D1 Baseball Top 100 Programs

[WuDrWu]

The most in depth college baseball coverage is done by these guys. They've done a top 100 program rating starting in 2015, 2017, 2019 and they are doing one now.

The criteria from their website is:

https://d1baseball.com/analysis/2022...ograms-91-100/

"For the purpose of this exercise, we don’t care what happened in the 1970s or 80s, or even the 90s or 2000s — that’s ancient history to a potential recruit in 2021. Tradition is nice, but it’s more important to establish a tradition of consistent winning in the last decade, and especially in the last five years. Our ultimate goal here is to identify the programs in the best shape right now, with an eye toward the next five to 10 years.

So we began by awarding each program points for making regionals, winning regionals, reaching the College World Series, and winning the national championship in the last five (completed) seasons, and a fewer amount of points for success between six and 10 years ago. That gave us a starting point; then national writers Aaron Fitt, Kendall Rogers and Mike Rooney made adjustments based on evaluations of coaching staff quality and stability, facilities, scholarship/financial aid situation, conference dynamics, momentum, and recruiting and player development proficiency. As the chairman of the Division I Baseball Committee likes to say every year, it’s more of an art than a science, but we tried to take many factors into consideration and debated our rankings internally at length."

In 2015, WSU was #73, #3 in the MVC, #2 in Kansas. They expected a big jump based on current conditions (Butler etc)

2017 WSU was #100. Things didn't go as planned, moving to the AAC, a key time for this once storied program.

2019 WSU was not in the top 100.

2022 WSU is of course not in the top 100. Programs of note that are:

#100 is SE Missouri State and #99 is Nevada. Proof positive of their criteria about winning against competition as I doubt many informed folks at all would place either of those 2 programs on par with WSU utilizing any other measuring stick.

#97 Tulane
#91 UCF
#88 Creighton
#80 Rice
#75 ORU
#74 Charlotte
#71 Long Beach State
#63 USF
#60 Indiana State
#59 Missouri State
#52 FAU
#51 Houston
#43 Nebraska
#29 Uconn
#27 DBU
#23 Oklahoma
#22 East Carolina
#20 Auburn
#19 Oklahoma State
#18 TCU
#17 Tennessee
#16 NC State
#15 Virginia
#14 North Carolina
#13 Florida State
#12 Texas
#11 Texas A&M
#10 Stanford
#9 Texas Tech
#8 Ole Miss
#7 LSU
#6 Louisville
#5 Oregon State
#4 Florida
#3 Mississippi State
#2 Arkansas
#1 Vanderbilt

If you're counting, 9 SEC teams in the top 20, if you weren't sure where the football money is going these days.

*Updated*

Separate issue; Clearly the program isn't where anyone wants or more importantly expects it to be. Not fans, admins, coaches or players. One thing that needs to be addressed is the stadium. Parts are in disrepair. Seats broken. Those things need to be fixed, replaced, upgraded....whatever....and before we spend $50 million on women's soccer.

6 of the 10 new conference programs are top 100 (according to this list). WSU, Memphis, UTSA and UAB are not. (UNT doesn't sponsor baseball nor does Temple nor SMU).

[pogo]

This is the year. Go Shocks

[pogo]

[shoxlax]

If that article isn’t motivation for the staff to channel into success than nothing is. Really don’t understand the broken seats issue if there is enough money to returf the practice facility unless it is from different accounts.

[SHOCKvalue]

Well if it makes anyone else feel better, Rice is just barely hanging on to the top 100 themselves.

With the facilities we have, plus the recruiting classes, plus the budget, plus the lineage of our coaching staff, it is quite painful to see schools like DBU, UConn, FAU, and some of our former MVC bretheren on that list. Either painful or nonsensical, one or the other. We're basically the Nebraska football of college baseball.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

If that article isn’t motivation for the staff to channel into success than nothing is. Really don’t understand the broken seats issue if there is enough money to returf the practice facility unless it is from different accounts.

I mean with the product on the field the last decade plus, I would imagine a few seats have been broken in frustration...

[1972Shocker]

If that article isn’t motivation for the staff to channel into success than nothing is. Really don’t understand the broken seats issue if there is enough money to returf the practice facility unless it is from different accounts.

You don't need any seats if their is no one showing up to sit in them. Putting the money into a practice facility makes sense considering you need to develop a good product before you will have a need to worry about having a few broken seats. It is clear that cost cutting has been right at the top of the list for our athletic programs for the past few years. Hopefully, we will be able to resolve the financial stress but absent the deep pockets stepping up in a big way it will probably take some time. And, of course, the shallow pockets need to dig as deep as they can but just don't have the fire power to move the needle a whole lot or very rapidly.

[ShockerFever]

This is the year. Go Shocks

To finish above .500?