Projecting wins in baseball

Baseball stat guru Bill James invented something called the Pythagorean expectation to determine how many games a baseball team “should” win based on their runs scored vs. runs allowed. In a nutshell, James uses the formula to determine how “lucky” a team was by comparing their actual wins vs. their expected wins using this formula.

Whether or not this same equation applies to college baseball, I don’t know (I doubt it because of the wide disparity in talent relative to major league teams). But for my purposes I’m going to apply the formula in the present tense and track the Tigers expected wins at various points during the season.

The number looks pretty gaudy right now, but my guess is that with two games against South Carolina coming up this weekend and three against North Carolina next weekend, reality will set in for the Tigers, not only in the Pythagorean expectation but also with regards to the fielding and ERA stats listed in my previous post.

Actual Record	Projected Record
4-0	48-8

Charting Tiger Baseball

From previous posts my readers understand how important I believe pitching and defense is to winning in baseball. The apparent dearth of baseball statistics from the NCAA early in the season makes it tough to get an idea of where your team stands relative to others. We can however, look to history to find out what the marks to hit were over the last 7 years and compare them to where the Tigers are at a given point in the season.

As illustrated in the table below the average fielding percentage for teams ranked 17th or better in this category over the last 7 years is .972. The average ERA for teams ranked 22nd or better in the last 7 years is 3.74.

These are good barometers early in the season to get a general idea of how your team is faring and to see where (or if) they fit in the national picture.

It’s important to note that your team needs to meet both of these criteria to be considered a contender. One or the other doesn’t cut it.

	7 Year Average	2009 Clemson
Fielding %	.972	.979
Earned Run Average	3.74	2.43

Contenders and pretenders

Duke is a contender and Pitt and Oklahoma (even with Blake Griffin) are pretenders.

Team	Def Eff	Off Eff	RPI Rank
Duke	8	7	3
Connecticut	4	15	5
Missouri	7	14	12
North Carolina	21	2	2
Kansas	10	20	6
Memphis	1	34	8
Michigan State	11	33	6
Louisville	2	48	11
Wake Forest	13	38	15
Xavier	23	50	14

Sloppiness dooms Tigers

Wow. How ugly was that? 15 turnovers, 7 missed free throws, 24 personal fouls, 29 Tech free throw attempts and general malaise and sloppiness led to Clemson losing to Virginia Tech, 80-77.

The Tigers never really appeared to care and they aren't good enough to not care and still win. Now they are staring down the barrel of an away game at Florida State on Saturday afternoon.

Tigers beat Wofford, 8-2

Ben Paulson went 3-4 and drove in two runs as Clemson (4-0) defeated Wofford 8-2 on Wednesday.

Tigers rally past Charlotte

These are the games that Clemson (3-0) lost last year. These are the games that are the difference between making the tournament or not, or even hosting a regional/super regional or not. Clemson trailed 5-0 on Sunday, only to rally and win 6-5 in 10 innings.

You have to be pretty happy with the opening game series against a good Charlotte team. In addition to the 3 wins, the Tigers gave up only 8 runs and committed only one error during the series.

Box Score

Tigers put Jackets away

On a day when Terrance Oglesby was feeling the effects of the flu (1-5 from 3 point land) other Clemson players managed to go 11 of 18 from three point range, while Trevor Booker had 21 points and 12 rebounds to lead Clemson to an 81-73 win over Georgia Tech.

Andre Young (right) was 4-4 on three pointers and Demontez Stitt had 9 points, 7 assists and only 1 turnover, as the Tigers point guards combined for 21 points, 9 assists and 3 turnovers.

Tigers defeat Charlotte 4-0

Chris Dwyer (1-0) pitched 6.2 shutout innings to lead Clemson (2-0) over Charlotte (0-2) on Saturday. Four Clemson freshmen pitchers combined for 8 shutout innings and Freshmen drove in 3 of the 4 Clemson runs.

Clemson and Charlotte complete the 3 games series on Sunday.

No dominant teams

It's become clear that there is no dominant team this year. While there are nine teams that currently have final four potential, only one (UNC) is even close to the offensive efficiency of recent champions.

These are in order of probability of winning the title.

Team	Def Eff	Off Eff	RPI
North Carolina	16	2	3
Connecticut	4	17	4
Missouri	10	12	13
Duke	7	18	5
Memphis	1	31	8
West Virginia	6	30	14
Michigan State	15	24	6
Kansas	11	28	8
Wake Forest	8	46	15

Here are three teams that most think are contenders and while they each have the offensive efficiency needed to win it all, they lack the defensive efficiency required (and RPI in UCLA's case). Pitt in particular gets a ton of pub for having a tough defense,but that's not reflected in their defensive stats (at least not at this point).

Team	Def Eff	Off Eff	RPI
Pittsburgh	31	1	1
UCLA	32	3	26
Oklahoma	49	4	2

Tigers baseball team opens with victory

Clemson (1-0) stole 9 bases, Kyle Parker went 2-4 with 3 RBI and Addison Johnson went 3-4 with 3 runs scored as the Tigers beat UNC-Charlotte 8-3 (0-1) to open the 2009 season on Friday.

