D1 now has Georgia Tech ranked 7th

[GTRambler]

Right here:

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/baseball/d1/d1baseballcom-top-25

 

[GTRambler]

And the USA Today Coaches’ Poll has GT at no. 8:

https://sportspolls.usatoday.com/ncaa/baseball/polls/coaches-poll/

 

[GTRambler]

And Baseball America has our Jackets sitting at no. 10:

https://www.baseballamerica.com/rankings/college-baseball-top-25/

 

[Deleted member 2897]

To me, I see UCLA as the top baseball team in the country and Vanderbilt as #2. But once you get past that, the next approximately 10 teams you could throw a blanket over. I hope that having a top 10 strength of schedule and top 10 non-conference strength of schedule will play to our advantage. Mississippi State, Arkansas, Georgia, and Louisville (4 teams ahead of us in RPI) have the #195, 147, 146, and 131st ranked non-conference strength of schedules. Ours is #8.

 

[gtrower]

It’s frustrating that Stanford is Top 3 in all the polls despite playing a pitiful schedule. 34-8 while only playing 3 Top 50 RPI games (a series loss to UCLA). BYU is the only team in the Top 100 to play fewer 1st quadrant games.

They better be below us on the National Seed pecking order right now. I know D1B had them behind us last week. Which is strange that their polls and national seeds don’t line up.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

It’s frustrating that Stanford is Top 3 in all the polls despite playing a pitiful schedule. 34-8 while only playing 3 Top 50 RPI games (a series loss to UCLA). BYU is the only team in the Top 100 to play fewer 1st quadrant games.

They better be below us on the National Seed pecking order right now. I know D1B had them behind us last week. Which is strange that their polls and national seeds don’t line up.

Wow, I hadn’t even paid attention to that. Stanford is #20 in RPI. To your point, not just is their non-conference strength of schedule almost #100, but their conference schedule is close to #100 too. When there are tons of teams with 8-14 losses, who have played massively more difficult schedules, why on earth would you pick one of them that is a statistical outlier and put them anywhere near the top? I just don’t get that. Hopefully when the dust all settles the committee will notice that.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Wow, I hadn’t even paid attention to that. Stanford is #20 in RPI. To your point, not just is their non-conference strength of schedule almost #100, but their conference schedule is close to #100 too. When there are tons of teams with 8-14 losses, who have played massively more difficult schedules, why on earth would you pick one of them that is a statistical outlier and put them anywhere near the top? I just don’t get that. Hopefully when the dust all settles the committee will notice that.

Stanford is 35-8. UCLA is 38-8 and Vandy is 39-9. That is the only real strength of Stanford's resume. As noted they have beaten up on weak teams.

I predict Standford will wet the bed in the last three weeks and be another Oregon St. Oregon St was #2/3 three weeks ago till they lost a weekend series, they are #21 rpi (#10 polls) now.

Stanford has @Cal (34 rpi), #10 Oregon St (21 rpi) and @#20 Arizona St (37 rpi). If Stanford wins 7 of 9 of those, they'll deserve the high ranking. Warren Nolan figures they'll win 4 of 9 and end up with an 18 rpi.

Those are the numbers. Why is Stanford that high from an irrational human perspective? IMHO, it's because they are a West Coast team and west coast teams cry rivers of tears about how they are excluded since there aren't as many good west coast team to play. Plus Stanford has a really good program. And a really neat mascot that is embraced by the band/students and not the administration. http://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/strange-mascot-the-history-of-the-stanford-tree

 

[MWBATL]

And a really neat mascot that is embraced by the band/students and not the administration. http://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/strange-mascot-the-history-of-the-stanford-tree

Bunch of damn hippies.

As far as their baseball team is concerned, they get credit for being league leader of the PAC 12, historically the best conference in college baseball. We’ll see if that holds up as their last three series are against 3 of the top 5 teams in the league (they already dropped their series with UCLA, 1 game to 2). D1baseball actually had a blurb about this dilemma maybe a week ago and that was their response....

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Bunch of damn hippies.

