[Ballbuster]

Long time listener, first time caller! Just kidding. This is my first post on this message board, but felt a needs to come on here with the success the
baseball program is seeing post Marquess. 

I was a supporter of Esquer when he was at Cal. I was excited to get some new blood and attitude in that program to change the direction. The recognition the program has received with the number of major leaguers that represent the program under his time at Cal. Is a great accomplishment to date. 

I was sad to see him go, but with the obstacles he was facing before and after 2011. The constant uncertainty if the program will last, and the chicanery that was going on behind the scenes, as was reported in 2011 during the programs CWS run. 

I understood why he took the opportunity to go home when it presented itself. The program seems to be benefiting today with the Pac and tourney momentum going into the post season. 

For me, where someone received their diploma does not matter, it is the potential of what can be accomplished.  That is a rare attitude on the other side of the bay. Too bad others did not see it the same way, and took every opportunity to complain. As for the state of the program today, playing games until 2am for an all or nothing result, is a major accomplishment. 

Good luck in the regional, represent the conference well!

Oh, and if anyone says anything good or defends Esquer on here, I am accused of being the author of that post by the other message board. Ballbuster, you have been the latest. Thanks for that! LOL!!!! 

That's the news, and I am outta here!!!

Baller4, LOL, I took a look at your board. Looks like you have quite a crew over on that side. I have to laugh, because I did see where someone accused you of being me. I wonder if he is on here now reading what is being posted today. 

Anyways, welcome to this board, please add some insight when you can. Roll on or something like that...... They are rolling somewhere!

[Ballbuster]

Long time listener, first time caller! Just kidding. This is my first post on this message board, but felt a needs to come on here with the success the
baseball program is seeing post Marquess. 

I was a supporter of Esquer when he was at Cal. I was excited to get some new blood and attitude in that program to change the direction. The recognition the program has received with the number of major leaguers that represent the program under his time at Cal. Is a great accomplishment to date. 

I was sad to see him go, but with the obstacles he was facing before and after 2011. The constant uncertainty if the program will last, and the chicanery that was going on behind the scenes, as was reported in 2011 during the programs CWS run. 

I understood why he took the opportunity to go home when it presented itself. The program seems to be benefiting today with the Pac and tourney momentum going into the post season. 

For me, where someone received their diploma does not matter, it is the potential of what can be accomplished.  That is a rare attitude on the other side of the bay. Too bad others did not see it the same way, and took every opportunity to complain. As for the state of the program today, playing games until 2am for an all or nothing result, is a major accomplishment. 

Good luck in the regional, represent the conference well!

Oh, and if anyone says anything good or defends Esquer on here, I am accused of being the author of that post by the other message board. Ballbuster, you have been the latest. Thanks for that! LOL!!!! 

That's the news, and I am outta here!!!

Baller4, LOL, I took a look at your board. Looks like you have quite a crew over on that side. I have to laugh, because I did see where someone accused you of being me. I wonder if he is on here now reading what is being posted today. 

Anyways, welcome to this board, please add some insight when you can. Roll on or something like that...... They are rolling somewhere!

[TonyLima]

Nice analysis, CT; I have echoes of Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon saying “They always [screw] you in the drive through.”

I feel like we are always getting screwed in the tournament.

BC

Night games for the winners bracket guaratee that no one east of the Rockies will watch. Supporting BC’s paranoia.

[TonyLima]

Nice analysis, CT; I have echoes of Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon saying “They always [screw] you in the drive through.”

I feel like we are always getting screwed in the tournament.

BC

Night games for the winners bracket guaratee that no one east of the Rockies will watch. Supporting BC’s paranoia.

[CTcard]

Nice analysis, CT; I have echoes of Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon saying “They always [screw] you in the drive through.”

I feel like we are always getting screwed in the tournament.

BC

Night games for the winners bracket guaratee that no one east of the Rockies will watch. Supporting BC’s paranoia.

Well, every winners bracket (winner game 1 vs winner game 2) is a night game, almost all at 7 pm local time. 

Not really associated with the getting screwed part, which is much more a function of RPI under-rating the better west coast teams on average.

To BC - that was a popular catch phrase in my grad student suite for a year or so. 
The Drive Through

[CTcard]

Nice analysis, CT; I have echoes of Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon saying “They always [screw] you in the drive through.”

I feel like we are always getting screwed in the tournament.

BC

Night games for the winners bracket guaratee that no one east of the Rockies will watch. Supporting BC’s paranoia.

Well, every winners bracket (winner game 1 vs winner game 2) is a night game, almost all at 7 pm local time. 

Not really associated with the getting screwed part, which is much more a function of RPI under-rating the better west coast teams on average.

