Tulane Baseball Update: The Hitters: March 25

Week in Review:

Mar 23, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 12, Sacred Heart 0	Box score
Mar 22, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 5, Sacred Heart 2	Box score
Mar 21, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 8, Sacred Heart 0	Box score
Mar 19, 2008	LSU Tigers 7, Tulane Green Wave 5	Box score

Well, the cannon fodder scored on us this weekend, but the story was much the same. By Game 3, Sacred Heart's depth was more or less shot to hell -- the umps could have called mercy sometime in the third inning and everyone would have been happier. Again, I think pulling any conclusions from the weekend slate of games is silly, and WE SHALL NOT SPEAK OF THE MIDWEEK GAME.

HITTERS:

	AVG	SLG%	OB%	EqA
Jared Dyer	0.375	0.556	0.413	0.308
W. McFadden	0.349	0.476	0.468	0.318
Aja Barto	0.333	0.500	0.418	0.308
Rob Segedin	0.329	0.468	0.391	0.284
A. Scelfo	0.301	0.534	0.463	0.322
Seth Henry	0.296	0.507	0.359	0.290
A. Rodgers	0.273	0.527	0.403	0.294
Drew Allain	0.237	0.322	0.338	0.226
Sam Honeck	0.237	0.342	0.341	0.217
Josh Prince	0.164	0.164	0.246	0.113
Marc Robert	0.500	0.750	0.500	0.428
R. Rebowe	0.500	0.750	0.400	0.378
Steve Moritz	0.385	0.385	0.500	0.292
Scott Powell	0.300	0.433	0.382	0.276
N. Boullosa	0.154	0.154	0.214	0.090
G. Griener	0.000	0.000	0.400	0.149

Go here for complete stats.

Observations:

1. Scelfo is quietly having the best season on the team. Even during his early-season "slump," he still showed enough plate patience to be a valuable cog in the lineup. Now that his "traditional" stats (AVG, power numbers, etc.) are coming around, he's headed towards a monster season.
   
2. WoMac Revival, baby! We're still hearing rumors about hitches in swings and bad approaches at bat, but they're easy to dismiss with the numbers he's been putting up. Watch closely when we start to see some decent pitching, though -- if the numbers bottom out, the problems aren't fixed.
   
3. Prince. Let's be clear -- he's in the lineup because he plays good defense and he hit .371/.448/.449. in 89 ABs with Texas last year. At what point, though, does past performance have to be disqualified as a fluke? I'm not saying we should give up on him yet -- the sample size of ABs is still a bit low -- but RJ better be working on a backup plan, because Tulane's lineup doesn't have enough pop to hide a gaping black hole.
4. Again, I'll believe that we're a good offensive club when we hit against a team with a pulse.

Tulane Baseball Update: The Pitchers: March 25

Player	ERA	BB/9	K/9	WHIP	dERA	BABIP
S. Hunt	0.56	4.22	12.66	0.781	1.974	0.179
J. Garrett.	2.31	3.51	7.01	1.126	3.667	0.262
R. Broach	3.25	4.96	4.96	1.654	4.509	0.337
A. Loup	3.56	2.69	6.28	1.196	3.972	0.300
T. Rogers	0.00	5.40	12.60	1.000	2.095	0.200
Mason Griffin	1.88	2.55	7.02	0.851	3.876	0.216
P. Claiborne	2.31	4.82	9.64	1.607	2.653	0.353
T. Martin	2.51	2.55	3.83	0.922	3.205	0.209
M. Petiton	2.84	5.90	7.38	1.475	5.804	0.313
N. Pepitone	3.00	4.50	5.00	1.278	4.968	0.275
J. Zeid	8.31	4.39	7.68	2.439	5.136	0.471
TULANE	2.65	3.87	7.43	1.225	3.690	0.290
Opponents	6.41	4.74	6.75	1.697	5.028	0.359

*dERA is defense-independent earned run average. This is a component-based stat, so think of it as what a pitcher's ERA should be.