As far as their baseball team is concerned, they get credit for being league leader of the PAC 12, historically the best conference in college baseball. We’ll see if that holds up as their last three series are against 3 of the top 5 teams in the league (they already dropped their series with UCLA, 1 game to 2). D1baseball actually had a blurb about this dilemma maybe a week ago and that was their response....

Actually, if I remember right, this is not too different from NC State a month ago. Their strength of schedule was not the best, and there RPI was not high, but they were winning almost every game, so they were given the benefit of the doubt. Once they got into the meat of their schedule and started losing, the honeymoon with them quickly ended.

 

[Squints]

They actually addressed this in the d1baseball.com chat when someone asked about Stanford's ranking.

Aaron Fitt: There’s no question Mississippi State and Vanderbilt have better bodies of work than Stanford, and I also think MSU and Vandy are just plain better than Stanford — but I think Stanford is really good too. Look, we’ve been consistent about this for 15 years — if you keep on winning your weekend series, you’re very seldom going to drop. Maybe somebody will leap over you if there’s space, but there’s no space to leap anybody over Stanford. They’re 17-4 in the Pac-12, 34-8 overall — clearly they’ve been very, very consistent, and it’s just hard to justify dropping them until they actually lose a series, or even go 2-2. They’ve only had one week all season in which they lost 2 games — the UCLA series, and they dropped in the rankings that week. But they just haven’t faltered since then. We’re just not going to move a team down after a 3-1 week that included a conference road series win. Sorry.

Seems reasonable to me.

 

[gtrower]

They actually addressed this in the d1baseball.com chat when someone asked about Stanford's ranking.

Seems reasonable to me.

I'm fine with that argument. About prioritizing weekend series wins over sweeps/midweek games. That makes sense. But then don't turn around and put Stanford as an 8 seed in your projected Tournament Bracket. If you think they've earned the #2 spot in the polls, then give them the #2 seed in the tournament. Otherwise you're essentially treating the Polls as a seeding based on resume and the Tournament Seeds as a power ranking. Which is *** backwards.

 

[bensaysitathome]

I'm fine with that argument. About prioritizing weekend series wins over sweeps/midweek games. That makes sense. But then don't turn around and put Stanford as an 8 seed in your projected Tournament Bracket. If you think they've earned the #2 spot in the polls, then give them the #2 seed in the tournament. Otherwise you're essentially treating the Polls as a seeding based on resume and the Tournament Seeds as a power ranking. Which is *** backwards.

I get the feeling it's more the opposite. They're treating seeds as resume based, because Stanford's resume isn't that great. But they're caught up in the power rankings for polls, because they keep winning.

For what it's worth, I feel like ranking them #2 in anything is pretty outdated. "Win and you're up, lose and you're down" worked decades ago, when you couldn't watch nearly every game, and we didn't have access to any stat we wanted. All you had were wins and losses. Not today.

But at the same time, it's not college football where only the top 4 matter anymore. Stanford is getting the UCF treatment. Honestly, they probably deserve to host. They win more games than most. But the resume still sucks. #8 national seed kinda feels like "you technically deserve it, but you're not scaring good teams" and I think I agree that's where they should be.

 

[Squints]

I'm fine with that argument. About prioritizing weekend series wins over sweeps/midweek games. That makes sense. But then don't turn around and put Stanford as an 8 seed in your projected Tournament Bracket. If you think they've earned the #2 spot in the polls, then give them the #2 seed in the tournament. Otherwise you're essentially treating the Polls as a seeding based on resume and the Tournament Seeds as a power ranking. Which is *** backwards.

I think they have two different objectives and aren't necessarily related. The rankings are their order of teams based on field results so far. It's looking back on what's happened. The bracket is their guess of what the teams will do down the stretch and where the committee is going to put them all based on past years. It's looking forward and involves some crystal balling and mind reading. I don't believe the bracket is indicative of where they themselves would put the teams if they were making the decisions.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Bunch of damn hippies.

As far as their baseball team is concerned, they get credit for being league leader of the PAC 12, historically the best conference in college baseball. We’ll see if that holds up as their last three series are against 3 of the top 5 teams in the league (they already dropped their series with UCLA, 1 game to 2). D1baseball actually had a blurb about this dilemma maybe a week ago and that was their response....

That's why I like them too!

PAC 12 living on past glory too. Happens some years.