To BC - that was a popular catch phrase in my grad student suite for a year or so. 
The Drive Through

[Sam Leopold]

Nice analysis, CT; I have echoes of Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon saying “They always [screw] you in the drive through.”

I feel like we are always getting screwed in the tournament.

BC

Boyd Nation, a self-described Mississippi State fan, has endeavored to quantify this with his own power rank called Iterative Strength Rankings (ISR) which he used to analyze the seedings from 1999-2019.

A 25-Year Retrospective -- 1995-2019 (boydsworld.com)

He even devotes a small section to Stanford all by itself, remarking, among other things, that "Stanford has been terribly treated by the selection process".  Most of the jobbing happened in 1999-2003 when Stanford did five straight to Omaha and it was actually our opponents that got hurt more than us, but still.

More relevant to this tourney, in Boyd Nation's ISR for this year, Stanford is #3.  Our two-seed Texas State is #12.  Our three-seed UC Santa Barbara is #9.  That's two other teams in our regional objectively good enough (by ISR, not by RPI) to host their own regionals.  Yikes.

[Sam Leopold]

Nice analysis, CT; I have echoes of Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon saying “They always [screw] you in the drive through.”

I feel like we are always getting screwed in the tournament.

BC

Boyd Nation, a self-described Mississippi State fan, has endeavored to quantify this with his own power rank called Iterative Strength Rankings (ISR) which he used to analyze the seedings from 1999-2019.

A 25-Year Retrospective -- 1995-2019 (boydsworld.com)

He even devotes a small section to Stanford all by itself, remarking, among other things, that "Stanford has been terribly treated by the selection process".  Most of the jobbing happened in 1999-2003 when Stanford did five straight to Omaha and it was actually our opponents that got hurt more than us, but still.

More relevant to this tourney, in Boyd Nation's ISR for this year, Stanford is #3.  Our two-seed Texas State is #12.  Our three-seed UC Santa Barbara is #9.  That's two other teams in our regional objectively good enough (by ISR, not by RPI) to host their own regionals.  Yikes.

[BostonCard]

That was the clip, but for some reason I thought it was from the original Lethal Weapon.

That sequel is now 33 years old.

BC

[BostonCard]

That was the clip, but for some reason I thought it was from the original Lethal Weapon.

That sequel is now 33 years old.

BC

[CTcard]

Boyd Nation, a self-described Mississippi State fan, has endeavored to quantify this with his own power rank called Iterative Strength Rankings (ISR) which he used to analyze the seedings from 1999-2019.

A 25-Year Retrospective -- 1995-2019 (boydsworld.com)

He even devotes a small section to Stanford all by itself, remarking, among other things, that "Stanford has been terribly treated by the selection process".  Most of the jobbing happened in 1999-2003 when Stanford did five straight to Omaha and it was actually our opponents that got hurt more than us, but still.

More relevant to this tourney, in Boyd Nation's ISR for this year, Stanford is #3.  Our two-seed Texas State is #12.  Our three-seed UC Santa Barbara is #9.  That's two other teams in our regional objectively good enough (by ISR, not by RPI) to host their own regionals.  Yikes.

I've learned a lot from Boyd Nation over the years, though haven't checked his site as often since he semi-retired around 10+ years ago. Somewhere he has a long description of the mathematical deficiencies of the RPI particularly for college baseball. 

An interesting bit of that 25 year perspective is that while Stanford comes in as the second strongest team over the time period, it includes all-time decade highs and lows for Stanford.*  
From 1994-2004 (11 years) Stanford finished first in the conference 7 times and never worse than second, made it to the CWS 7 times, and was runner-up 3 times. 
From 2005-2016 (12 years) Stanford had one second place finish, was as low as 10th, had four years below 0.500 in conference, and an average finish of 5.3 (even giving ties the higher option). Now it wasn't that bad, Stanford still had 7 tournament appearances in those 12 years, hosted 2 regionals, made 5 super regionals, made the CWS once, and had two 40+ win seasons. But it was noticeably down from the previous decade and spurred lots of calls for Marquess to call it quits. Interestingly, the current revival got going at the end of Marquess' tenure and Esquer was left with a strong core (but a recruiting hole at the change-over that would have led to a very bad 2020 season had that season happened). 

* Perhaps the 1980s was Stanford's best decade given the two championships. But otherwise, it wasn't quite as strong as the mid-90s to mid-aughts decade.  

Also, the best team in Boyd's 25 year retrospective was Fullerton, a regular Stanford opponent in both the regular season and post season. 
Fullerton has been on a serious down swing just lately (mostly outside Boyd's window). Since they took us out in the regional we hosted in 2018, they have been at or below 0.500 every year. That's not a long time (3 seasons plus about 1/3 of a season in 2020), but still very odd to long time college baseball watchers. And a bit of a blow to our RPI as we play them yearly.

