LBSU Game 3

[7hottamales]

Defense is overvalued.

[ddog44]

Defense is overvalued.

I disagree, especially with this team. I was in Long Beach and am just as disappointed in the losses as anyone. However, the defense kept us in the first game as well as Musgrave and Fleming. There were several GREAT plays from Dirks, Jones, Coleman, and a 2-5-3 double play that was as good as it gets.

The bats are starting to come around, but the strike outs have to slow down to a crawl. Timely hitting needs to improve as we left way too many runners in scoring position. One thing that is confusing to me, is with all our speed, why we don't put more pressure on the pitchers with our legs, is it because we have been punching out too much? Straight stealing is a possibility with this team. Only 7 to this point seems low to me.

The pitching is concerning! Musgrave looks great as does Tyler Fleming. These guys will be our horses. Aaron still has not found his groove, and I am wondering if he has any arm issues? He wasn't spotting his pitches well, and he doesn't seem to have his normal velocity. We don't know how Cappy will respond, but I would guess very well. Andy Womack seems to be overthinking the process too much and it has hurt him. Last year he was just a free willing flame thrower that spotted his fastball with precision, in Long Beach he never looked comfortable, like he knew he was being relied on to close the deal, and that made him uneasy. I hope I am wrong. The rest of the pitching staff is young and inexperienced, but Brent is the best and once they get their feet wet, we will once again have one of the best staffs in the country.

My honest opinion is that in 1 month from now, we would sweep Long Beach! Don't forget, last year we were almost swept by Peperdine early, turned out ok for us. The last 2 years when we played Long Beach, and won 5 of 6, we had at least 20 games under us. This year we had 3 and 2 of those were small schools, and the 3 game felt like a blizzard (35 degrees and 25 mph winds)

My opinion is we need to have some concern, but if the hitters slow down the strikeouts, runners are allowed to be more agressive, and our 3 horses prove to be horses, this team will be very good.

GO SHOX!!

[ddog44]

By the way, I failed to mention the absolutely incredible catch that Bret Bascue made in the right field bullpen area. It was the best catch I have ever seen live. na nuh nuh, na nuh nuh!

[SB Shock]

Aaron still has not found his groove, and I am wondering if he has any arm issues? He wasn't spotting his pitches well, and he doesn't seem to have his normal velocity.

Gene mentioned this exact concern on his show last night and said he's lost velocity. The gist I believe they are hoping it's a mechanical issue and not an arm issue.

[7hottamales]

Of course defense isn't overvalued with this team. It has been constructed as such. The flaw is likely in the composition. My point is that defense is overvalued as a correlation with ultimate success.

The difference between a solid defensive player and a great one in run savings is MUCH less significant as the difference between a solid (or average as we seem to keep finding/developing) offensive player and a great one in run production.

[WSUwatcher]

Execution and defense

85, it's possible that one of the reasons Gene doesn't like to have hitters sacrifice a runner from 2nd with nobody out -- and I agree that he doesn't -- is precisely because he's seen so many runners on 3rd with one out fail to be picked up. You see that happen often enough, and it reduces your incentive to create the opportunity. Besides, there are other ways to get the same result -- hit to the right side, hit a fly ball deep enough to allow the runner to tag and advance, etc. -- that don't involve giving up an out to the same degree as the sacrifice does (although admittedly, a really good bunter, one of whom the Shocks almost never have, isn't completely giving up even when he bunts for a hit).

As for 7hot's point about defense being overrated in general, it's certainly true that the sabermetricians who analyze baseball at the big league level have confirmed exactly what he says -- great run producers have a far bigger impact on a team's success than great defensive players do. Whether that applies equally in college, where the game is different because of much worse defensive (e.g., poor field) conditions and aluminum bats, is of course a different matter, and one that would have to be studied by someone with more time than I have. But it's long since been proven in the majors -- check some of the work Bill James and his gang have done.

[7hottamales]

I have an additional theory that having better athletes that are less refined as baseball players is a strategy that doesn't work as well with the 2 5/8", -3 bats. There is much less margin of error with the swing you put on the ball.

Pure hitters aren't going to be affected nearly as much as athletes by the change.

Furthermore realize that we have a pitching guy (whom I love) as recruiting coordinator...his natural disposition would be towards athletes that have huge upside defensive potential. Combine that with a bias towards speed (which has also been proven to be overvalued) from our primary offensive guy, and it's somewhat easy to see why we've been a relatively average offensive team most years since the bat change.

Perhaps some of this is a stretch, but something has to explain why 2004 is looking more and more like an anomaly.

[Shocker85]

Good point about recruitmant of good athletes vs. good baseball players. I hadn't thought about that one.

I have thought (and wondered critically) about Brent's role in recruiting position players. Maybe there's some merit to that idea, although certainly JT and Gene are involved in evaluating prospects, no?

All in all, you can argue with the formula used at WSU for the last 30 years, but the stagnation of the offense seems to be the primary reason I haven't been to the Henry Doorly Zoo in 12 years.

--'85.

[shockfan89]

I think 7HOT is almost 100% correct. Some of it may be a stretch, but at least it has legs.

Brent is the recruiting "coordinator". All the coaches are very involved in evaluating players and going to watch players play. I agree that we need to recruit a few "one dimensional" players that can mash!!!

The problem I see is even the guys we have signed like that that were all state, or the top hitter in the state, seem to have injury problems or it just doesn't translate to good college hitting. Some of our best hitters have been guys that came in as good hitter and just matured into great hitters. In my memory, the guys on the 2004 team just got better and better EVERY year. Of course anyone could see Pat Magness could hit his freshmen year but it seems to me those guys just improved more than what we have seen since...