Nationals Arm Race

College Baseball’s Field fo 64 was winnowed to just 16 over the 5/30/14 weekend, setting up Super Regionals to be played the weekend of 6/13/14.  Here’s a recap of the action.  There were a TON of upsets all throughout the weekend.

MLB.com/Cash Kruth posted a nice summary of top100 draft prospects in action over the past weekend; using that as a guide as well as focusing on some other big time names and local teams here’s a recap of the weekend’s action.

We’ll review the 16 regionals in order of the national seeds.  Blue is the host city and Red is the winner.

1. In the Corvalis regional (host/seed: Oregon State) the #1 overall seed survived a nail-biter against North Dakota State in a game where they threw their 3rd string arm (Andrew Moore, who struck out 14 in his 8 innings).  They will be tough to beat with their two aces (Jace Fry and Ben Wetzler, who both sport 11-1 records with sterling ERAs on the season) going in the next to games, irrespective of who they play.  However day 2 featured a shocker: UC Irvine destroyed the #1 overall seed 14-2, getting to Fry for 6 runs in 6 innings.  Huge upset there.  Oregon State now will need to advance out of the loser’s bracket and stretch their pitching staff to advance.  On 6/1/14 Oregon State got by UNLV behind Wetzler’s complete game 4-hit, 1-run, 10-K outing and then blanked UC Irvine in the first game of the regional final behind a nifty 2-hit shutout from long-man/4th starter Scott Schultz.  In the do-or-die game on 6/2/14, the #1 seed’s luck ran out as UC Irvine cobbled together innings and held off Oregon State’s offense 4-2.
   
