Now that my mlb season is over, I’ll turn my attention back to the college game. Feels good having ND back in the picture in the C acc. I hope we can keep it going
Jacksonville University, with a 7-18 record and 0-6 in the Atlantic Sun Conference, takes one from FSU 8-7 after the Noles blow three leads They had a guy hit three homers, gotta love midweek baseball
couple other big upsets last night USC Upstate with a 9-3 W over GT Gonzaga with a 5-1 W over Oregon St UK with a 11-7 W over Louisville. Cats are now 19-7 overall. They host LSU, go to UGA and then host Bama over the next three weeks before finishing with UT/UF/SC/VU. They need to give themselves some kind of buffer over the next three weeks because there are some potential sweeps on the back end of their schedule the Arizona offense is really really good. They beat ASU 14-2 last night. Zona tallied 13 hits and drew 10 walks to boot. Their offense and the OSU pitching staff seem to be the really scary threats out West this season. Stanford seems pretty solid though, they beat Cal 4-3 yesterday and are now 17-5 overall and 4-2 in Pac-12 play VU's 5-4 W over UT-Martin was the 23rd straight mid-week W for the Dores. Pretty amazing given all the variance in mid-week play
FanGraphs with some scouting notes on Fabian, Niko Kavadas, Brannon Jordan and some kid from Maine. Laughed at the comments about having to scout in Maine https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-wednesday-scouting-notebook-4-7-2021/
Indiana baseball has had more recent success. Plus we’ve played mostly the bottom of the conference so far.
Vandy hosting Georgia on SEC Network tonight at 7 ET. Rocker will be on the mound Can someone post the D1 feature below? Tia
Could this be the best weekend of the season?? FSU @ Louisville Florida @ Tennessee GT @ ND UCLA @ Stanford Arkansas @ Ole Miss TCU @ TTU Miami @ Pitt Ohio St @ Michigan Oregon St @ Oregon LA Tech/Rice, ECU/Memphis, VT/WF and Duke/UNC all interesting as well
Three weekends to finish building the resume right? I mean I understand you have to play conference championships because of TV money, but honestly I’m starting a long reliever and trying to get eliminated from that thing asap
Formatting on this might be terrible, but here you go! Spoiler Midseason Report: Louisville’s Davis, Vandy’s Leiter Lead First-Half Award Winners ANALYSIS Aaron Fitt - April 8, 2021 SEE ALSO: Midseason Report: Projected Field of 64 With seven weeks in the books and seven more to play before most leagues enter conference tournaments, we’ve reached the rough halfway point for the 2021 college baseball season. It’s been an unusual spring filled with COVID-related challenges, but we’re grateful to have baseball back in our lives, and there have been plenty of standout performers worth recognizing. Today we take a step back and look at some of the top players, teams and storylines of the season’s first half. Midseason Top Player Henry Davis, Louisville Few players have filled up the stat line like Davis — and he’s doing it while playing strong defense at catcher, the most demanding position on the field. Through 100 at-bats over 27 games, Davis is hitting .390/.496/.700 with eight homers, seven doubles, 32 RBIs, and even eight stolen bases in nine tries. He’s controlling the strike zone well, with 18 walks against 10 strikeouts. And he’s fielding .995 with just two passed balls and has thrown out a whopping 50 percent of basestealers (9 of 18). What more could he possibly do to provide more value for the No. 7 Cardinals? Our scouting director David Seifert was suitably impressed after watching Davis for a weekend in March, writing this about the backstop: Standing 6-foot-2, 210-pounds and aggressively wired in every aspect of the game, Davis leads the Cardinals from behind the dish. With a 70-grade arm, short footwork, accurate throws and POP times in the 1.8-1.9s there is little doubt about Davis’ ability to stop the run game. With super athletic feet there is also little doubt about his blocking skills. However, the industry does have concerns about his receiving, especially after a rough weekend earlier this spring at Georgia Tech. On this look I have no such concerns. For me, it’s nothing more than just a little more work to add some finishing polish. And work ethic is not a concern with Davis. He’s a competitor with the ability to grind. Adding to his defensive package are above average speed (stole a pair of bases in the series and is 7-for-7 this season), hit ability (.407 batting average this season with nine walks vs. three strikeouts) and above average power potential (four home runs, three