06-20-2023, 06:02 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-20-2023, 06:05 PM by Blue Hawk (Mizzou) Card.)
Like CT Card, I will add my season post mortem, fwliw
1. Stanford baseball and, more recently (again, happily) Stanford softball are what get me through some mighty harsh winters in the awful climates I live in. I start watching them when I can't take any more winter, knowing that there are at least two months of winter left. They give me hope. They help to drag me across the finish line of winter. Thank you, Cardinal, for doing that for me.
2. In recent seasons, when the baseball season is approaching, my thought is always "We lost a LOT from last year. We cannot realistically hope to be competitive again this year." I think that way because, as my fellow CardBoard son recently pointed out, I am a big time sports pessimist. I try to tamp down my expectations so I am less disappointed when the season does not go well. But, really, it seems like we lost a LOT every year (including, but especially, the one that just ended). Nonetheless, our guys have done a lot better than I expected for several years in a row. Thanks for that, also.
3. Related to no. 2, above, it is a reality that college baseball is a lot like a junior college sport, in terms of roster turnover. Or, more accurately, junior college + 50%. There are very few four-year players, a lot of three-year players (for Stanford, anyway), and a lot of one-year rentals at other schools. I say this as a junior college sports fan (and, in fact, a former junior college baseball player of a sort, though one with a .167 batting average). So you can recover more quickly when you lose a lot, at least in theory, because your opponents lost a lot, too.
4. However, due to the transfer portal, there are ways to overcome the loss of good players that are available to pretty much everyone else, other than Stanford. Look at the rosters of the other seven MCWS teams. Lots of transfers. Stanford has competitive advantages, with the best academic reputation of any big-time sports schools, but we have severe competitive disadvantages, too. Even if we get more involved in transfers, one- and two-year rentals are unlikely to ever be as big a part of our program as they are for our competitors.
5. It just means more for the SEC. Stanford played a team from the SEC yesterday that was not one of the top eight teams in that conference, at least according to the tournament committee that had eight other SEC teams host regionals. And that team, Tennessee, was LOADED. The guy who shut out the lights out of the bullpen (at least recently) was as good a college pitcher, at least yesterday, as I remember seeing. He got us to two strikes, then threw the just over the strike zone fastball that is almost impossible to (a) not swing at and (b) hit. He was really good. And he replaced a guy predicted to go about sixth in the draft. And (I don't think) either one of them pitched in CWS opener. That is a loaded team. In sport after sport, especially the revenue or quasi-revenue sports, the SEC is and is going to be a juggernaut. I don't like it. But that's the way it is (and is going to be).
1. Stanford baseball and, more recently (again, happily) Stanford softball are what get me through some mighty harsh winters in the awful climates I live in. I start watching them when I can't take any more winter, knowing that there are at least two months of winter left. They give me hope. They help to drag me across the finish line of winter. Thank you, Cardinal, for doing that for me.
2. In recent seasons, when the baseball season is approaching, my thought is always "We lost a LOT from last year. We cannot realistically hope to be competitive again this year." I think that way because, as my fellow CardBoard son recently pointed out, I am a big time sports pessimist. I try to tamp down my expectations so I am less disappointed when the season does not go well. But, really, it seems like we lost a LOT every year (including, but especially, the one that just ended). Nonetheless, our guys have done a lot better than I expected for several years in a row. Thanks for that, also.
3. Related to no. 2, above, it is a reality that college baseball is a lot like a junior college sport, in terms of roster turnover. Or, more accurately, junior college + 50%. There are very few four-year players, a lot of three-year players (for Stanford, anyway), and a lot of one-year rentals at other schools. I say this as a junior college sports fan (and, in fact, a former junior college baseball player of a sort, though one with a .167 batting average). So you can recover more quickly when you lose a lot, at least in theory, because your opponents lost a lot, too.
4. However, due to the transfer portal, there are ways to overcome the loss of good players that are available to pretty much everyone else, other than Stanford. Look at the rosters of the other seven MCWS teams. Lots of transfers. Stanford has competitive advantages, with the best academic reputation of any big-time sports schools, but we have severe competitive disadvantages, too. Even if we get more involved in transfers, one- and two-year rentals are unlikely to ever be as big a part of our program as they are for our competitors.
5. It just means more for the SEC. Stanford played a team from the SEC yesterday that was not one of the top eight teams in that conference, at least according to the tournament committee that had eight other SEC teams host regionals. And that team, Tennessee, was LOADED. The guy who shut out the lights out of the bullpen (at least recently) was as good a college pitcher, at least yesterday, as I remember seeing. He got us to two strikes, then threw the just over the strike zone fastball that is almost impossible to (a) not swing at and (b) hit. He was really good. And he replaced a guy predicted to go about sixth in the draft. And (I don't think) either one of them pitched in CWS opener. That is a loaded team. In sport after sport, especially the revenue or quasi-revenue sports, the SEC is and is going to be a juggernaut. I don't like it. But that's the way it is (and is going to be).