2. In the Gainesville regional (host/seed: Florida): Long Beach State beat UNC behind sophomore Andrew Rohrbach‘s 8 shut out inning effort; he allowed a run in the 9th before getting pulled.  UNC sophomore Trent Thornton gave up 6 runs in less than four innings and UNC couldn’t come back.  And in the night cap perhaps the biggest upset of day one occurred when dangerous 4th seed College of Charleston beat the #2 overall seed/host Florida 3-2.  Local kid Taylor Clarke started for Charleston but was removed mid-way in the 5th thanks to uncharacteristic wildness; he had walked five and put 12 guys on-base but survived with only 1 run allowed.  The shocks continued in day 2 as UNC neatly dispatched Florida 5-2, eliminating the #2 overall seed.  College of Charleston took care of business over Long Beach State to take control of the regional, and ended up advancing on 6/1/14 when they beat Long Beach a second time.  Huge upset of Florida, even if Charleston was badly under-seeded.
3. In the Charlottesville regional (host/seed: Virginia): UVA blitzed Bucknell to open the tournament behind 7 shutout innings from mid-week starter Artie Lewicki, a strategic move leaving UVA’s ace All-American Nathan Kirby to pitch in the winner’s bracket game on 5/31/14.  There they face Arkansas, who squeaked out a win over local favorite Liberty.  In day 2, Liberty went two-and-out while UVA shut out Arkansas behind Kirby’s 8-inning 1-hit gem 3-0.   Arkansas worked their way to the final of the regional, but there they ran into UVA’s saturday starter Brandon Waddell, who threw 6 2/3rd mostly clean innings while UVA exploded for 6 in the third to put the regional away 9-2.
4. In the Bloomington regional (host/seed: Indiana): Stanford opened with an upset win over Indiana State behind a complete game 4-hit, 1-run performance from freshman Cal Quatrill while host Indiana cruised to a win.  In the winner’s bracket game Indiana took control of the regional with a win over Stanford.  Stanford stormed back from the loser’s bracket and took out Indiana in the first game of the regional final, forcing one extra game on 6/2/14.  Indiana ended up losing the winner-take-all game in pretty heartbreaking fashion, losing 5-4 to the Pac-12 team when Stanford scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th to advance.
5. In the Tallahasse regional (host/seed: Florida State), Kennesaw got the first win of the tournament when sophomore Travis Bergen threw 8 2/3 shutout innings over Alabama and beating their Ace Spencer Turnbull.  Then the most surprising result of the day occurred in the night-cap when Georgia Southern embarrassed Florida State 7-0 in a game where they outhit the national seed 16-2 and their hurler (junior lefty Sam Howard) threw a 2-hit shutout.  Howard is a relative unknown, not even on MinorLeagueBall’s top 350-list of draft prospects; he made himself some money today.  On day 2, Alabama put Florida State two-and-out in a shock 6-5 win, while little known Kennesaw State scored 8 runs in the 11th inning to out-last Georgia Southern in a weird-looking box score 13-5.  Kennesaw’s big-time prospect (and likely upper-first round pick) Max Pentecost went 4-5 in the game with two walks to power his team.  On Sunday Alabama stormed back, blanking Georgia Southern and then beating Kennesaw State to force the extra do-or-die game.  However in the winner-take-all match Kennesaw State advanced over their SEC rival
6. In the Lafayette regional (host/seed: Louisiana-Lafayette): Mississippi State beat San Diego State to open the regional and then in a huge upset Lafayette and their huge offense was shutout by little-known Jackson State 1-0.  Louisiana-Lafayette faces an up-hill climb now.  Louisiana took care of business over Stephen Strasburg‘s alma-mater in the elimination game and gets another shot at Jackson State, who couldn’t match up with their SEC opponent in the winner’s game.  Lafayette stormed through the elimination games, showing the offense they’re known for, beating Jackson State 11-1 and then Mississippi State 14-8 to force the extra 6/1/14 game.  Louisiana-Lafayette made up for their earlier mis-steps by taking an early 4-0 lead and holding on for a 5-3 victory to advance.
7. In the Fort Worth regional (host/seed: TCU), hosts TCU had to go to 11 to get their opening win (with 1st round talent Brandon Finnegan striking out 12 in 7+ innings), after which they’ll face upstart Sam Houston State.  In the winner’s bracket game, TCU advanced 3-2 over Sam Houston in a TWENTY-TWO inning game, the 2nd longest game in NCAA  history.  On 6/1/14, Sam Houston got back to the regional final but TCU held on to win the regional and advance.
8. In the Baton Rouge regional (host/seed: LSU) the seeds held to form on day one, with Houston and LSU advancing.  On day 2, LSU took charge with an 5-1 defeat over Houston.  Meanwhile, Houston worked its way back through the loser’s bracket and outlasted LSU in extra inning to force the extra winner-take-all game on 6/2/14.  There, Houston blitzed LSU 12-2 to get the upset regional win.
9. In the Houston regional (host/seed: Rice): local team George Mason held the lead over Rice in the 8th inning but senior lefty starter Jared Gaynor fell apart in the 8th, let in 6 runs and Rice won 7-2.  Rice moves on to play powerhouse Texas while George Mason will have to contend with SEC team Texas A&M to survive.  There GMU didn’t have the horses and was eliminated 7-3 by TAMU, while Texas handled Rice in extras.   On 6/1/14, Rice was eliminated in extras, and then TAMU forced an elimination game on 6/1 over Texas, but that was as close as TAMU got, as Texas took the winner-take-all game 4-1.
10. In the San Luis Obispo regional (host/seed: Cal Poly): Cal Poly (behind Matt Imhof) and Pepperdine advanced to setup an all-California mid-major winner’s bracket game.  There, Pepperdine’s ace LHP Aaron Brown (a likely 4th-5th rounder) pitched a gem to upset Cal Poly 2-1.   Sacramento State embarrassed Pac-12 power Arizona State in the loser’s bracket final, setting up a rematch with the host for the right to go after Pepperdine.  Cal Poly made its way back to the regional final and a rematch with the Waves, but were handled 10-6 late sunday night and Pepperdine advances.
11. In the Oxford regional (host/seed: Ole Miss): Ole Miss’s starting shortstop has some DC roots: Errol Robinson was featured over the weekend.  the 5/30/14 games were rained out, forcing a delayed start.  On Saturday 5/31/14 the two top seeds easily advanced to the winner’s bracket game.  There Ole Miss held on for a 2-1 victory and will face Washington again in the regional final on 6/1/14.  There, Ole Miss took another low-scoring/extra innings game to win the regional 3-2.
12. In the Louisville regional (host/seed: Louisville): Louisville and Kansas advanced on day one.  Louisville took care of business over Kansas in day 2, setting up a re-match between Kansas and Kentucky to try to oust Louisville out of the loser’s bracket.  Kansas got the better of Kentucky in their elimination game, but was handled 4-1 by Louisville in the regional final.
13. In the Nashville regional (host/seed: Vanderbilt): Oregon just destroyed Clemson to open the regional 18-1 and then host Vanderbilt similarly destroyed Xavier 11-0 (with 1st round talent Tyler Beede throwing 8 shutout innings and striking out 14) to setup an intriguing winner’s bracket game.   Vanderbilt controlled Oregon on day two while Xavier surprised Clemson.   Oregon made their way to the regional final, but were beaten again 3-2 by a Vanderbilt team that won its 3 regional games by a combined score of 21-4.
14. In the Columbia Region (host/seed: South Carolina): Maryland scored 3 in the bottom of the 9th (two by virtue of bases-loaded HBPs, including the walk-off winning run) to upend ODU in the opener, bailing out their ace Jake Stinnett‘s good but not good-enough 8-inning 3 earned run performance.    They next face host South Carolina.  In day-2 ODU unfortunately went two-and-out at the hands of Campbell but the big news was Maryland’s upsetting of #15 seed South Carolina 4-3.  Maryland is now in a great position to advance out of the regional where they could play local rival UVA in the super regional.  On 6/1, South Carolina fought their way back to the regional final, where they were pounded 10-1 by Maryland for the regional upset.  Not only was this a regional upset … but this was the first time South Carolina had lost at home in something like 27 games.  In the Baseball America CWS preview, they didn’t even bother talking about this series because “South Carolina doesn’t lose at home.”  Well, South Carolina lost twice to Maryland and the Terps are moving on.
    