[CTcard]

Boyd Nation, a self-described Mississippi State fan, has endeavored to quantify this with his own power rank called Iterative Strength Rankings (ISR) which he used to analyze the seedings from 1999-2019.

A 25-Year Retrospective -- 1995-2019 (boydsworld.com)

He even devotes a small section to Stanford all by itself, remarking, among other things, that "Stanford has been terribly treated by the selection process".  Most of the jobbing happened in 1999-2003 when Stanford did five straight to Omaha and it was actually our opponents that got hurt more than us, but still.

More relevant to this tourney, in Boyd Nation's ISR for this year, Stanford is #3.  Our two-seed Texas State is #12.  Our three-seed UC Santa Barbara is #9.  That's two other teams in our regional objectively good enough (by ISR, not by RPI) to host their own regionals.  Yikes.

I've learned a lot from Boyd Nation over the years, though haven't checked his site as often since he semi-retired around 10+ years ago. Somewhere he has a long description of the mathematical deficiencies of the RPI particularly for college baseball. 

An interesting bit of that 25 year perspective is that while Stanford comes in as the second strongest team over the time period, it includes all-time decade highs and lows for Stanford.*  
From 1994-2004 (11 years) Stanford finished first in the conference 7 times and never worse than second, made it to the CWS 7 times, and was runner-up 3 times. 
From 2005-2016 (12 years) Stanford had one second place finish, was as low as 10th, had four years below 0.500 in conference, and an average finish of 5.3 (even giving ties the higher option). Now it wasn't that bad, Stanford still had 7 tournament appearances in those 12 years, hosted 2 regionals, made 5 super regionals, made the CWS once, and had two 40+ win seasons. But it was noticeably down from the previous decade and spurred lots of calls for Marquess to call it quits. Interestingly, the current revival got going at the end of Marquess' tenure and Esquer was left with a strong core (but a recruiting hole at the change-over that would have led to a very bad 2020 season had that season happened). 

* Perhaps the 1980s was Stanford's best decade given the two championships. But otherwise, it wasn't quite as strong as the mid-90s to mid-aughts decade.  

Also, the best team in Boyd's 25 year retrospective was Fullerton, a regular Stanford opponent in both the regular season and post season. 
Fullerton has been on a serious down swing just lately (mostly outside Boyd's window). Since they took us out in the regional we hosted in 2018, they have been at or below 0.500 every year. That's not a long time (3 seasons plus about 1/3 of a season in 2020), but still very odd to long time college baseball watchers. And a bit of a blow to our RPI as we play them yearly.

[CTcard]

That sequel is now 33 years old.

BC

You're scaring me man.

[CTcard]

That sequel is now 33 years old.

BC

You're scaring me man.

[JJJ]

After a shaky T1 from Dixon (rolled a 6-4-3 DP with bases loaded, one out), we’re up 6-1 and still hitting B2.

For the record, I bit the bullet and shelled out $6.99 for espn+ for the month since it wasn’t included in my Sling plan which has espn, espn2, espn3, espnews, and espnu but not espn+. Go figure.

---

Make that 10-1 after a monster granny from Bowser!

[JJJ]

After a shaky T1 from Dixon (rolled a 6-4-3 DP with bases loaded, one out), we’re up 6-1 and still hitting B2.

For the record, I bit the bullet and shelled out $6.99 for espn+ for the month since it wasn’t included in my Sling plan which has espn, espn2, espn3, espnews, and espnu but not espn+. Go figure.

---

Make that 10-1 after a monster granny from Bowser!

[Sam Leopold]

Bowser in February and March:




Bowser in April, May, and now June:

[Sam Leopold]

Bowser in February and March:




Bowser in April, May, and now June:

[JJJ]

Here’s the grand slam. 

[tweet]https://twitter.com/stanfordbsb/status/1532829193456607232?s=21&t=JFNceajJIfiS2K1yFcJgFw[/tweet]

---

The bat flip was pretty good too. 
And many guys have dyed hair this year (kind of like the mustache last year?).

[JJJ]

Here’s the grand slam. 

[tweet]https://twitter.com/stanfordbsb/status/1532829193456607232?s=21&t=JFNceajJIfiS2K1yFcJgFw[/tweet]

---

The bat flip was pretty good too. 
And many guys have dyed hair this year (kind of like the mustache last year?).

[Spike]

I’m guessing that our two possible opponents tomorrow are using their aces today. Anybody know?

[Spike]

I’m guessing that our two possible opponents tomorrow are using their aces today. Anybody know?

