ 2/ 0
Quinnipiac               26-22  166  205   0/ 0/ 0

In attacking the list of reasons why they make mistakes, can we just try to hide the conference standings from the committee? Every team has lapses; it's the nature of the sport. Because Texas had their two lapses on conference weekends, Ole Miss gets a much less fair shot at Omaha than they earned.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Georgia Tech             42-16    2   14  52/32/ 3
South Carolina           38-21   32   38  27/14/ 1
Michigan                 41-17   46   52  17/ 7/ 0
Furman                   30-27  102  109   4/ 1/ 0

See Clemson, and note that the cumulative probabilities mean that we probably get more of those Baseball America stories about how the ACC keeps choking in the postseason when they're just playing to their ability level. It's not that they're choking; it's that they shouldn't be #1 seeds (or national seeds instead of non-national) in the first place.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Tennessee                41-19   29   36  36/17/ 1
Winthrop                 43-20   20   39  28/13/ 0
Wichita State            49-22   36   35  32/15/ 1
Austin Peay State        38-22  142  114   4/ 1/ 0

Wow, what a stinky field. This is the one of the two cases where the SEC gets overseeded, although this one's not due to the RPI; it's the conference standing fetish.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Florida                  40-20    9   19  47/28/ 2
North Carolina           40-17    8   30  39/21/ 1
Notre Dame               36-22   60  101   6/ 1/ 0
Stetson                  35-26   57   89   8/ 2/ 0

Here's the other; this one is RPI-based. The odd thing is that they don't do the same for UNC; I suppose that's conference standing-based. If anyone can explain why Notre Dame and Stetson are in the order they're in, let me know.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Florida State            50-18   23   24  52/28/ 2
Auburn                   32-24   19   43  31/14/ 0
South Alabama            35-25   51   74  13/ 4/ 0
Army                     38-12   95  127   4/ 1/ 0

Oops, there's a third -- Auburn should properly be a #3. So here, you've got a #2, a #3, and two #4's. On the other hand, you can't actually fly into Tallahassee without going around the world, so it wasn't all that tempting anyway.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Nebraska                 51-13   18    8  54/35/ 5
North Carolina State     40-17   12   31  23/12/ 1
Creighton                46-15   48   34  11/ 5/ 0
Illinois-Chicago         38-19  149  116   0/ 0/ 0

They seem to have gotten this one right in spite of the RPI's; this one's actually fair all the way up and down the line. Nebraska would have brought this problem on themselves if they hadn't, since they scheduled all of Hilo and both Dakota States, which cost them quite a bit RPI-wise.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Miami, Florida           38-17    7   27  44/20/ 1
Mississippi State        40-20   21   29  37/17/ 1
Florida Atlantic         36-22   37   57  16/ 5/ 0
Virginia Commonwealth    33-20   99  132   3/ 0/ 0

This will be an interesting study in momentum. Miami and MSU should be almost perfectly matched according to the ISR's. On the other hand, the Canes have lost five straight and looked absolutely awful doing so, while MSU blew through Birmingham, giving up seven runs in four games.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Cal State Fullerton      41-15   11    2  66/50/16
Arizona                  37-19   35   11  22/13/ 2
Missouri                 39-21   49   42   8/ 3/ 0
Harvard                  29-15   96  152   0/ 0/ 0

Arizona is apparently being punished for withdrawing their hosting bid due to concerns over attendance. How that's any of the committee's business is beyond me. Their season, which has been quite strong although their schedule was surprisingly weak for a West Coast team, will go largely unnoticed unless they pull off the upset.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR   Probs

Coastal Carolina         48-14   14   25  35/11/ 1
Arizona State            34-22   27   15  43/17/ 2
East Carolina            35-24   44   54  14/ 3/ 0
Nevada-Las Vegas         34-27  109   82   8/ 1/ 0

"If we overseed these guys because of their RPI and underseed these guys because of theirs but send the first guys to the second guys' home, will anybody notice?" ECU's a little better than UNLV, but that's the only reason the mistakes here really matter.

                          W-L   RPI  ISR

Cal Poly                 36-20        13
San Francisco            38-18        17
California               34-23        22
Washington               31-22        23
UC Irvine                31-25        32
Vanderbilt               34-21        41

As far as I can tell, Cal Poly and San Francisco are the two best teams to be left out of the tournament since the field expansion in 1999. They're better than seven of the sixteen #1 seeds. This is wrong, pure and simple, as is the omission of the other three Western teams here, and it has to change, before we're tracking three different national tournaments.

Rather than keep returning to the subject of pitch counts and pitcher usage in general too often for my main theme, I'm just going to run a standard feature down here where I point out potential problems; feel free to stop reading above this if the subject doesn't interest you. This will just be a quick listing of questionable starts that have caught my eye -- the general threshold for listing is 120 actual pitches or 130 estimated, although short rest will also get a pitcher listed if I catch it. Don't blame me; I'm just the messenger.

(*) Pitch count is estimated.

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Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> The 2005 Tournament Field

About the author, Boyd Nation