Nationals Arm Race

The right guy is finally closing. Photo via mlb.com

New anointed Nationals closer Koda Glover came into Friday night’s game in what was absolutely a “save situation.”  Max Scherzer ran out of gas, clearly, had loaded the bases and the tying run was at the plate.

What’d he do?  He threw four “sliders,” all of them between 95.4 and 96.4 MPH, all of them unhittable, and struck out Hunter Renfroe with ease to close the game out.

Here’s the video of the final pitch: http://m.mlb.com/video/v1430295083/sdwsh-glover-strikes-out-renfroe-to-notch-the-save/?game_pk=490824

Now, some might call his pitch a cutter; Glover refers to it as a cutter while Pitch F/X classifies it as a slider.  It seems to me to be somewhere in between in terms of movement: i think it moves more than Mariano Rivera‘s cutter/cut-fastball, but doesn’t move as sharply as other sliders that we’ve seen.  Either way, a 96 mph pitch with that kind of movement is a heck of a pitch.

Lots of people freaked out when Noah Snydergaard debuted his 95mph slider, which looks like an actual slider (see video evidence here) more than Glover’s.  And Snydergaard’s pitch is pretty amazing.  But so is a 96-mph cut-fastball, especially from a guy who really doesn’t have that much time in the majors and who might be improving/learning as we speak.

Glover should have been the closer from day one and now he is; i’m guessing he doesn’t get supplanted from the role for a while.

Here’s an update of where we are in the 2013 College World Series (CWS).  We’re to the CWS final, having had the 8 competitors whittled to just two.

To recap the entire NCAA post-season tournament with links to previous posts:

• Here’s my look at the Field of 64.
• Here’s a review of the First round and a look at the Super Regionals.
• Here’s a review of the Super Regionals and the CWS field with predictions.
• Here’s a look at the first four days of the CWS.

A couple helpful resources for those who want to follow the College game: here’s a link to the CWS schedule page at d1baseball.com, which I use as the best way to quickly find all the core college site data.  And here’s the best (only?) College Baseball blog out there: CollegeBaseballDaily.com.

CWS Field: here’s the two Original Brackets.

• Bracket 1: UNC, NC State, UCLA, LSU
• Bracket 2: Mississippi State, Oregon State, Indiana, Louisville

Days 5-6:

• Results: Two elimination Games.  Oregon State v Indiana, and UNC v NC State.
• Oregon State shut down Indiana in one loser’s bracket elimination game 1-0 behind a complete game 4-hitter from senior lefty Ace/Friday starter Matt Boyd.   Boyd improved to 13-4 on the season in what may have been his last collegiate start; he was a 6th round pick by Toronto.   Boyd out-dueled fellow Ace/Friday starter Aaron Sledgers, himself a 5th round pick by Minnesota, who finishes his 2013 season 9-2 after giving up just one run on 7 hits for his complete game loss.
• UNC got a couple of runs on NC State’s ace starter Carlos Rodon (pitching on 3-days rest and on a pitch count limit) and #3/Sunday starter Hobbs Johnson made it stand up, throwing 8 1/3 shutout innings in the start of his career as UNC took the loser-bracket final 7-0 (box/gamer).  Johnson is an undersized lefty with decent velocity picked in the 14th round by Milwaukee.   By throwing their #3 starter, UNC can come back with their #1 Kent Emanuel and #2 Trent Thornton ready to go to try to beat UCLA twice to make the final.

Days 7-8:

• Results: Bracket Finals: Mississippi State over Oregon State 4-1, and UCLA over UNC by the same score.
  
• Mississippi State got to Oregon State starter Andrew Moore, hanging him with just his second loss of the season and their big-time hitter Hunter Renfroe hit a 3-run homer to win the game for the SEC team (box).
• UNC’s Emanuel didn’t pitch badly (6ip, 1 earned run) but threw far too many pitches (112 pitches through six innings) while the Tar Heel’s offense couldn’t touch UCLA’s #3/Sunday starter Grant Watson, and UCLA cruised into the CWS final (box).

CWS Bracket Results: here’s the final standings of each of the two CWS Brackets:

Bracket 1:

• 1st place: #12 UCLA
• 2nd Place: #1 UNC
• 3rd Place: #9 NC State
• 4th Place: #4 LSU

Bracket 2:

• 1st place: #11 Mississippi State
• 2nd Place: #3 Oregon State
• 3rd Place: #10 Indiana
• 4th Place: #15 Louisville

Where do we stand in the tournament now/What’s next?

