• The KillerFrogs

Baseball Polls and Postseason Seeding

HoustonHornedFrog

HoustonHornedFrog

Active Member
With all the talk about what TCU has to do to get a shot at hosting a regional again this year and who may get the regionals in this area instead of us, I took a look at the teams in this area based upon 4 national polls, Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, NCBWA and the USA Today Coaches Poll. Looking at the likely teams in Texas and Oklahoma, Texas seems to be a sure thing with an average ranking of 4.75 (assuming no real crash down the stretch) then you have TCU, OU, aTm, Rice and OSU.
If the polls are any indication, TCU should have it made. Taking the average ranking in all 4 polls for each school, you have TCU 9.25, OU 12, aTm 12.75, Rice 21 and OSU 22.25. Among those teams TCU is higher ranked than any of the other teams with the exception of the NCBWA poll where OU is 8 and TCU is 9. So, if things hold for the rest of the season and the polls are similar, will they make a difference in our favor. If it was based on the polls, you would think TCU was right in the mix for a potential national seed but no one is talking about that.

By comparison, using the Boyd's World pseudo RPI's those same teams are UT 13, Rice 15, OU 17, aTm 18, TCU 20 and OSU 24. So what's more important RPI? polls? a combination of both? I'd appreciate input from those more in the know about how this really works.
 
M

masterfrog

Active Member
The polls have some say on the teams that get National Seeds, but they don't seem to make much of a connection with what number that seed is. It is very rare even for a team that is #1 in both major polls to be the #1 seed for the whole tournament. Probably at least 14 of the top 16 ranked teams will host regionals. The teams seeded #1 through #8 could probably be any of the top 12 or 13 teams in the nation.

TCU still has some games left, so if we lose a series to Utah or New Mexico (or maybe even just a game to New Mexico) we don't have much chance at a national seed. We have some bad losses this year that will be hard to overcome. I think the Frogs host a regional, but our best chance at a Super is probably if in the region we are paired with, the second, third or fourth seeded team wins.
 
M

maxmtex

New Member
Unfortunately, the RPI outweighs the polls pretty significantly. Two years ago, Virginia was ranked around #6 in the nation and did not even host a Regional. They still made it to Omaha, but had to travel a lot to do it. Bottom line, if your RPI is not in the Top 20 (Virginia's wasn't that year), you likely won't host.
 
Sangria Wine

Sangria Wine

Active Member
In order to host you actually have to place a BID to host. This bid includes financial guarantees to the NCAA. If you don't sell enough tickets, etc then you eat the losses. Some schools, especially in the north don't make legitimate bids because they don't have the ability to generate the revenue. There have been years where even Arizona State has elected to not bid for a host site because of money. I remember years where ASU was in the top 15 and didn't even apply. The reason I bring this up is a few years ago we were told we were the 17th team in a 16 team race and we were not even in the top 25 of anything. It was because our guarantee was rich. Our regional tickets are pricey compared to some other places and we have a large season ticket holder base. On top of that we have a few very strong baseball donors. Those things allow us a great financial guarantee. You put that with a team ranked in the top 10 of the polls and they can justify giving us whatever seed they want. RPI numbers are used by the committee to justify exclusions. This is a good old boy club and we are a recent addition to the club. I can't emphasize enough how much we are still close to a lock for a regional and certainly still in the mix for a national seed. Look at the records of the top 10 teams and compare them to ours. We are right there once you get past the top 4 teams in essentially every category...wins/losses, record vs. Top 25, series wins, etc. We have underachieved a bit and are still in that position. The committee knows that and they know we have had injuries down the stretch. There is a solid argument to give us benefit of the doubt and push our seeding up a notch.
 
HoustonHornedFrog

HoustonHornedFrog

Active Member
Sangria Wine said:
In order to host you actually have to place a BID to host. This bid includes financial guarantees to the NCAA. If you don't sell enough tickets, etc then you eat the losses. Some schools, especially in the north don't make legitimate bids because they don't have the ability to generate the revenue. There have been years where even Arizona State has elected to not bid for a host site because of money. I remember years where ASU was in the top 15 and didn't even apply. The reason I bring this up is a few years ago we were told we were the 17th team in a 16 team race and we were not even in the top 25 of anything. It was because our guarantee was rich. Our regional tickets are pricey compared to some other places and we have a large season ticket holder base. On top of that we have a few very strong baseball donors. Those things allow us a great financial guarantee. You put that with a team ranked in the top 10 of the polls and they can justify giving us whatever seed they want. RPI numbers are used by the committee to justify exclusions. This is a good old boy club and we are a recent addition to the club. I can't emphasize enough how much we are still close to a lock for a regional and certainly still in the mix for a national seed. Look at the records of the top 10 teams and compare them to ours. We are right there once you get past the top 4 teams in essentially every category...wins/losses, record vs. Top 25, series wins, etc. We have underachieved a bit and are still in that position. The committee knows that and they know we have had injuries down the stretch. There is a solid argument to give us benefit of the doubt and push our seeding up a notch.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the info. Not surprised that some of it just comes down to the money. I have wondered if the injuries to Purke and now Maxwell could actually help us in the eyes of the committee if we can continue to play strong without them AND they return in time for the conference tournamnent and ptich well there.
 