doubles with a .685 SLG% to date this spring). He’s the complete package, a lock first rounder and a top 10 overall pick for me. He possesses a ceiling of a ML All-Star and is one of my favorite prospects for the 2021 draft. Midseason Top Pitcher Jack Leiter, Vanderbilt Leiter’s first-half numbers are legitimately comical. Seriously, good luck reading this stat line without laughing in amazement: in seven starts, Leiter is 7-0, 0.43 with 71 strikeouts against 16 walks in 42 innings. Opponents are hitting .074 against him. A second-year freshman, Leiter never got a chance to compete against the SEC last year because the season was canceled right before SEC opening weekend — but he wasted no time establishing himself as utterly dominant in the best college baseball league in the country this spring. First he turned in the performance of the year in his first career SEC game, striking out 16 in a no-hitter against South Carolina. He issued a leadoff walk in that game and then retired the next 27 batters in a row. He followed it up with seven more innings of no-hit ball a week later at Missouri. He kept that hitless streak going through four innings a week later against LSU, resulting in this ridiculous stretch across those three games: he faced 69 batters in those 20 innings, and they were a combined 0-for-63 against him with 37 strikeouts and six walks. Jack Leiter, Vandy (Vandy athletics) Leiter is known for a hammer curveball and a quality slider in addition to an explosive fastball, but remarkably he dominated in that no-hitter against South Carolina even without his best feel for the secondary stuff. Seifert was on hand for that game and offered this breakdown of the performance of the year, and Leiter’s overall prospect status: His fastball was unhittable as the Gamecocks just couldn’t get to it. Try squaring up a lightning bolt as it shoots from the sky. The combination of velocity, release point, location and riding life made the pitch play as well as any fastball this side of Josh Hader. And similar to a Hader heater, the hitters knew it was coming and still couldn’t put it in play very often. Leiter allowed hard contact to only three batters and struck out five of the first seven and six of the last eight batters he faced. In total he threw 124 pitches, 81 for strikes in what was only his eighth start in a Commodore uniform. It was also his first start that lasted more than five innings during his college career. Similar to the previous weekend’s 97-pitch start at Oklahoma State, Leiter pitched without his best stuff. With an average velocity around 94 mph Leiter showed that he could reach back for 96-97 at any time. His last two pitches of the eighth were 97 mph heaters, blowing them by cleanup hitter Wes Clarke. Leiter’s typically dominant 78-81 mph curveball did not show well in this start as he struggled throughout to find the feel, either bouncing 57-footers or floating up in the zone for most of his start. He was able to land a couple good ones in the seventh inning, but that was the best his curve had to offer on this day. Instead he reverted to an 83-84 mph slider that was plus at times and hard for hitters to recognize out of his hand. But again, neither bender was near his normal high-end hammers. With bonus demands being equal, Leiter will give the Pirates something to think about if their decision boils down to Rocker vs Leiter. At his best, Leiter is a potential ace with his FB / CB combo and is drawing comparisons to Trevor Bauer. Digging into the data: Leiter’s fastball has the ideal Wiff combination of higher induced vertical break and a flatter or more shallow Vertical Approach Angle into the front of home plate for his release slot. Adding to this strength, he has the command to elevate and take advantage of this unique combination. Midseason All-America Team Position Name, School Year AVG OPS AB 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB C Henry Davis, Louisville 3YR SO .390/.496/.700 1.196 100 7 0 8 32 18 10 8 1B Tyler Hardman, Oklahoma 4YR JR .468/.562/.784 1.346 111 10 2 7 30 23 27 0 2B Jace Jung, Texas Tech 2YR FR .388/.496/.786 1.282 98 6 0 11 35 21 22 1 3B Tyler Locklear, VCU 2YR FR .315/.475/.783 1.258 92 3 2 12 31 18 22 4 SS Brooks Lee, Cal Poly 2YR FR .357/.377/.694 1.071 98 11 2 6 30 5 12 0 OF Dru Baker, Texas Tech 3YR SO .427/.500/.563 1.063 103 6 1 2 15 14 16 11 OF Dylan Crews, LSU 1YR FR .367/.473/.651 1.124 109 7 0 8 15 20 19 7 OF Sal Frelick, Boston College 3YR SO .381/.445/.619 1.064 113 10 1 5 19 12 14 6 DH Niko Kavadas, Notre Dame 4YR JR .333/.470/.933 1.403 60 3 0 11 28 18 15 1 UT Spencer Schwellenbach, Nebraska 3YR SO .353/.457/.588 1.045 68 7 0 3 14 10 12 2 Position Name Year W L ERA G SV IP BB SO OBA SP Geremy Guerrero, Indiana State 5YR SR 5 0 1.13 6 0 39.2 6 51 .156 SP Gunnar Hoglund, Ole Miss 3YR SO 3 1 2.47 7 0 43.2 11 70 .194 SP Jack Leiter, Vanderbilt 2YR FR 7 0 0.43 7 0 42 16 71 .074 SP Ty Madden, Texas 3YR SO 4 1 1.52 7 0 47.1 15 55 .168 SP Kumar Rocker, Vanderbilt 3YR SO 7 0 0.84 7 0 43 12 61 .137 RP Carson Palmquist, Miami 2YR FR 0 0 0.87 11 9 20.2 3 35 .103 RP Landon Sims, Mississippi State 2YR FR 2 0 0.47 8 2 19.1 7 39 .149 UT Spencer Schwellenbach, Nebraska 3YR SO 0 0 0.00 6 4 7 0 11 .200 Midseason Top Freshman Kevin Parada, Georgia Tech One of the highest-ranked recruits to show up on a college campus this, Parada has been every bit as good as advertised, and then some. It’s easy to see why he generated some top-50-picks buzz for the 2020 draft. Parada has put up some of the best offensive numbers of any freshman in the country, hitting .406/.452/.698 with five homers, nine doubles and 22 RBIs in 96 at-bats — and he’s done it while playing a premium defensive position. Georgia Tech has a proud tradition of producing elite catchers, from Jason Varitek to Matt Wieters to Joey Bart, and Parada looks like the next in that lineage. Georgia Tech’s Kevin Parada (Aaron Fitt) Parada showed off his resilience and maturity in my look at the Yellow Jackets in late February at NC State: The other big young gun in the heart of the order is Parada, who went 4-for-4 in the opening game of the series, a 9-2 Georgia Tech win that was suspended in the ninth Friday and concluded on Saturday. That made Parada 8-for-8 over his last two games heading into Game Two of the NC State series on Saturday, prompting Tech to move him up to the No. 3 hole, right in front of cleanup man Compton. And Parada proceeded to strike out in each of his first three at-bats. “That was all you need to know about the guy. Most freshmen that I know, if they strike out three times in a game they’re hanging their head and feeling sorry for themselves, but not Kevin Parada,” [coach Danny] Hall said. “He’s a gamer, a battler, a really knowledgable baseball player.” So when Parada came up in the seventh, he jumped on a Willadsen changeup for a laser homer to left, the third of Tech’s back-to-back-to-back homers. HONORABLE MENTION: LSU’s Dylan Crews, Arizona’s Jacob Berry Midseason Top Coach Link Jarrett, Notre Dame We were already impressed with the turnaround Jarrett orchestrated in his first spring at Notre Dame, leading the Irish to an 11-2 start and a road sweep of North Carolina in the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. But as impressive as that four-week stint was, we were skeptical of Notre Dame’s staying power — and we picked the Irish to finish 13th in the 14-team ACC in 2021. Boy, is there egg on our face. The Fighting Irish just keep on winning. In fact, they have yet to lose a weekend this season, going 13-5 overall and 12-5 in ACC play. Even more impressive, Notre Dame’s first three series wins (at Wake Forest, Clemson and Virginia) came on the road, as did a Week Seven series win at No. 24 Pittsburgh. The Notre Dame coaching staff is doing a masterful job stretching its resources on the mound, and the disciplined offensive approach they have instilled in all their hitters makes this lineup extremely difficult to navigate. As I wrote after seeing the Irish win the rubber game at Clemson earlier this season: But it isn’t star power and blue-chip prospects that make Notre Dame such a difficult team to subdue. Watching the Irish grind out a 3-2 win in Sunday’s rubber game at Clemson, I heard a scout sum up this team succinctly: “Everyone in their lineup, like, takes balls and swings at strikes.” Notre Dame head coach Link Jarrett has a well earned reputation as one of the best “hitting guys” in college baseball, and all of his players seem to go to the plate with a plan. It’s just a tough lineup to navigate cleanly — especially the top half, stuffed with mature veterans Myers, Carter Putz, Jared Miller, Kavadas and David LaManna. There is a lot to like about this Notre Dame team, but it all starts with exceptional coaching. It isn’t easy to win as a cold-weather private school with lackluster baseball facilities in a warm-weather power conference, but Jarrett is pulling it off. Biggest Surprise Pittsburgh In our ACC preview, we tried to hedge our bets as much as possible, proclaiming Pitt dangerous — but we still didn’t have enough conviction to pick the Panthers to finish better than 14th place in the 14-team league. As we wrote in the season preview: The Panthers are undoubtedly better than