15. In the Coral Gables regional (host/seed: Miami), host Miami struggled mightily with the below .500 Bethune-Cookman team, winning 1-0 on a walk-off wild pitch in the 9th.   They face Texas Tech next, who also struggled (comparatively speaking) with the scholarship-less Ivy league champs from Columbia.  In the winner’s bracket game Miami’s offense was exposed again as Texas Tech shut them out 3-0 to take the driver’s seat.  Miami blitzed Bethune-Cookman to make it back to the regional final, where they were losing 1-0 in the 8th inning when play was suspended on 6/1/14.  Things got no better and Texas Tech finished off Miami 4-0 on 6/2/14.  All three of Florida’s seeds are now eliminated, a huge surprise.
16. In the Stillwater regional (host/seed: Oklahoma State): Cal State Fullerton showed why they were likely under-seeded with an opening 5-1 win over Nebraska, though they depended on a grand-slam to take the lead for good.  Meanwhile host Oklahoma State rolled to an easy victory over small school Binghamton.  In the winner’s bracket on day 2, Oklahoma State put some doubters at bay by winning a slugfest over Fullerton 13-7 to take over the driver’s seat.  Fullerton beat Nebraska to get another shot at the Cowboys, but were beaten by Oklahoma State in the regional final 6-4.

Summary of Regionals statistically:

• 9 seeds/hosts upset, while just 7 seeds/hosts advanced out of 16.  This includes your overall #1, #2, #4, #5 and #8 seeds eliminated, some two-and-out.
• 4 number of #2 seeds advancing, 4 number of #3 seeds and 1 #4 seed (College of Charleston) advanced to the super regionals.
• 7 = number of regionals forced into the “extra” deciding game.
• 9 number of #4 seeds who didn’t finish 4th in their regional (Georgia Southern, Xavier, Youngstown State, Bucknell, Campbell, Jackson State, Sacramento State, Bethune-Cookman and College of Charleston)
• 13 = the number of extra inning games (out of 103 total played this weekend), including a 22-inning monster between TCU and Sam Houston State.  The TCU regional featured 3 extra-inning games plus a 2-1 9-inning game.
• Biggest upsets: clearly the two Florida national seeds (#2 Florida and #5 Florida State) getting blown out and going winless in their regionals.  But the fact that all three Florida hosts were upset is pretty amazing.  Oregon State losing as the #1 overall seed is pretty shocking (even if some thought they were over-seeded).
• Most surprising regional winner: Has to be Kennessaw State, despite its upper first round talent Penecost.  College of Charleston may have been the only #4 seed to advance, but many thought they were at least a #3 seed and maybe even a weak #2.   These were the two highest RPI teams advancing, both in the 50s.
• The #1 ranked RPI team (UVA) and the #1 ranked Baseball America team (Louisiana-Lafayette) both advanced and are on the same side of the potential CWS bracket.
• Exactly ONE Regionals that went pure chalk; the Ole Miss Regional.  Every other regional featured some sort of upset.
• My predictions: just 6 out of 16 predicted correctly.  There were just a ton of upsets this weekend.