Observations:

1. dERA seems to think Petition, Broach, and Griffin are pitching a bit over their heads. High walk rates are the culprit for Petition and Broach, while Griffin's BABIP (batting average on balls in play) may be unsustainably low.
2. Don't get your panties in a bunch over Shooter's jump up from ERA to dERA. The system is designed for a long season, and not league or park adjusted (yet). That said, it's unlikely that Shooter's BABIP stays quite that low, and he is walking quite a few people.
3. Loup may deserve a little more credit than he's getting. If he can bump that K rate a bit, he could look great on paper. Anyone know whether Loup is a primarily groundball pitcher? Just curious, but that could explain his relatively high BABIP and low K rate.
4. Our defense is quite good, judging by these statistics. According to dERA, it is saving us about 1 run a game, which is an enormous number. I'm going to recheck a few things this weekend -- the discrepancy may have something to do with variances between the college and major league game (I used MLB rate stats in the calculation).
   
5. Shooter Hunt is getting some great press across the internets, and it was nice to see my new favorite site, Saberscouting, run a feature on him.

Pitch - Present Grade/Future Grade [ed. note: baseball scouting is done on a 20-80 scale]

Fastball - 65/70

Curveball - 65/65

Changeup - 45/50

Command - 45/50

...

Power pitcher but struggles with command in spurts. Sometimes spots his pitches as well as anyone but can fall out of his groove incredibly quickly. Lots of walks, lots of strikeouts. When on, he’s got frontline potential. Plus makeup, plays to win, great competitive attitude. Must learn to pitch, not throw. Huge upside.

Go read the whole thing -- it's a nice breakdown of his mechanics, his upside, and his warts. At this point, we're talking about a top-15 pick, assuming he holds up against better competition. If he sharpens his walk rate, then watch out.

Tulane Baseball Update: The Week Ahead: March 25

This Week's Schedule:

03/25/08	at Southeastern Louisiana	Hammond, La.	6:30 p.m. CT
03/28/08	at UAB* *	Birmingham, Ala.	7:00 p.m. CT
03/29/08	at UAB* *	Birmingham, Ala.	2:00 p.m. CT
03/30/08	at UAB* *	Birmingham, Ala.	1:00 p.m. CT

SELA goes with Adam Jones tonight. He's started three games this season, but really hasn't stretched out at all, pitching only 13 innings total (he also made a relief appearance). He appears to be a pretty solid pitcher, but don't look for him to go much past 3. After him, SELA has a mishmash of average middle relievers. Efferson, their other midweek starter (who we may see tonight) has been knocked around this season. Hitting-wise, SELA has a core of Hargis-Summerlin-Street, and not much else. They should be out of their depth tonight, but remember that they did knock off LSU earlier this season (throwing a weekend starter, granted).

UAB is the weekend matchup, and it should be a nice way to start the conference season for Tulane. UAB has more or less been beaten like a drum by anyone and everyone this year, and they haven't exactly played great competition. First baseman Ryan Keedy is having a monster of a year, and Bell and Stewart are average players, but the rest of the team might as well be swinging wet newspapers. On the mound, Wallace and Klostkowski are decent starters, but UAB is a giant question mark after that. 9 different pitchers have started games; 8 others have pitched in relief. This should be a perfect week -- anything less would be a disappointment.

Tulane Baseball Weekend Review: March 17

Week in Review:

Mar 16, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 16, Oakland University 0	Box score
Mar 15, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 19, Oakland University 0	Box score
Mar 14, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 3, Oakland University 0	Box score
Mar 12, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 18, Northwestern State 11	Box score
Mar 11, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 4, Northwestern State 3	Box score

Five patsies, five wins. You'll note the 38-0 showing the Mighty Oakland Something-0r-others put on this weekend. In short, a weekend due to inept pitching, full of pings and thwacks, signifying nothing.