Trey Delk (1-0) was the winning pitcher for Clemson.

Vandals turn into Horned Frogs

Instead of playing Idaho on September 26, Clemson will face TCU in Clemson. It's a one game series, with no return date to Fort Worth for the Tigers.

2nd half lifts Tigers

After 20 minutes of so-so play the Tigers picked it up a few notches and showed what this team can do. Trevor Booker took the game over in one stretch with a left handed monster dunk off a rebound, a three pointer, 2 beautiful assists that led to easy baskets, a blocked shot and a steal. For the night Booker finished with 11 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocked shots.

Five other Tigers hit double figures as Demontez Stitt hit a couple of big three pointers in the first half. David Potter, Tanner Smith and Andre Young were all 2/3 on three pointers off the bench for Clemson and Terrance Oglesby led the Tigers with 6 assists.

There were lapses (like the first 20 minutes) that still are concerning. Even when the Tigers pulled out to a comfortable lead Maryland was getting easy baskets in transition. Something to keep an eye on.

Tigers upset at Virginia

How many times have I lamented not getting the ball to Trevor Booker? Well, even though Clemson had overcome an 8 point halftime deficit, Booker had no rebounds and 2 points in the first 12 or so minutes of the second half. Hmmmm, I said to myself, that could hurt. Hurt it did. 21 turnovers didn't help either.

I think this team is coming back down to earth after spending a good part of the year in the top 10.

Virginia 85 Clemson 81, OT
Box Score

6 baseball teams to keep an eye on

With the college baseball season just around the corner, I thought I would take a look at a few teams that could be factors this year, based on their stats from last year.

Keep in mind that I haven't researched what these teams have coming back and what they lost, this is purely a look at their numbers from last year.

As the season moves along we will periodically track the teams that look like they have a chance to move on to Omaha and win the College World Series.

The rankings are from Baseball America.

Team	Preseason Rank	Fielding	ERA	Batting	Slugging
LSU	2	17	24	84	24
North Carolina	3	19	1	21	47
Louisville	23	24	36	51	51
Miami, FL	N/A	11	18	34	6
Oklahoma State	N/A	13	16	18	9
Kentucky	N/A	14	7	41	14

Contenders begin to shake out

We've ratcheted up (or down) the criteria to only include teams with an RPI of 16 or less, as 95% of the teams to make the final four in the last 5 years have met this threshold. Through games of February 11 these teams currently meet criteria for Final Four:

Team	Def Eff Rank	Off Eff Rank	RPI Rank
Connecticut	5	5	3
North Carolina	21	1	5
Missouri	18	8	16
Michigan State	20	15	7

Why not the 3 below? All three of these teams have the offensive capability to win the national championship. However, Pittsburgh's defensive efficiency of 29 doesn't meet the criteria, nor does UCLA's defensive efficiency ranking or RPI. Oklahoma is the furthest away with a defensive efficiency of 52.

Team	Def Eff Rank	Off Eff Rank	RPI Rank
Pittsburgh	29	2	1
UCLA	26	3	26
Oklahoma	52	4	2

Computer rips Staples

Right before national signing day I linked to a story about Andy Staples of SI.com going head to head against a computer in attemtping to determine where the last 17 remaining top prospects were going to play college ball. Turns out the computer blasted Staples. Staples came in at 4 out of 16 (25%) while the computer was correct on 9 of 16 (56.3%).

On 5 of the prospects both the computer and Staples were wrong.

One player has yet to choose a school.

Prospect	Computer	Staples	Actual
Tajh Boyd	Oregon	Oregon	Clemson
Tyrik Rollison	Oklahoma State	Auburn	Auburn
Devon Kennard	USC	Texas	USC
Rueben Randle	LSU	Alabama	LSU
Dre Kirkpatrick	Alabama	Alabama	Alabama
Jelani Jenkins	Penn State	Penn State	Florida
Manti Te'O	Notre Dame	USC	Notre Dame
Greg Reid	Georgia	Florida State	Florida State
Cliff Harris	Oregon	USC	Oregon
Morgan Moses	Virginia	North Carolina	Virginia
Patrick Patterson	Ole Miss	Southern Miss	Ole Miss
Marcus Hall	Ohio State	Ohio State	Ohio State
Marlon Brown	Tennessee	Florida	Georgia
Orson Charles	Florida	Georgia	Undecided
Xavier Su'a Filo	Utah	LSU	UCLA
Tana Patrick	Alabama	USC	Alabama
Jarvis Jones	Georgia	LSU	USC

Tigers edge BC

I didn't get to watch the game last night, but I did listen to most of the second half. It's apparent that as goes Trevor Booker so go the Tigers. Booker had 21 points, 13 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and a block in 33 minutes to lead the Tigers.

Terrance Oglesby also had 21 points, including 6/10 from three point range for the Tigers. Oglesby is an interesting study. He misses layups, dunks and two point field goals, but somehow finds a way to drill 25 footers.