A

AggieFrog

Active Member
Polls play little to no role in hosting. A&amp;M and Texas will host (whichever team wins the conference will likely be a national seed) along with one of Rice/TCU/OU (with the probability in that order).<br><br>Texas will have an RPI hit by playing 2 games against Texas Southern (RPI in the 200s) this weekend.<br><br>TCU will also take a hit every game after the Baylor game tonight (Utah, Oral Roberts, &amp; New Mexico are all bad RPI teams).<br><br>Rice has a big series at Southern Miss - they'll likely lock up a hosting spot if they win that series and take care of business in the games between now and then.<br>
 
F

Frog79

Active Member
AggieFrog said:
Polls play little to no role in hosting. A&amp;M and Texas will host (whichever team wins the conference will likely be a national seed)
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure A$M would host before us if we finish strong. We are just two spots behind in RPI, our attendance is a little higher, and we beat them on their home field.
 
cdsfrog

cdsfrog

Active Member
AggieFrog said:
Polls play little to no role in hosting. A&amp;M and Texas will host (whichever team wins the conference will likely be a national seed) along with one of Rice/TCU/OU (with the probability in that order).<br><br>Texas will have an RPI hit by playing 2 games against Texas Southern (RPI in the 200s) this weekend.<br><br>TCU will also take a hit every game after the Baylor game tonight (Utah, Oral Roberts, &amp; New Mexico are all bad RPI teams).<br><br>Rice has a big series at Southern Miss - they'll likely lock up a hosting spot if they win that series and take care of business in the games between now and then.<br>
Click to expand...

they have lost 16 games so far. no certainty that they will, thats for sure
 
cdsfrog

cdsfrog

Active Member
Frog79 said:
I'm not so sure A$M would host before us if we finish strong. We are just two spots behind in RPI, our attendance is a little higher, and we beat them on their home field.
Click to expand...

They have lost 5 of their 7. They could easily lose a hosting spot all together. How you finish matters too and right now A&M is floundering
 
M

maxmtex

New Member
AggieFrog said:
A&M just needs to go .500 the rest of the way to lock up a hosting spot.
Click to expand...
If two of those wins are agains Texas, I agree. Otherwise, A&M would need a better than .500 record down the stretch. Meanwhile, it is very possible that four of the five "local" teams seeking a regional (Rice, UT, A&M, OU and TCU) will get regionals. Some publications are predicting just that currently.
 
A

AggieFrog

Active Member
frog13 said:
If two of those wins are agains Texas, I agree. Otherwise, A&M would need a better than .500 record down the stretch. Meanwhile, it is very possible that four of the five "local" teams seeking a regional (Rice, UT, A&M, OU and TCU) will get regionals. Some publications are predicting just that currently.
Click to expand...

Nope - A&M can lose the Texas series and still tie as conference regular season champs. A&M should win the series if not sweep Nebraska at home and has the next two Tuesday games at home.

If the Ags sweep Nebraska, they'll have a 2 game lead on Texas going into the split series (Thursday in College Station, Fri/Sat in Austin).

You're right - there may be 4 regionals in this area, but I doubt it. Otherwise TCU needs some help from Rice and maybe some rain outs.
 
PurplePutt

PurplePutt

Active Member
I might have a little better feeling about you if your handle was FrogAggie instead of AggieFrog. However, that is one combination that is just hard to swallow either way.
 
BABYFACE

BABYFACE

Full Member
frog13 said:
Unfortunately, the RPI outweighs the polls pretty significantly. Two years ago, Virginia was ranked around #6 in the nation and did not even host a Regional. They still made it to Omaha, but had to travel a lot to do it. Bottom line, if your RPI is not in the Top 20 (Virginia's wasn't that year), you likely won't host.
Click to expand...

Disagree
 
F

Frog79

Active Member
cdsfrog said:
well see. they havent went .500 in the last 7 games, that was point. .285 in the last 7 games.

They are only 2 spots above and playing alot worse
Click to expand...

We beat them head to head, we have sl. better attendance, we have been to Omaha recently, and we have a marquee player (Purke, assuming he comes back) who can draw big crowds. I just don't see A$M hosting before us right now.
 
A

AggieFrog

Active Member
cdsfrog said:
well see. they havent went .500 in the last 7 games, that was point. .285 in the last 7 games.

They are only 2 spots above and playing alot worse
Click to expand...

Team has been okay, it's the closers that have lost most of those games (we led late in most of them).

TCU's remaining schedule is the biggest liability. A&M's RPI won't change a whole lot even going .500, while TCU's likely drops even winning 7 of the remaining 8 games.
 
cdsfrog

cdsfrog

Active Member
AggieFrog said:
Team has been okay, it's the closers that have lost most of those games (we led late in most of them).

TCU's remaining schedule is the biggest liability. A&M's RPI won't change a whole lot even going .500, while TCU's likely drops even winning 7 of the remaining 8 games.
Click to expand...

if they can go .500.

we'll see
 

Latest posts

Top