Blah blah blah everybody's stats look great:

	AVG	OB%	SLG%	EqA(Nat.)	EqA(CUSA)
W. McFadden	0.346	0.460	0.462	0.315	0.312
Jared Dyer	0.339	0.381	0.554	0.298	0.296
Rob Segedin	0.333	0.395	0.464	0.279	0.277
A. Rodgers	0.333	0.444	0.644	0.335	0.332
Aja Barto	0.323	0.400	0.508	0.303	0.301
A. Scelfo	0.267	0.429	0.517	0.308	0.306
Seth Henry	0.259	0.295	0.448	0.248	0.247
Sam Honeck	0.239	0.329	0.358	0.219	0.220
Drew Allain	0.226	0.339	0.302	0.218	0.218
Josh Prince	0.184	0.273	0.184	0.129	0.134
Steve Moritz	0.455	0.556	0.455	0.332	0.330
Scott Powell	0.429	0.467	0.643	0.346	0.343

Go here for complete stats.

Five items of note:

1. I think it's safe to pencil Rodgers into that cleanup spot for the remainder of the season.
2. Seth Henry, extra base hit machine? We'll see if this continues. Scelfo, on the other hand, continues to produce despite ugly "traditional" stats.
   
3. The pitching is deep and dominant. It'll be interesting to see if Loup does well against better competition this week.
4. Broach's peripherals still look terrible. Watch him closely.
   
5. I'll believe all of these Candyland fantasies when we perform against a team with a pulse.
   

Shooter Hunt, 2008 All-American and top-15 draft pick. Sound about right? Anyway, we have another "baseball team" coming to slaughter this weekend in Sacred Heart ... and of course there's that meaningless midweek game.

Go to Hell, LSU!

Tulane Recap: Week 3

Weekly Recap:

Overall Record: 8-5

Mar 09, 2008	UC Irvine Anteaters 5, Tulane Green Wave 1	Box score
Mar 08, 2008	UC Irvine Anteaters 7, Tulane Green Wave 3	Box score
Mar 07, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 2, UC Irvine Anteaters 0	Box score
Mar 05, 2008	Tulane Green Wave 14, Southern Jaguars 6	Box score
Mar 04, 2008	New Orleans 4, Tulane Green Wave 2	Box score

Midweek games don't usually come as tough as UNO -- the team is solid (if not spectacular) top to bottom, and features a first team preseason All-American second baseman in Johnny Giavotella. The basic recap: Tulane starter Jonathan Garrett struggled with his control for much of the game; UNO starter Bryan Cryer was dominant. Still, the game ended in dramatic fashion, as Tulane junior Andrew Rodgers damn near parked a 2-out grand slam in the 9th.

Things eased up a bit with the Southern game, which gave us all a glimmer of hope as the bats got going. Unfortunately, UCI and their top-ranked pitching staff were coming to town (yeah, it's early, but these guys are top-5 legit in the pitching department).

Friday night: Shooter 1, UCI 0. You have to think that Hunt, a dominant 6'3" sophomore righty, is a legitimate All-American candidate ... and draft-eligible at that. Saturday and Sunday were similar thematically for Tulane: no hit, shaky outings by the starters, and solid relief performances from Nick Pepitone and Preston Claiborne, respectively.

Hitting stats through 3/10:

	AVG	SLG%	OB%	EqA(Nat.)
Jared Dyer.......	0.333	0.511	0.392	0.287
Aja Barto........	0.333	0.556	0.415	0.315
Warren McFadden..	0.270	0.378	0.372	0.264
Rob Segedin......	0.265	0.327	0.321	0.197
Sam Honeck.......	0.239	0.348	0.352	0.229
Drew Allain......	0.234	0.319	0.321	0.212
Seth Henry.......	0.233	0.302	0.283	0.178
Anthony Scelfo...	0.171	0.390	0.382	0.264
Steve Moritz.....	0.750	0.750	0.667	0.447
Scott Powell.....	0.250	0.250	0.400	0.194
Andrew Rodgers...	0.231	0.423	0.333	0.243
Josh Prince......	0.161	0.161	0.257	0.049

