What was the problem with this baseball team?...
- Thread starter thekimmer
- Start date
RPI: 2024 19, 2025 33, 2026 12.
If we get a regional in Starkville, I think we win it. But the super is the end of the road for 2026.
Nothing would surprise me much. CWS or lose regional. My biggest concern right now is how the heck are we going to win game 3 in a regional? We can beat #4 without TV & the. Win game 2 with him. But who can we trust to win game 3?
Great point. Pray the 4 comes through the losers bracket and we out hit them.
Seeing as we can’t beat any elite teams I think we cruise through the regional (although considering it’s at home our nuts might shrink) and then lose super.
LOL. That’s total BS. Go look at his stats in the ACC last year, vs. the SEC this year. He stepped up his performance, big time, in a much stronger league. Going from being the expected #2 to being one of the best #1 starters in the SEC is absolutely stepping up. Had he simply matched is stat line from UVA last year, we might have struggled to even make the tournament.
Stone was not terrible at all. He was 6-2 overall, 3-2 in conference play. His ERA in league play was a tad high at 6.72, but that’s a very respectable stat line from someone who was supposed to be our Sunday guy. He more or less was the catalyst for us not getting swept in Austin. He stepped up and became a viable weekend starter on what should have been the Sunday role….which is done by committee for most teams.
The ultimate problem - Stone was 41st in the league in ERA, but 23rd in innings pitched.
ETA: There were at least 8 pitchers ranked ahead of him in ERA that were relievers. There were at least 2 pitchers ranked ahead of him in IP that were relievers. So he was actually #33 in the SEC in ERA amongst starting pitchers, while being 21st in IP. This makes the picture even more clear, he was just outside the Fri / Sat starter cut line in terms of ERA, while still logging tons of innings. That’s solid production.
We had to start him against a superior arm every weekend, and a few times he had to go deeper into ballgames than we probably wanted to keep us from burning up the entire pen before Game 3. All of the problems we had this year are attributed to pitching injuries. Our Sat guy was throwing on Friday, our Sun guy was throwing on Sat guy, and we never found a #4 starter (which isn’t shocking, because “#4 starter” isn’t even a thing in college baseball) to throw on Sunday.
We didn’t hit our ceiling in the regular season due to the McPherson and Kirk injuries. It happens. As of right now, hitting that ceiling in the postseason is still possible. We’ll see what happens.
Last edited:
You’re reaching. Valencius was outstanding from the beginning of the season. There just wasn’t room for him to step up more when McPherson went down. And yeah, that 6.72 ERA is more than just a “tad high.”
So are you saying TV and the coaching staff both don’t deserve credit for him being elite from the very beginning of the year? Because he stepped up early, it “doesn’t count”? The last time I checked, that’s even better than waiting on a key injury elsewhere before elevating your play
It really isn’t. The game has changed a lot. What was once a horrid ERA for a pitcher 10 years ago is now pretty average, and what was once an average ERA is now near elite. 10 years ago, nobody wanted a weekend starter that had an ERA over 4.00 or so. Now? There are only 11 guys in the league with an ERA under 4.00.
The SEC entire league average ERA is around 6.00 in conference play. There were 3 teams in the SEC where the combined ERA of the entire staff was higher than 6.72. It’s not a bad ERA at all for a dude who didn’t even have a weekend role at the beginning of the season, who we hoped might become a Sunday starter. He instead was forced to pitch a day ahead of schedule, and still had a winning record of 3-2 in league play.
He was not a liability in the grand scheme of things, and would have fared much better if we only had to rely on him as a one time through the order guy in Game 3. That would have put him at 30-35 IP in league play, instead of the 44.1 IP that he actually registered as the #2 starter.
Last edited:
1. No that's not what I'm saying at all. Of course TV and the staff deserve all the credit in the world for his season. But he was already an established reliable starter when McPherson went down. We needed someone else to step up.
2. All I know is Duke Stone's conference ERA was 41st out of 49 pitchers with enough innings to get ranked. And he was our #2 starter for most of the season. If you want to call that average, knock yourself out. But you're wrong.
No, we needed multiple somebodies to step up, and quite a few did. We didn’t finish Top 5 in the SEC in staff ERA - with our #1 starter out all year - only because of TV.
We entered league play with 2 reliable starters, and a bunch of question marks behind them. 10 days later, we had one reliable starter. Somehow, we still finished as a Top 5 pitching staff in the league, which is pretty significant after losing your #1 starter.
Stone stepped up to fill a weekend role, after pitching only 5 innings last year. That weekend role should have been on Sunday, injuries forced him to be the #2….and he performed about as well as you could reasonably expect under the circumstances. Its not realistic at all to expect a dude who pitched 5 innings as a freshmen to suddenly become a sub-5.00 ERA 70-80 inning guy and a #2 starter as a sophomore.
There are 16 SEC teams, and therefore at least 48 weekend starters, bare minimum. Reality is that most teams have only 1-2 consistent weekend starters, and try out multiple guys for the 3rd spot or even the 2nd and 3rd spot. So you have around 60 guys that are at least semi-regular weekend starters or long relievers that accumulate a similar number of innings. Being ranked 41st out of 60ish in ERA would put him in the upper 1/3 of #3 starters in the league, which is, aGAIN, what he should have been at this stage of his development.
He had a winning record as a starter in SEC play, while being Top 25 in terms of innings pitched (ahead of several teams’ #2 starters in that category). I’m not sure what else you want from an undrafted player out of HS that only pitched 5 innings last season.
Last edited:
We are a 12 RPI and a lock for hosting. How does that play on your bingo card?
You offer no analysis you sound like a chick. “oh well, we weren’t that good but let’s go state! On to the next!” And I’ve seen you get all in your feelings when people actually offer analytical arguments. You’re like a chick.
Look, I'm not gonna let you 17 me no matter how much you beg, so move along Poindexter...