they have been in recent years — but so is everybody else in the ACC. Don’t be surprised if Pitt sneaks up on the league, because this should be a competitive club, but somebody still has to finish in the bottom four of the conference. The Panthers, who have never made a regional as an ACC member, still feel likely to wind up in that bottom tier when the dust clears, but [coach Mike] Bell has them going in the right direction. It’s fair to say no team in college baseball has exceeded expectations more than Pitt, a team picked to finish last in its conference that has spent multiple weeks ranked inside the Top 25. At 14-10 overall and 9-9 in the ACC, Pitt has made waves by winning jum,quality series against Indiana State, at Florida State (a sweep), at Georgia Tech and at Virginia. With a very experienced veteran core in the lineup and a steady pitching staff led by Mitch Myers, Pittsburgh appears to have staying power in the ACC race. Bell had this to say to our Kendall Rogers after the FSU series: “We’ve shown a lot of growth over the past two to three years, and since the roster has changed, so has the mentality around here and the expectation level. I think to go compete at a tough place like FSU with a group of players and coaches, and do it in different ways, is pretty impressive. “We win a pitcher’s duel on Friday, we control the game on Saturday, and then come from behind on Sunday,” he added. “We had to do different things to win … and in the end, I think that shows this team has a lot of heart and character.” HONORABLE MENTION: Oregon, Louisiana Tech, Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, Stanford Biggest Disappointment NC State, Virginia, Wake Forest Take your pick of these three preseason Top 25 clubs for the ignominious label of “biggest disappointment of the first half.” Sure, Duke (11-13 overall and 5-10 in the ACC) has also been disappointing, but the Blue Devils didn’t quite crack the preseason Top 25. LSU (1-8 in the SEC) has been a big disappointment, but at least the Tigers are 18-11 overall. NC State and Virginia both have .500 records overall and .333 winning percentages in ACC play (5-10 and 6-12, respectively). Wake Forest is 5-9 in the ACC and just 10-12 in the ACC. Those performances qualify as utterly disappointing considering NC State ranked 13th in the preseason, Virginia ranked 16th and Wake ranked 17th. And a dishonorable mention to preseason No. 14 West Virginia, which sits at 11-12 overall — but at least it is alive in the Big 12 race with a 3-3 mark. The Mountaineers and Demon Deacons also each lost a key weekend starter to injury before the season started, perhaps mitigating the underachievement factor a bit, but make no mistake — these teams have all performed far below their talent level to this point. Notable Storylines • The COVID scramble has been real, but it has also been manageable. Every week, some matchups get canceled or postponed because of positive tests or contact tracing, leaving opponents scrambling to find some games — and resulting in some unexpected but fun series that materialized on short notice, like Boston College at Auburn or UNC Wilmington at Oklahoma State (coming up this week). It’s been a bumpy ride, but college baseball is getting through it. Some teams were forced to start their seasons weeks later than others. Big Ten teams are playing a reduced schedule and are not permitted to play nonconference games at all. Some teams, particularly out West, didn’t have any fall ball whatsoever — but that disadvantage hasn’t stopped Stanford and Cal from getting off to very good starts this spring. Everybody is adapting to their own situation and managing the best they can. College baseball is getting through it. We’re all just grateful to have a season. • As Kendall Rogers wrote this week, host sites will be announced on May 10, weeks earlier than usual, to allow the NCAA to establish COVID protocols at each venue. This change will surely result in some odd quirks in this NCAA tournament field. Will we see more geographic diversity in host sites to reduce travel, for the sake of reducing the risk of COVID spread? It seems like merit (as of May 10, anyway) will still be the primary factor in determining the hosts, although the NCAA hasn’t officially laid out the criteria. But if a team is worthy of hosting on May 10, it could still go into a funk over the next three weeks, and conceivably wind up hosting as a No. 2 or No. 3 seed. What if a team loses out and winds up without an at-large resumé at all? That seems far-fetched, but it raises the specter of a regional host site without the host participating in