I get the feeling we're going to see more of Rodgers, who at least has shown some pop in limited at bats. Again, Prince and Henry have been awful ... and really, it's unfair to limit that statement to them. ALL of the hitters, with the limited (and brilliant) exceptions of Barto and Dyer. But for those two, Tulane would be what -- 3-10? The team has to get some production out of Segedin and Honeck -- too many punchless at bats at power positions are going to those guys. Granted, we've seen some decent pitching, but man ... bats need to warm up. You've got to hand it to Coach Jones -- he's juggled the lineups and attempted to play the hot hand, but that's tough when nobody's performing. The big question is, whither Warren McFadden? After a stunning freshman year, WoMac has regressed to being an average (if useful) player ... fine, but far from the first team All-American we had expected. Some observers have mentioned that he's developed hitch in his swing ... let's hope he can get that ironed out and put up some numbers.

What We've Learned:

• The weekend rotation may not yet be set. Broach and Loup have both been shakier than their ERAs indicate (high WHIPs, low K rates), and RJ had a pretty hook attached to Loup this weekend. I'm guessing we'll see a new face on the hill this Sunday.
  
• Tulane has lots of pitching depth, but not lots of pitching dominance (i.e. power pitchers capable of putting up a Shooter-like performance). In my view, this is a good thing -- it gives the team a decided advantage in midweek games, and will pay dividends when we hit tournament time.
• We can't hit. At all. There's really no silver lining in the stats -- the K rate is too high, the BB rate too low, and there's no pop from the power positions. It's not time to panic yet, of course, as the season is young and the sample size is small. Perhaps it's the weather, maybe we've run into some tough pitching (likely something of a factor) or some bad umpires, or maybe the hitters are just a bit behind the pitching.
  

The Week Ahead:

03/11/08	vs. NORTHWESTERN STATE	New Orleans, La.	6:00 p.m. CT
03/12/08	vs. NORTHWESTERN STATE	New Orleans, La.	3:00 p.m. CT
03/14/08	vs. OAKLAND (Mich.)	New Orleans, La.	6:00 p.m. CT
03/15/08	vs. OAKLAND (Mich.)	New Orleans, La.	2:00 p.m. CT
03/16/08	vs. OAKLAND (Mich.)	New Orleans, La.	1:00 p.m. CT

To put it as nicely as possible, these teams are patsies. Both have put up average numbers against poor competition, but have been steamrolled by anyone with a pulse.

We should note, though, that Northwestern is exceptionally patient at the plate, which could be a bad mix with our pitchers. Not throwing a ball within ten feet of Mike Jaworski might be a good idea, too -- he comes into the game sporting a .739 slugging percentage. These two midweek games should be easy wins, but a loss in either would signal that Tulane's early-season flaws are a bit more serious than we'd hoped.

Oakland, on the other hand, should be easy pickings. The team sports an ERA over 8, but their bats have kept them semi-competitive. Hopefully, this series will be a good opportunity for Tulane's hitters to build some confidence at the plate.

Tulane Baseball: Early Season Recap

Every week for the remainder of the season we'll do a rundown of the past week's games (including midweek) and player performance. We encourage comments and contributions -- email us at CWATCF@gmail.com if you're the appropriate combination of stats nerd and Tulane fan.

Following last weekend's games, Tulane is 6-2 (yes, we're aware they played last night -- it'll be covered next week).

