⚾ 2025 Baseball Offseason

Hodges is a portal entry per D1’s tracker.

He’s our only player in there currently on their tracker. But we know that Prozny and VanderWoude are too.

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Yeah UNC is critical here, and I’m worried Bubba’s days there are numbered. He’s definitely an ally for us in all of this, and we need them to feel like they need to bring us with.

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I think we’re placing too much faith in UNC. Deep down they don’t like UVA and I’m sure they’d love to be the only P2 school in NC/VA

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Definitely trust the Heels at your own risk.

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It ain’t called Starkville randomly.

It’s all we can do at this point unfortunately ¯_(ツ)_/¯

We’re likely toast either way unless someone sees diamond in the rough potential that I don’t really see anymore

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A lot depends on how big the first tier conferences get. If both get to 20 I think we are in pretty good shape assuming the investment in football and basketball keep us relevant in those sports.

I disagree here a little. UVA is still one of the few remaining really attractive additions for the big conferences. Virginia is a very large and growing state with some very affluent media markets. It’s also still a great recruiting state. Yes, expansion isn’t being done the way it was before where you’re just trying to literally get coverage in different markets, but still, having a meaningful Virginia presence would be a big addition for either the SEC or BIG.

And yeah, we are struggling at a bad time, but we’re still the state flagship with a great reputation and a great college town. We still draw a surprising number of eyeballs to our broadcasts if I remember correctly. And while it’s not a priority for the SEC, for the BIG, the academic side is attractive too. We’re a much more exciting add than VT and can make the case “if we start getting SEC/BIG money we’ll be much more competitive than we’ve been.”

That’s all to say, I still think we are a very attractive addition. The bigger question is do they want to keep dividing their pie more ways. I think there’s a case UNC and UVA are among the last programs that would really add value (probably FSU and maybe Clemson as well) but we will have to be ready and sell ourselves well.

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The almighty SEC is currently 0-5 against the ACC in the tournament.

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Can’t fall into the trap of equating incomplete tournament results with the overall state of play in college athletics. The SEC is dominating the field overall in resources but also attention. That cannot be downplayed. Sports are cultural currency in the Southeast. The games mean something to the communities as a whole.

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Maybe I’m naive but I’m skeptical these conferences go much past 20, it’s already a logistical nightmare at 18. That is… unless they then split into two sub conferences, in which case we are kind of back where we started with a P4

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No but I think it’s fair to equate that some “metrics” aren’t really as smart as they seem in conversation. Maybe the SEC flexes its muscle today and tomorrow and goes on a tear, but at this point it seems more than fair to say maybe teams under .500 in conference play shouldn’t get the benefit of the doubt that the computers say they played such a demanding schedule…

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Totally fair. We (or some other team) should have been in this year over Kentucky. No argument there. I just don’t love the bigger picture that I see. SEC is winning the arms race.

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They are forsure but they just get entirely too much benefit of the doubt for gaming the system across all sports.

I miss the days when a sub .500 conference record meant that’s a losing team undeserving of competing for a championship just because all those L’s came to the top dogs.

Want to seed the deserving top teams as all #1’s? Go for it, no complaints. But let’s quit making ridiculous cases for why the lower tier should be valued above other conferences just because a metric system says their L is more valuable than someone else’s W.

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Just because you don’t like a metrics output doesn’t mean it’s a ridiculous thing to use when making decisions lmao. If it were so easy to game these metrics then why didn’t the ACC do it. This wreaks of sour grapes over a team that shit the bed three times against Boston College

Nah like @Hoos5004 said we aren’t the only team that should’ve been in over a team with a losing conference record. There was a simpler time when these things were considered.

And it’s a fair thing to say here the top of the SEC is ELITE. But that doesn’t mean the teams at the bottom are better than everyone else.

Adding: gaming the metrics is a known thing as well, we talk about it at length during bball season lol. I am with you I have no clue why the ACC doesn’t do it like SEC and Big 12 do.

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And blew games against NCST, GT, Oklahoma, Richmond, Liberty 2x…

Uncharacteristic year for the Hoos. The good version is a top 15 team in the country but overall not deserving of a bid.

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Probably because it’s not as easy to “game” the metrics as everyone thinks. If it’s such a clear advantage, then everyone would take it. So either they’re incompetent (in which case I have no sympathy) or it’s not as easy as everyone makes it out to be.

And it’s funny that you bring up BBall because we hear these same complaints and yet this year the SEC went out and cleared the field. People only started complaining about things like KenPom and Torvik when those metrics didn’t kindly portray the Hoos

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I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree because my viewpoint here is you’re proving my point… take the Hoos out of the equation for a minute…

The teams who “cleared” the NCAA tournament field were the ones who were supposed to. The top seeds who everyone knew were that good.

I’m not talking about that. I’ve stated the SEC top teams are ELITE. What I’m saying is that doesn’t mean every single team in the conference is great. That’s where the line is or should be.

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I love metrics, but the RPI can absolutely be gamed, it’s why the basketball selection committee has replaced it. Consider the formula:

RPI = 0.25 * Winning Percentage + 0.50 * Opponent’s Winning Percentage + 0.25 * Opponents’ Opponent Winning Percentage

Furthermore, road games are weighted for assumed difficulty (road loss is 0.7 of a loss, road win is 1.3 wins).

So it’s really a scheduling metric, not a performance metric. And it’s game-able in a couple of ways that don’t really involve winning a game:

  1. Maximize opponent’s winning percentage: Optimal to schedule teams with high win totals, so you should play teams that will finish high in weak conferences.
  2. Do not schedule weak teams: Even just beating a team with a high loss total could be bad, worse than losing to a team with a high win total. So if you don’t schedule any weak teams at all, that’s improving your RPI even before the games are played.
  3. Play good teams on the road: Road loss to a high win total team is gonna be straight up better than a lot of home wins.

There’s better metrics out there for evaluating resumes, not sure why baseball has completely ignored the developments on the basketball side of things.

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