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Who's Hot?

Publication Date: June 3, 2003

Momentum

Frequently this last week, I've been asked, "Hey, who's hot right now?" apparently by folks trying to get an edge in the office CWS pool or something. I have no idea, of course, but I wanted to run a quick study out to see if I could get a clue from past regional and super-regional pairs about whether regional performance could provide a clue. We only have 64 of the four-team regionals to work with in the current format, so any result would just be speculative at this point, but let's see what we get. There are only three possible records in the regional for the winning team, so what follows is the series records in the following supers for teams with each of the three records. Obviously, this includes some series where two teams with the same regional record played each other, so only the distance above or below .500 could be considered relevant. 

Regional Record    Super-Regional W-L

      3-0                 19-16
      3-1                  6-10
      4-1                  7-6

This is, at best, mildly interesting; any result that could be significantly changed by the results of a couple of third games can't be considered all the important. On the other hand, it matches my preconceptions -- it helps to be a really strong team to sweep the regional, you have to be fairly deep to come back from the loser's bracket, while taking two to win one on Sunday is the weakest of the alternatives. Just something to watch over the next few years, I guess.

Probabilities

Another interesting open question that we probably won't ever know the answer to is whether the home field advantage holds up the same in the postseason as it does in the regular season. The following numbers are based on neutral site estimates; if you believe the HFA applies, bump the home teams for this weekend up 6% or so to reach Omaha and 2% or so to win it all. 

Florida State              46  6
Texas                      54  9
Miami, Florida             51  3
North Carolina State       49  2
Ohio State                 49  0
Southwest Missouri State   51  1
Rice                       83 25
Houston                    17  1
Louisiana State            42  3
Baylor                     58  6
Cal State Fullerton        58 17
Arizona State              42  8
South Carolina             53  1
North Carolina             47  1
Stanford                   57 12
Long Beach State           43  7

Insert your own rant about the absurdity of the West Coast matchups here; I'm too tired tonight.

Pitch Count Watch

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.

Date   Team   Pitcher   Opponent   IP   H   R   ER   BB   SO   AB   BF   Pitches
May 22 Northeastern Justin Hedrick Vermont 9.0 3 1 1 7 15 31 38 158
May 30 Richmond Tim Stauffer UC Riverside 8.0 11 5 3 3 11 32 38 143 (*)
May 30 Missouri Justin James North Carolina 9.0 7 3 3 2 7 32 34 126
May 30 Stetson Adam Blair Georgia Tech 8.1 5 4 3 2 10 32 34 127
May 30 LeMoyne Brian Mattoon North Carolina State 7.0 13 5 5 1 9 33 37 131
May 30 Minnesota Glen Perkins Washington 8.0 10 4 4 3 5 34 39 151 (*)
May 30 Bucknell Kevin Miller Texas 7.0 7 7 6 4 3 26 33 120
May 30 Texas Justin Simmons Bucknell 9.0 4 0 0 2 5 30 34 127
May 30 Pepperdine Jacob Barrack Long Beach State 8.0 8 6 5 5 2 30 38 138 (*)
May 30 Southern D. Day Southern Mississippi 8.2 3 3 2 5 1 29 36 121
May 30 East Carolina Will Brinson South Carolina 7.1 11 4 3 0 9 31 32 125
May 30 Stanford Ryan McCally Illinois-Chicago 9.0 8 2 1 3 10 35 39 152 (*)
May 30 Mississippi T. J. Beam Wichita State 9.0 6 4 4 1 8 33 34 140
May 30 Central Connecticut State Lewis Pappariella Arizona State 5.0 11 9 8 5 3 26 33 126
May 30 Rice Philip Humber McNeese State 8.1 5 2 2 2 9 27 31 121
May 31 South Carolina David Marchbanks Stetson 9.0 11 2 2 0 4 35 37 133
May 31 Baylor Steven White Southern 7.2 7 3 3 5 9 29 34 121
May 31 Notre Dame Chris Niesel Cal State Fullerton 8.0 6 3 2 4 5 28 33 123
May 31 Stanford John Hudgins UC Riverside 9.0 8 6 6 2 12 34 37 131
May 31 UC Riverside A. J. Shappi Stanford 7.0 12 10 10 2 3 29 34 126
May 31 Southern Mississippi Cliff Russum Murray State 9.0 6 0 0 1 8 33 35 129
May 31 Southern Mississippi Stephen Castleman Southern 7.0 5 1 1 4 6 24 28 134
May 31 Louisiana State Nate Bumstead Tulane 7.2 9 4 4 2 5 31 34 121
May 31 Arizona State Beau Vaughan New Mexico State 6.1 4 0 0 4 8 23 27 126
May 31 New Mexico State Dustin Cameron Arizona State 6.2 3 3 3 6 3 22 30 132
Jun 1 Rice Wade Townsend Wichita State 8.0 7 2 2 0 8 30 30 131
Jun 1 Southwest Missouri State Bob Zimmerman Nebraska 9.0 5 0 0 0 7 32 32 121
Jun 1 South Carolina Steven Bondurant Stetson 7.0 8 3 3 2 8 28 30 123

(*) Pitch count is estimated.

As a positive antidote to the bile that builds up as I write these week after week, here's a great quote from Pepperdine coach Frank Sanchez after he pulled his starter as his pitch count approached 120 with a 5-2 lead in a game his team ended up losing 7-5, "It was a difficult decision. The pitch count was up and he was getting tired .... but I made the decision. You have to remember that you can't win at all costs and jeopardize someone's future." Unfortunately, good intentions aren't always enough, as he apparently left Barrack in too long on Friday night.

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