Mar 02, 2008	Minneapolis, Minn.	Tulane Green Wave 5, TCU Horned Frogs 3	Box score
Mar 01, 2008	Minneapolis, Minn.	Minnesota Gophers 7, Tulane Green Wave 5	Box score
Feb 29, 2008	Minneapolis, Minn.	Pepperdine Waves 4, Tulane Green Wave 2	Box score
Feb 27, 2008	New Orleans, La.	Tulane Green Wave 10, Louisiana-Lafayette 1	Box score
Feb 26, 2008	New Orleans, La.	Tulane Green Wave 4, Southeastern La. 3	Box score
Feb 24, 2008	New Orleans, La.	Tulane Green Wave 9, Illinois Chicago 2	Box score
Feb 23, 2008	New Orleans, La.	Tulane Green Wave 4, Illinois Chicago 3	Box score
Feb 22, 2008	New Orleans, La.	Tulane Green Wave 6, Illinois Chicago 0	Box score

UIC, unsurprisingly, was a bit of a mismatch for the Green Wave, and doesn't tell us much. The victories over ULL and SELA, however, were solid and cause for a good bit of hope -- repeat after us: Louisiana baseball is the best in the nation. On the other hand, the 1-2 weekend in Minnesota wasn't exactly a disaster -- the competition was solid, if not great -- but it exposed a few potential weaknesses. Like last year, the Wave are striking out a bit too much, not walking quite enough, and not showing a ton of patience at the plate. As the YOGWF boys have pointed out, some of that can be attributed to some strange strike zones in the early games (perhaps the umps have a bit of warming up to do, too?) ... but if it doesn't get fixed, Tulane's going to have trouble putting up runs against better pitchers.

Speaking of pitchers, the majority of Tulane's have been excellent, sporting a WHIP of around 1.21. The starters in particular have been exceptional, going deep into games and proving to be difficult to hit. That said, there are some signs of trouble on the horizon. Some of the BABIPs are unsustainably low, the BB/9 of 3.84 is teetering on the edge of ugliness, and holy crap we've hit 16 people in 9 games!?!!?! We may need to invest in Kevlar vests for visiting teams.

Still, if we get pitching like this for the rest of the season, we'll be playing well into the summer.

Player	SLG%	OB%	EqA(Natl.)	EqA(CUSA)
Jared Dyer	0.654	0.433	0.323	0.330
Aja Barto	0.714	0.441	0.355	0.362
Sam Honeck	0.367	0.382	0.239	0.246
Rob Segedin	0.375	0.303	0.208	0.214
Drew Allain	0.406	0.343	0.244	0.251
Seth Henry	0.280	0.333	0.161	0.168
W. McFadden..	0.348	0.357	0.255	0.261
Anthony Scelfo	0.414	0.378	0.265	0.272
Josh Prince	0.143	0.217	0.095	0.085

(FYI, EqA National balances the team's stats against a large sample of national teams; CUSA only uses conference stats. Go here for a primer on EqA, or here for our breakdown. Go here for full Tulane stats.)

A few things stand out here, even given the small sample size or around 25 ABs: Dyer has had an All-American start to the season, Barto has been excellent (though his 33% K rate is frightening), Henry has had a rough first two weeks ... and wow, Prince (a big time transfer) has been horrible. What worries us is that RJ won't give him enough time to work through his early season troubles, and there's not a great second option at SS.

Note for uber-nerds:

We use last year's statistics from CUSA, Big 10, Pac 10, ACC and SEC schools for our league numbers. This is poor methodology, obviously, but we do it for several reasons: 1) College baseball stats are hard to find (especially for smaller leagues like the SWAC), rarely updated, and poorly organized. Using last year's stats means that we don't have to spend hours finding and reformatting stats from various leagues. Assuming no major changes (new bats, etc.), statistics should be similar from year to year. 2) Since the season is relatively short, sample size is relatively small. Using the larger pool of numbers from last year gives us a more accurate reading. 3) College baseball ballparks aren't uniform and often don't play "fair." Bigger leagues play more games in relatively uniform, "fair" parks and therefore are more susceptible to statistical analysis.

We should also note that none of the numbers are park adjusted. The rationale here is the same as above, coupled with the fact that Tulane's new stadium, unlike Zephyr, plays relatively fair -- Rick Jones said it, so it must be true. When we post next week about last year's team, we will park-adjust for Zephyr.