[TonyLima]

I’m guessing that our two possible opponents tomorrow are using their aces today. Anybody know?

Easy to find out. Go to each team’s website. Pick Schedule, then look for their most recent series. Whoever started the first game is their ace. Compare to starting pitchers tonight.

[TonyLima]

I’m guessing that our two possible opponents tomorrow are using their aces today. Anybody know?

Easy to find out. Go to each team’s website. Pick Schedule, then look for their most recent series. Whoever started the first game is their ace. Compare to starting pitchers tonight.

[TonyLima]

Stanford vs Texas State tomorrow night. See you there.

[TonyLima]

Stanford vs Texas State tomorrow night. See you there.

[BostonCard]

Lot of crooked numbers today, which is good because we are saving our pitching.

BC

[BostonCard]

Lot of crooked numbers today, which is good because we are saving our pitching.

BC

[TonyLima]

Lot of crooked numbers today, which is good because we are saving our pitching.

BC

Pancer was terrific today.

[TonyLima]

Lot of crooked numbers today, which is good because we are saving our pitching.

BC

Pancer was terrific today.

[Madera86]

Unbelievable. New Mexico State tied the game with OSU in the ninth inning, but then their pitcher threw eight straight balls to load the bases and walk in the winning run in the bottom of the tenth. With two out. Beavers avoid the upset, 5-4.

[Madera86]

Unbelievable. New Mexico State tied the game with OSU in the ninth inning, but then their pitcher threw eight straight balls to load the bases and walk in the winning run in the bottom of the tenth. With two out. Beavers avoid the upset, 5-4.

[CTcard]

Unbelievable. New Mexico State tied the game with OSU in the ninth inning, but then their pitcher threw eight straight balls to load the bases and walk in the winning run in the bottom of the tenth. With two out. Beavers avoid the upset, 5-4.

In fact, all four Beavs who got on base in the tenth got there via a walk - one intentional. 

On that NMSU team is former Stanford player Brandon Dieter. He played at Stanford in 2019 and 2020 as a middle infielder and pitcher. Started for the beginning of the season in 2019 at shortstop and second base but lost the job later on. Started at the beginning of 2020 at shortstop but then lost the job. The issue seems to be primarily on offense where he never got the bat going. Upon transferring to NMSU he's been the starting shortstop and leadoff hitter for all of 2021 and this year, but hasn't appeared in a game since the end of the regular season (where he pitched an inning). I would guess that means he got injured, but cannot find anything on the web stating so.

[CTcard]

Unbelievable. New Mexico State tied the game with OSU in the ninth inning, but then their pitcher threw eight straight balls to load the bases and walk in the winning run in the bottom of the tenth. With two out. Beavers avoid the upset, 5-4.

In fact, all four Beavs who got on base in the tenth got there via a walk - one intentional. 

On that NMSU team is former Stanford player Brandon Dieter. He played at Stanford in 2019 and 2020 as a middle infielder and pitcher. Started for the beginning of the season in 2019 at shortstop and second base but lost the job later on. Started at the beginning of 2020 at shortstop but then lost the job. The issue seems to be primarily on offense where he never got the bat going. Upon transferring to NMSU he's been the starting shortstop and leadoff hitter for all of 2021 and this year, but hasn't appeared in a game since the end of the regular season (where he pitched an inning). I would guess that means he got injured, but cannot find anything on the web stating so.

[OutsiderFan]

Can the thread title now be changed to NCAA Baseball Tournament? Or do we need a separate thread for general tournament discussion?

Anyway, It appears a none of the 16 regional hosts lost on day 1, though #3 Oregon State came close. It's pretty common for even the Top 8 seeds to suffer an early loss, even be eliminated in regionals, so I'm a bit surprised.

Really bad Day 1 for the Pac-12 outside of Stanford.

[OutsiderFan]

Can the thread title now be changed to NCAA Baseball Tournament? Or do we need a separate thread for general tournament discussion?

Anyway, It appears a none of the 16 regional hosts lost on day 1, though #3 Oregon State came close. It's pretty common for even the Top 8 seeds to suffer an early loss, even be eliminated in regionals, so I'm a bit surprised.

Really bad Day 1 for the Pac-12 outside of Stanford.

[needle]

New thread please for us casual fans!

[needle]

New thread please for us casual fans!

[Eucalyptus72]

If one of you has a link to an easy-to-grasp explanation of NCAA baseball postseason format, please post. Or, how many teams make it through to the super regionals?

[Eucalyptus72]

If one of you has a link to an easy-to-grasp explanation of NCAA baseball postseason format, please post. Or, how many teams make it through to the super regionals?