• The final is set: Mississippi State and UCLA will play a 3-game set starting tonight 6/24, 6/25 and (if necessary) 6/26.
• UCLA’s pitching staff is set up perfectly for the 3-game set, with Ace Adam Plutko set to go on 6/24 with more than a week’s rest since his 6/16 victory.  If the series goes all three games, none of UCLA’s starters will be on anything other than regular rest.  Meanwhile Mississippi State’s “rotation” has been a patchwork the entire post-season; their #1/friday starter Luis Pollorena hurt himself in the regionals and has only thrown a handful of innings in the CWS.  We havn’t seen their #3/sunday starter Jacob Lindgren the entire post-season.  The team has leaned heavily on #2/Saturday starter Kendal Graveman, who has now started four of their post season games (including two games in the Bracket) and on a couple of bullpen guys in Trevor Fitts and Chad Girodo to make up the innings (the Fitts/Girodo combo likely starts tonight).  Graveman would be on 4-days rest for the 2nd game, 5 days rest for a 3rd game in the CWS final but likely will not pitch the opener.
  
• Is this a compelling CWS final?  The 3rd place PAC-12 team and a team that finished a distant 3rd in its division (and was barely over .500 in conference play) in the SEC?   I would have loved to see a Vanderbilt-UNC or a Vanderbilt-LSU SEC grudge match in the final.  I would have liked to see an ACC team at least challenge for the title to try to break their big winless streak.  That being said, both teams were very good; Mississippi State was a 50 win team, UCLA a 47-win team.

Prediction: I think UCLA’s pitching staff is setup and rested while Mississippi State’s staff is in disarray and will be tired.  I think this will make the difference as UCLA takes it in 3.

Feel free to read on if you’re not a College Baseball guy, since I know some of my readers have questioned why I follow the college game.

The Field of 64 was announced today with all of the conference tournaments ending, and there were a few surprises in the seeds and field.

A quick guide to how the College World Series (CWS) field works: teams play in 16 “Regional tournaments” kicking off this coming weekend.  These are 4-team double elimination tournaments to determine a regional winner.  Then, the winners of each regional square off in a best-of-3 “Super Regional” the weekend of June 7-8-9 to determine the Eight (8) College World Series entrants.  Those 8 teams then are divided into two pots of four, play one additional 4-team double elimination tournament to arrive at a winner-take-all CWS championship.  The regions are hosted by schools; the CWS is hosted in Omaha, Nebraska.  When talking below about the “seeds” of the regional tournaments, the teams are seeded 1 through 4 within the regional tournament.  The regional host is the #1 seed, and the weakest entrant is the #4 seed.  This is not the same thing as talking about the “overall” seed; to make that distinction i’ll always say “tournament seeds” when talking about the overall tournament seeds.

Quick reference to current polls:

• WarrenNolan College Baseball RPI rankings
• Baseball America rankings 5/27/13
• USA Today Coaches Poll 5/27/13

Biggest snubs: Probably Seton Hall, Pittsburgh, and perhaps Auburn.  Notre Dame had a beef to, with a decent RPI, but were only the #7 seed in the Big East and lost the title game to the #8 seeded UConn and that was that.  Possibly Stanford, who were 5th in a 4-bid conference.  Campbell has a big beef; they were the #1 seed in the Big South, lose the title game 2-1 and miss out while the #2 seed (Coastal Carolina) in the conference makes it as an at-large.  Gonzaga was the #1 seed in the WCC but lost their last 7 games to take them from 32-14 to 32-21 and a missed tournament.  Nebraska isn’t technically a sub (they finished a game under .500) but had they won one more game they’d be in for sure.  Apparently Mercer was last in and Michigan State was last out, so we’ll say that Michigan State is a snub too.

Conference Distribution: As expected the tournament is dominated by the SEC (9 teams) and ACC (8 teams).  Surprisingly this year the mid-major Sun Belt conference has as many teams (4) as the Pac-10 (also 4).  Traditional Pac-10 powerhouses Cal, Stanford and Arizona all had down years.   The CAA surprisingly got 3 bids when upstart Towson won the tournament; i’m sure there are grumblings from the snubs above over the at-large bids given to William & Mary.