In other words, spare us the bitching or do a better job yourself.

College Baseball, In Nerd Terms

One of my favorite tools when evaluating players is Equivalent Average (EqA). First of all, it enables us to compare apples (traditional sluggers) and oranges (high batting average/base stealers), along with the occasional kumquat (high OBP guys). Secondly, it makes the comparisons in the language of batting average, perhaps the statistic most ingrained in the American consciousness. This makes EqA easy to appreciate (more so, at least, than something like WARP-3). Finally, it provides easy opportunities for the person calculating the stat (in this case, me) to adjust for things like park effects. As anyone who has ever seen the cavernous Zephyr Field knows, this can be important.

Basically, EqA takes the traditional statistics we know and love -- batting average, slugging percentage, and on-base percentage -- and rolls them together, tacking on things like sacrifices and stolen bases. To measure EqA, we take the player's offensive production, and using the number of outs made by the player as a rate statistic, we get an accurate measure of the player's run production in game (were he to bat in all nine slots). EqA takes that measure, balances it against league performances, and divides by a constant. Sounds complicated, but the whole idea is to make Joe Average's production equal to .260.

Think of it on the same terms as batting average -- a guy who hits .230 is a terrible baseball player; a guy who hits .300 is a really good one. Albert Pujols, for example, clocks in around .335 for his career. Neifi Perez? Not so much.

We'll probably play with a few other statistics as we go along, but this should lay the groundwork for EqA. Later today (or perhaps tomorrow), we'll do a rundown of Tulane's current team.

Apologies In Advance

So it’s the offseason, and we ain’t got shit to do, right?

Look, we apologize for the lack of college football content on the site recently. Recruiting just isn’t our thing, and we have trouble getting all excited for winter practices or even the spring games. The niche that we enjoy the most (arrests and other bad behavior by athletes) has been filled. As most of you have doubtless figured out, a significant portion of our pleasure from watching college football is derived from watching institutions that we can’t stand lose in particularly humiliating fashion. It’s hard to get that sort of feeling from an intrasquad game (“Red totally crushed those Black losers hahahahahha”), so unless Jimmy Clausen blows an ACL or Tennessee gets the death penalty ... well, call us in August.

So how do we fill our time from February to July? Working in soup kitchens, building homes for the poor, spending time with our loved ones college baseball.

Yes, as Brady has already pointed out, this is one college sport that our undergraduate institution can compete in. For those of you who don’t know, Tulane’s baseball program is one of the best in the nation, regularly appearing in Omaha for the College World Series (please, please don’t ask how we’ve done once we’ve gotten there). Coached by the highly regarded Rick Jones, the team has produced talents by the name of Sutter, Aubrey, Gautreau, and Owings. Sure, you may only recognize that last name, but our stud draftees have had some bad luck with injuries of late. You’ll see more Tulane grads in the majors in the very near future, rest assured.

At Tulane, students spend a significant portion of spring at the park, knocking back cold ones and yelling the Hullabaloo (below) after each minor on-field success. It’s a pretty good way to spend a lazy spring day.

A One, A Two,
A Helluva
Hullabaloo
A Hullabaloo
Ray Ray
A Hullabaloo
Ray Ray
Hooray
Hooray
Vars Vars Tee Ay
Tee Ay, Tee Ay
Vars Vars Tee Ay
Tulane!

Yeah, it’s a silly cheer, but it becomes much more coherent after downing a flask of Jack. Our point is that baseball is one of the things we love about the school and New Orleans, and we aren’t alone. Tulane draws some of the largest crowds in the nation, and has a bitter instate rivalry with the Louisiana State Cheating Tiger team and its incompetent coaching staff. This year is especially exciting, featuring a new stadium and a number of high profile transfers.

And yes, this is all justification for the amount of time we’re about to spend talking about it.

Deal with it, people.