the field of 64. Super regionals must be played at one of the 16 predetermined sites (due to the time required to establish COVID testing protocols), so there’s a strong chance we could two teams play in a super regional at a third team’s stadium. It’s all going to be weird. • How will the Division I Selection Committee value traditional factors like RPI and conference record in a year when many conferences have dramatically modified their schedules? The RPI is essentially useless as a tool for evaluating Big Ten teams because they won’t face any nonconference competition, so how will the committee determine how many Big Ten teams deserve bids, and/or hosts? How will the committee treat the ACC? That league is playing 36 conference games instead of its usual 30, creating a more difficult schedule than the SEC, Pac-12 and Big 12, which are all playing their usual conference slates. This committee faces a far more complicated task than usual. • Halfway through the season, it seems clear that the leading national title contenders reside in the SEC. Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Florida and South Carolina all look like bona fide Omaha contenders, and those top three in particular look like the three strongest championship contenders. The Big 12 is also very strong at the top, with Texas, Texas Tech, TCU and Oklahoma State all looking like real contenders. The Pac-12 and ACC both look wide open at the top, but both seem to have good depth. The Big Ten is starting to take shape with Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State and Indiana at the top, but there are plenty of teams lower in the standings that have still shown the ability to make noise. So while the balance of power in college baseball still tilts toward the SEC, there is good baseball all around the country, and we’ve also seen some mid-major conferences get off to strong first halves, led by Conference USA. The stretch run should be a lot of fun.
I thought it was interesting that they have 9 SEC teams in, but they only have 7 solidly in. And six of those seven are hosts. They have Kentucky and Bama as bubble teams, and based on the podcast, they have Bama in because of the potential of Prielipp returning next week against Auburn. But the whole conversation felt like it's possible only 7-8 SEC teams get in if conventional metrics and history are followed because the top half is going to take so many wins away from the bottom half that a bottom half team might not be able to get to 14/15 conference wins.
I was kinda hoping Bradfield might have a claim to SEC Newcomer of the Year but Crews is matching him in AVG/OBP while also providing some serious power. So while Bradfield has the steals and elite CF defense, hard to see Crews not winning. He looks like a future MLB superstar
Still no Isaiah Thomas in RF. Cooper Davis had been the LF, then took over in RF after Thomas went down last week. Now he's on the bench with FR Bulger in LF and FR Calvin Hewett in RF. Hewett is from NH and his presence gives VU an all-FR OF Weed and baseball are such a perfect combo
Rocker looks injured to me. First time with this recent velocity drop that we're seeing a lack of control/command. UGA with a 3-run HR to RF in T1. First homer allowed for Kumar this season and most runs allowed before even getting an out And now the absence of Thomas is showing as Hewett plays one very poorly in RF and Rocker still can't get an out
Well hey it was a struggle early but then he got three straight Ks so maybe he's just a human who was struggling a bit to start 51 pitches through 2 IP
They shouldn’t be ahead of a team that has a better record than them and just got done beating them in 4 straight games.
Sitting 92-94 He's mowing them down with off-speed and breaking stuff right now. 8 Ks with 1 out in T4 Edit now 9 Ks through 4 IP he looks disgusting
Rocker really showing something special tonight. Battling back to keep this 3-1 to B5. Gets his 12th K to end T5
Crisp has successfully pissed off the umpire by walking off in anticipation of strike 3 calls and isn't getting anything
Stopped watching once Fisher got all wild. But Dores will fall to 24-4 after this one and 8-2 in league play. Lotta dudes left on base Would love to see Isaiah Thomas back at RF for his power at the plate and D
Central Michigan is hosting Bowling Green this weekend, four games via doubleheaders on Sat and Sunday. These will be the first home games CMU has played all season
braves home opener unc/duke hornets vs giannis folks it is going to be an exciting sports evening at my house. may move a tv outside and grill out and enjoy the weekend