Nationals Arm Race

"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver

2024 CWS finals: Tennessee Wins

4 comments

Requisite dog pile. Photo via NCAA.com

So, for as good of a 2023 CWS finals matchup that we had (Florida vs LSU), this year we might have had an even better matchup: #1 Tennessee versus #3 Texas A&M. They were #1 and #2 in RPI, #1 and #4 in D1baseball’s final rankings, and TAMU probably had a better argument to be seeded ahead of Kentucky had they not gone 2-and-out in the SEC tourney. Both mostly cruised through the entire post-season to get here (TAMU went 8-0 in the CWS before the final, Tennessee 8-1 after going 4-1 in the SEC tourney to win it).

So it was fitting that it went three, and that it came down to a nail-biting 9th inning with the tying runs on base before Tennessee took it. Here’s a quick game by game recap.

  • Game 1: Tennessee’s starter didn’t get out of the first (though I thought it was a quick hook), and it didn’t matter as TAMU put 7 runs up in the first three innings to cruise to an easy win.
  • Game 2: A close game was opened up with two late homers from Tenn to force the tiebreaker.
  • Game 3: Tennessee’s starter Zander Sechrist shut down TAMU and the game 2 winner Aaron Combs came back on zero days rest after throwing 60+ pitchers to almost give away the game.

Your 2024 College World Series Champion: Tennessee, the first #1 seed to win it in 20+ years.

Quick recap of top draft prospect CWS finals performance:

  • TAMU’s Braden Montgomery, injured in the regional, is falling on draft boards and could get to the Nats at #10.
  • Christian Moore, 2B, Tennessee: 0-5 in the 1st game, 1-3 in the 2nd game and was pulled (not often you see your 1st round prospect replaced), 1-5 in the 3rd. Not a good final.
  • Billy Amick, 3B, Tennessee: 1-3 with 2 BB in the 1st game, 0-5 with a sombrero in the 2nd, 1-4 in the 3rd. Also not a good final.

Here’s some links to past years of CWS coverage here. I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years now! Each link below is the blog post covering that CWS final.

Written by Todd Boss

June 25th, 2024 at 11:05 am

Posted in College/CWS

«
»

4 Responses to '2024 CWS finals: Tennessee Wins'

Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to '2024 CWS finals: Tennessee Wins'.

  1. Moore did homer to lead off the bottom of the 1st for the Vols, his 34th of the season, to go along with 19 doubles. Those are incredible numbers, even for someone who plays home games in a bandbox.

    KLaw in his latest mock: “I’m not a big Christian Moore believer but he definitely has his fans and his high exit velocities are going to push him up for teams that draft heavily off a model.”

    I don’t know if Moore will be in play for the Nats at #10, but I’d certainly take my chances with him over one of the high schoolers. The one of those more linked to the Nats is Konnor Griffin, who Law describes as “the high-ceiling, high-risk guy among the prep players.” We already have one of those. He’s currently striking out 46% of the time in his second year in low A.

    KW

    25 Jun 24 at 12:00 pm

  2. off topic but a fascinating series this week in the Athletic about the evolution of pitching. analytics, strength and conditioning all with the goal of missing bats. just finished the fourth of the series dealing with the toll on the arms of the pitchers.

    FredMD

    27 Jun 24 at 8:38 am

  3. Thanks FredMD! I’m missing it somehow despite being an Athletic subscriber. will go digging around for it.

    Todd Boss

    27 Jun 24 at 9:33 am

  4. here’s a link to the series; https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5584035/2024/06/25/missing-bats-the-athletic-special-series/

    Todd Boss

    27 Jun 24 at 12:52 pm

Leave a Reply