Conference Breakdowns of the teams in the Super Regionals:

• 2 ACC teams (out of 7 that made full field).
• 2 SEC teams (out of 10 that made full field).  This is pretty amazing; the SEC had 10 teams and 5 hosts and just two advanced.
• 4 Big-12 teams (out of 5 that made full field).  This is the big news for me; four of the Big-12’s five teams won their regional and the lone outlier (Kansas) finished 2nd to Louisville.
• 1 Pac-12 teams (out of 5 that made full field).  Very poor showing for the Pac-12 this year.
• 1 Big-West teams (out of 4 that made full field).  And the Big West advancer was a shock upset in UC Irvine.
• Both American Athletic Conference teams advanced (Louisville and Houston)
• The remaining 4 are from one-bid conferences: Kennessaw State (Atlantic Sun), Louisiana-Lafayette (Sun Belt), Pepperdine (West Coast), and College of Charleston (CAA).

(Link at CollegeBaseballBlog that has the full field conference breakdowns)

Super Regional Matchups:  With all these upsets, figuring out the hosts was tough.  The 8 hosts were announced late 6/2/14.

• UC Irvine at #16 Oklahoma State
• College of Charleston at Texas Tech
• #3 Virginia hosting Maryland
• Stanford at #13 Vanderbilt
• Kennessaw State at #12 Louisville
• #6 Louisiana-Lafayette hosting #11 Ole Miss
• #7 TCU hosting Pepperdine
• Texas hosting Houston

Super Regional Predictions:  Clearly we’ve under-rated the Big-12 teams, and now they’re hosting four super-regionals.  In each case the’re hosting an up-start/regional upset winner.  I like all four to advance to Omaha.  I think I like the two SEC teams as well; I like Ole Miss upsetting Louisiana-Lafayette.  UVA won’t be beat and for me is the clear CWS favorite right now (The BA guys liked UVA as their pre-tournament favorite despite their losses in the ACC and their dropping in the final top 25 ranking).  Lastly I think Louisville can hold off the surprising Kennessaw State.

Predictions: Oklahoma State, Texas, Louisville and Vanderbilt for one side of the CWS.  UVA, Ole Miss, TCU and Texas Tech on the other.  A very Texas CWS ahead.

College Baseball Daily’s predictions: Oklahoma State, Texas, Louisville, Stanford, UVA, Louisiana-Lafayette, TCU and Texas Tech (with some disagreement here and there).

Resources: d1baseball.com has all the regional results on one page. Their live scoreboard is great and is up-to-the-minute all throughout the weekend with links to the ESPN box scores.

The NCAA always pegs this needle.

I started this post as a rant about the NCAA … but now I’m not sure who i’m more disgusted by, them or the Phillies organization for what was divulged today.

An interesting story popped up today; Oregon State Friday starter Ben Wetzler has been suspended by his school while the NCAA investigates his utilization of an “agent” while negotiating with the Philadelphia Phillies last summer.  The Phillies drafted him in the 5th round (when his name was apparently “Ben Holmes”) after he went 10-1 with a 2.25 ERA for Oregon State last year but did not sign.

The interesting part?  The NCAA received this “tip” from none other than the Phillies organization.