All five of the Tiger starters scored in double figures, which is a good thing because aside from a few good minutes from Tanner Smith the Tigers got zilch from their bench. Not a good sign. Jerai Grant? 0 points, 0 rebounds, 1 block and 4 fouls in 9 minutes.

Next up at Virginia on Sunday.

Contenders as of February 8

Team	Def Eff Rank	Off Eff Rank	RPI Rank
Connecticut	7	5	4
North Carolina	20	2	5
Duke	3	22	1
Missouri	22	6	21
Michigan State	24	11	7
West Virginia	5	31	15
Villanova	13	29	12
Clemson	25	18	9
Kansas	19	24	14
Memphis	2	45	8
Xavier	18	33	6

Tigers implode

As you could tell by my last line after the Duke victory I was a little worried about this game. FSU is a pretty good team and Clemson was full of themselves as evidenced by the post game comments after the thrashing of the Blue Devils.

I became more concerned, despite Clemson's early lead, when I noticed Trevor Booker had 1 rebound and 2 points near the end of the first half. Not a good sign, but one that should be expected as the taller Seminoles forced Clemson away from Booker.

Clemson obviously has trouble with taller teams (Wake, UNC, FSU) because of the lack of height that the Tigers have.

Now, the Tigers face two road games this week against Boston College and Virginia. Two winnable games, but suddenly the Tigers find themselves with a bunch of question marks.

Tigers beat Duke 74-47

In 30 years as a Clemson fan, student and alumni I don't recall a better all around game than the one the Tigers played against Duke tonight. I've been around for wins over North Carolina (at home of course), final 8 runs and ACC regular season championships. Can't recall a better game than this one.

Trevor Booker rocked the 'John with 21 points including monstrous dunks, fall away jumpers and everything in between. K.C. Rivers had 7 steals, Terrance Oglesby hit 5 of 11 three pointers and Jerai Grant chipped in 8 points and 3 rebounds as the Tigers thoroughly thrashed Duke.

The challenge now for the Tigers is not being flat in their next game against a pretty good Florida State team on Saturday in Clemson.

Defense wins in baseball, too

In previous posts I have delineated the importance of defense in football and basketball. To recap - 8 of the last 9 BCS Champions in football have had top 10 ranked defenses. In basketball, over the last 5 years the worst defensive efficiency rating of the national champion was 12.

With these numbers in mind I decided to look at college baseball and see if a similar pattern emerged.

The table below shows that 6 of the last 7 baseball national champions finished in the top 17 in fielding. Five of the 7 finished in the top 8, and 4 of the 7 finished in the top 5. Strong evidence.

If you add in the fact that 6 of the last 7 champions also finished in the top 22 in ERA an obvious pattern emerges, with the exception of Fresno State last year of course.

Only one team finished in the top 10 in batting and won the championship (Fullerton in 2004). The highest rated slugging team was 56th (also Fullerton in 2004). Other than that year, the highest rated batting average was 41st and the highest slugging percentage was 65th.

In many cases highly ranked offensive teams rolled into Omaha and left on the losing end to a better pitching and fielding team. Some examples: In 2002 Texas came in with the lowest batting average and second lowest slugging percentage of the 8 teams in Omaha. Yet, with a fielding percentage that was 5th in the nation and the 2nd ranked ERA they left as champions. In 2006 Oregon State had the lowest batting average and slugging percentage of the 8 teams in the World Series. However, the Beavers also came in with the second highest defensive rating of the 8 teams and an ERA that ranked 14th nationally. It was the first of two consecutive championships for the defensive and pitching minded club.

The numbers are compelling. Offense sells tickets, defense (and pitching) wins championships.

Year	Team	Batting	Slugging	Fielding	ERA
2002	Texas	99	65	5	2
2003	Rice	41	103	2	2
2004	Cal State-Fullerton	9	56	17	22
2005	Texas	80	74	3	4
2006	Oregon State	85	95	8	14
2007	Oregon State	162	129	2	11
2008	Fresno State	125	102	52	56

The Contenders

On the first day of February we take a look at the college basketball teams that have a legitimate shot at making it to the final four through games of January 31.

Over the last 5 years the recipe for reaching the final four has looked like this:
DE<=25 OE<=50 RPI<=27

Interestingly enough, once a team reaches the final four, offensive efficiency becomes much more important.

During that same time frame the recipe for winning the national championship has looked like this:
DE<=12 OE<=4 RPI<=16

Final Four contenders through games of January 31, 2009

Team	Def Eff Rank	Off Eff Rank	RPI Rank
Duke	2	7	1
Pitt	21	2	2
North Carolina	17	1	5
Xavier	13	38	6
Connecticut	9	5	7
Wake Forest	5	46	12
Villanova	14	37	15
West Virgina	6	30	16
Washington	24	16	22

No team meets the national championship criteria at this point, but North Carolina and Pittsburgh are the only two teams with the required offensive efficiency numbers to make the cut and Connecticut is one spot away from being a qualified NC contender.