[Ballbuster]

I am very bullish on Stanford baseball for next year. Two consecutive College World Series appearances provides strong evidence of a healthy program. The lineup will be INSANE. We lose some pitching but hardly all of it.

Something I've observed as a peculiar logical fallacy of college sports fans is projecting out the future team based on the current baseline minus what departs. This gets college sports all wrong. What's beautiful about college sports is that it's the Reverse McConaughey. Whereas the creepy Wooderson loved high school girls because as he got older they stayed the same age, we all love college sports in part because as we stay the same age (well, not literally, but what's one additional year when you're a grown-up?) the players get older. As a result, they get a lot better. It's great fun to watch the year-to-year growth of college athletes, which can be enormous.

In practice, what this means is that it's a mistake to think about what healthy programs lose. If a program is recruiting and/or developing at a high level, the loss of the departed gets offset by the combination of the improvements of the returned and the new contributions of the incoming. Last year's Stanford baseball team had 85 home runs and returned 53 of them. This year's Stanford baseball team had 118 home runs. While it's unclear who all will return, by themselves Carter, Montgomery, Bowser, and Troy return 65 home runs. With even modest year to year improvement (and there may be massive year-to-year improvement) and the practically assured breakout by one or more other players, it's looking extremely bright for the Stanford lineup in 2022.

I think about Stanford football's experience in our heyday. Our defense got better. Our defense got better as soon as it lost Trent Murphy, Shayne Skov, Ed Reynolds, and Ben Gardner. Huh? How is that possible? Well it happened. The reason is that in college sports it's about who you have, not who you're losing. If you're great like Stanford's 2013-2014 football defense or 2022-2023 baseball lineup, you can be great even after losing a lot. With who we have, I think top five in the country absolutely sounds plausible for this team.

It is always those who never played at a high level, who are the biggest critics. I agree with you in regards to what is lost, and what is developed. This team had a good staff last year, and was able to get back to Omaha on a sub par staff who pitched out of their tree this year. If last year's Omaha team had the full fall to develop, the outcome would have been different. Look what Esquer and his staff did with this team this year with a full fall with a full team. 

Getting to Omaha isn't easy, however, their is a winning attitude here that is trending in the right direction.

[Ballbuster]

I am very bullish on Stanford baseball for next year. Two consecutive College World Series appearances provides strong evidence of a healthy program. The lineup will be INSANE. We lose some pitching but hardly all of it.

Something I've observed as a peculiar logical fallacy of college sports fans is projecting out the future team based on the current baseline minus what departs. This gets college sports all wrong. What's beautiful about college sports is that it's the Reverse McConaughey. Whereas the creepy Wooderson loved high school girls because as he got older they stayed the same age, we all love college sports in part because as we stay the same age (well, not literally, but what's one additional year when you're a grown-up?) the players get older. As a result, they get a lot better. It's great fun to watch the year-to-year growth of college athletes, which can be enormous.

In practice, what this means is that it's a mistake to think about what healthy programs lose. If a program is recruiting and/or developing at a high level, the loss of the departed gets offset by the combination of the improvements of the returned and the new contributions of the incoming. Last year's Stanford baseball team had 85 home runs and returned 53 of them. This year's Stanford baseball team had 118 home runs. While it's unclear who all will return, by themselves Carter, Montgomery, Bowser, and Troy return 65 home runs. With even modest year to year improvement (and there may be massive year-to-year improvement) and the practically assured breakout by one or more other players, it's looking extremely bright for the Stanford lineup in 2022.

I think about Stanford football's experience in our heyday. Our defense got better. Our defense got better as soon as it lost Trent Murphy, Shayne Skov, Ed Reynolds, and Ben Gardner. Huh? How is that possible? Well it happened. The reason is that in college sports it's about who you have, not who you're losing. If you're great like Stanford's 2013-2014 football defense or 2022-2023 baseball lineup, you can be great even after losing a lot. With who we have, I think top five in the country absolutely sounds plausible for this team.

It is always those who never played at a high level, who are the biggest critics. I agree with you in regards to what is lost, and what is developed. This team had a good staff last year, and was able to get back to Omaha on a sub par staff who pitched out of their tree this year. If last year's Omaha team had the full fall to develop, the outcome would have been different. Look what Esquer and his staff did with this team this year with a full fall with a full team. 

Getting to Omaha isn't easy, however, their is a winning attitude here that is trending in the right direction.