If the top 16 tournament seeds (aka, the regional hosts) hold serve, your super regional field would look like this (note the teams 9-16 are not “officially” seeded but to be honest they basically make sense and are ranked appropriately.  Its not as if the committee just pulls these names out of a hat).

• #1 UNC v #16 South Carolina
• #8 Oregon v #9 NC State
• #5 Cal State Fullerton v #12 UCLA
• #4 LSU v #13 Virginia Tech

• #6 UVA v #11 Mississippi State
• #3 Oregon State v #14 Kansas State
• #7 Florida State v #10 Indiana
• #2 Vanderbilt v #15 Louisville

Thoughts on the 1-8 tournament seeding: I would have had both Vanderbilt and LSU above UNC, but not by much and it may not really matter frankly.  I think BA’s rankings are wrong to have Vanderbilt above LSU the day after LSU beats them on a neutral field for the SEC championship.   Oregon State may be seeded slightly high, but as some have pointed out they may have slightly tweaked the seeds so that the two big guns from the ACC and SEC were balanced in the top 8 seeds.  Fair enough for me.  Cal State Fullerton is ALWAYS ranked too highly and always seems to fail to live up to their seeding; they face a tough regional with Arizona and New Mexico.

Biggest over-seed amongst the 16 hosts: none really; they’re by and large the 16 best teams this year.  Perhaps Va Tech or Kansas State.  Indiana is highly ranked but was from a one-bid conference whose #3 seed had a losing record on the season.  Louisville  may struggle to win its own regional with Miami and Oklahoma state to contend with.

Most aggrieved #2 Regional seed: Probably Clemson, who is mostly identically ranked as South Carolina, its arch rival, and now it has to go there to advance.  Also perhaps grumbling about their lot in this tournament are Oklahoma and Arkansas, both of whom are higher ranked in the coaches poll than their regional hosts (Virginia Tech and Kansas State respectively).

Easiest Regions for the Hosts: UNC gets three mid-major teams, none of which seem that challenging.  UVA’s region looks even easier; their hardest test is UNC-Wilmington.  LSU has in-state rival Louisiana-Lafayette to contend with but little else.

Toughest #3 Regional Seeds: Probably New Mexico; who blew away their conference and are ranked #17 in the coaches poll.   Oklahoma State is #19 in the coaches poll and is regionally seeded behind Miami.  Mercer (RPI #29), Troy, San Diego and Florida (who barely earned their way in by achieving a .500 record with the Nations 2nd hardest schedule) are also going to be tough #3 seeds to contend with.

Who is the next Fresno State (aka, the next #4 regional seed to come out of nowhere to win): Tough one in this tournament; most of the #4 seeds are automatic bid teams with RPIs in the 180-200 range.  Wichita State has a rich college baseball history and is a #4 regional seed despite winning the WAC.  San Diego State could surprise, as well as St. Louis.  But most of the #4 seeds are early tournament fodder.

Big-time Draft Prospects to keep an eye on, by team: Likely #1 overall pick Mark Appel‘s season is over as Stanford failed to qualify for the tournament (drafting teams can now rest; Stanford has no more chances to abuse Appel on pitch-counts for the rest of his college career).  The rest of the names here are all considered 1st or 2nd round prospects by Keith Law or Baseball America and they’re listed in rough order of where they’re likely to be drafted in the 1st and 2nd rounds.  The Nats don’t pick until the end of the 2nd round, but should have a shot at some of the names at the bottom of this list:

• Jonathan Grey, Oklahoma’s #1 starter and 1-1 candidate.
• Kris Bryant, San Diego’s record-breaking slugger and likely top-3 pick.
• Colin Moran, UNC 3B
• Ryne Stanek, Arkansas’ #1 starter who’s stock has slightly fallen this year.
• D.J. Peterson, New Mexico 3B/1B
• Hunter Renfroe, Mississippi State OF
• Jonathan Crawford, Florida RHP
• Trey Ball, Indiana LHP
• Bobby Wahl, Mississippi RHP (and Springfield VA native as discussed in my local draft prospects post last week).
• Ryan Eades, LSU RHP
• Trevor Williams, Arizona State RHP
• Jason Hursch, Oklahoma State RHP
• Michael Lorenzen, Cal State Fullerton OF/RHP
• Alex Balog, San Francisco RHP

Let the games begin!