CollegeBaseballDaily had the tip off, leading to this story from Oregonlive.com.  BaseballAmerica’s Aaron Fitt has tweeted about it extensively and has some head-shaking points as cut-n-pasted here from Fitt’s twitter feed.  However it was the reaction from MLBDraftInsider’s Chris Crawford (and the post on NBCHardballTalk by Craig Calcaterra) that I agree with here: Crawford basically thinks the Phillies did this kid a huge disservice for no other apparent reason than revenge or spite.  And I completely agree with Crawford’s point that whoever the Phillies draft this year should tread incredibly carefully when it comes to negotiations, because the organization really doesn’t look good here.

The story is now getting legs, and I personally hope the vitriol towards the Phillies management group continues.  Ruben Amaro should be ashamed.  Read the Philly.com link; apparently they Phillies also did this with their 6th round pick from last year, who also refused to sign.  What the hell??   Why would a team worth hundreds of millions of dollars go out of its way to try to wreck the seasons of a couple of kids??

I post this story for another reason besides the Philadelphia organization looking really immature and petty, and its to complain about the NCAA.  I really can’t stand the continuing hypocrisyof the NCAA and all its examples of two-faced enforcement of rules, and this situation just highlights one more example of why I think the organization paints too broad a brush stroke on an issue related to amateurism.   Crawford points it out plainly; *every* single kid who gets drafted and who still has eligibilty left uses some sort of “agent” or “advisor” in order to negotiate.  They have to; you’re talking about a situation worth potentially millions of dollars with one side (the MLB teams) who enjoys anti-trust and anti-competitive advantages over any non-union player who wants to play professional baseball and who clearly has gone out of their way over the years to drive down amateur bonuses in order to save comparative pennies on the dollar.

But the big bad NCAA says that “hiring an agent” is instant grounds for nullification of eligibility for NCAA sanctioned athletics.

See the problem these kids face here?

Does the NCAA really expect a 20-yr old kid (hell, how about a 17-yr old HS grad?) to go stare down a career baseball executive/general manager 3 times his age in order to negotiate for his best interests??  Does anyone think that would lead to fair market values being granted to these kids?

I think some sort of “negotiating window” needs to be put into play here, so that situations like this don’t happen again.  If you’re a kid with college eligibility left and you’re drafted by a team (no matter what the sport), there should be an official time period where you can receive professional advice while negotiating a potential contract.  These 30-day or 60-day contracts end with either a pro contract or a kid going back to school.   I really don’t see the down side of a situation like this, nor why the NCAA would have any issue with it.  It would allow fair representation of a player’s interests without running into the situation that is occuring here with Wetzler.

I think it points to a larger issue that keeps popping up with regard to NCAA rules; the continuing criticism of just how non-sensical the rules are for athletes on “scholarship.”  When I was in college, I had a job.  I could earn some spending money.  But if you’re an athlete on scholarship …whoops can’t do that.  If I was presented with a multi million dollar job opportunity after my junior year in college and I was just a regular kid, absolutely I could hire a lawyer on contingency to help negotiate; if the contract fell through was I banned from returning to school?  Nope.  So why is this Wetzler kid being banned from playing baseball?

What is the NCAA *really* trying to protect here?  Do they really think that the college baseball game (which is, what, the 4th or 5th most important college sport in this country?) is going to undergo some drastic, life altering change for the worse because some kid decided to get some professional advice while negotiating a future contract??  I just don’t get it.

(Note: there is some precident here; Andy Oliver was suspended by the NCAA based on an allegation by a former agent in 2008, sued and won $750k.  That didn’t stop the NCAA’s tactics in this matter … clearly a larger punitive award was needed.   A year later James Paxton was banished from school over this exact same issue and had to play independent ball instead of completing his senior season.   This clearly cost Paxton; he went from being a 1st round pick to a 4th rounder; I’m not sure if he sued or not.  This situation needs to be resolved).

Editor Update: months later on 5/30/14, Phillies scouting director Marti Wolver came out with an amazingly lame “defense” of his actions.   Law has noted that (per his discussions with people in the industry) little has come of the expected backlash against the Phillies organization.  But, we haven’t had the draft yet.