Practice Field

[SB Shock]

seeing how 300 is the perfect batting average.

it might be a benchmark batting average, but it definitely isn't the perfect one.

Agreed, especially in college baseball. 300 is the benchmark for the MLB, but IMO should be .325 in college baseball. Any thoughts?

Thank you for the terrific donation by the way.

A benchmark in college baseball is hitting over 0.400. A 0.325 average would be a good decent team average.

[KC Shox]

seeing how 300 is the perfect batting average.

it might be a benchmark batting average, but it definitely isn't the perfect one.

Agreed, especially in college baseball. 300 is the benchmark for the MLB, but IMO should be .325 in college baseball. Any thoughts?

Thank you for the terrific donation by the way.

A benchmark in college baseball is hitting over 0.400. A 0.325 average would be a good decent team average.

Seeing how only three of our players last year batted .325 or higher, I think I'll stick with .325 as being the benchmark.

[rrshock]

The benchmark has dropped since the bats changed. Before, I believe .400 might have been it, but KC is right, .325 is it now.

[vbird53]

The benchmark has dropped since the bats changed. Before, I believe .400 might have been it, but KC is right, .325 is it now.

I have a feeling it's about to head north towards .400 again as many schedules will change over the next few years as teams will be forced to play more mid-week games (as the Shocks have done for years)---which, in turn will force teams to develop more of a pitching staff. There just aren't enough quality arms to keep opponent's batting average down.


Just a theory. I guess we'll see.



What was this topic supposed to be about? Oh yeah, congrats WSU, JS, GS, and Learjet!!!

:posterwsu:

[SB Shock]

Seeing how only three of our players last year batted .325 or higher, I think I'll stick with .325 as being the benchmark.

Just how many of those players were All-American? But go on ahead if your benchmark is mediocrity.

The Average "Average" of BA All-American:

1st Team College All-American - 0.386
2nd Team College All-American - 0.367
3rd Team College All-American - 0.377

Out of the 30 All-America Hitters
8 hit >0.400
9 Hit between 0.375 and 0.400

Only 3 hits at or less than 0.325. One was a 3rd team utility player, another 3rd team player hit 21 HR's and the 3rd was a 2nd team Shortstop.

[KC Shox]

Seeing how only three of our players last year batted .325 or higher, I think I'll stick with .325 as being the benchmark.

Just how many of those players were All-American? But go on ahead if your benchmark is mediocrity.

The Average "Average" of BA All-American:

1st Team College All-American - 0.386
2nd Team College All-American - 0.367
3rd Team College All-American - 0.377

Out of the 30 All-America Hitters
8 hit >0.400
9 Hit between 0.375 and 0.400

Only 3 hits at or less than 0.325. One was a 3rd team utility player, another 3rd team player hit 21 HR's and the 3rd was a 2nd team Shortstop.

I'm not sure about their All-American status but our top hitter - Derek Schermerhorn his .354, Damon Sublette hit .347 and Conor Gillespie hit .325. These guys didn't come close to your .375 - .400 Elite Squad and but I'm pretty certain anyone will tell you these three were studs on our 2007 team and we don't get to the Super Regional without them.

Oh, and there were only 101 players in D1 ball that hit .376 or higher last year. How many D1 hitters are there in college baseball, over 2,700? This Elite Squad of yours represents less than 3 percent of the hitters playing D1 ball.

Also, out of the 293 D1 baseball programs, only 7 had a team batting average over .325. So your notion that .325 would be a decent team batting average is absurd. The Shox's team batting average last year was .299 as an FYI.

It is not an issue of mediocrity, it appears to be an issue of you having a far-fetched unrealistic imagination of what constitutes as a great batting average for the college baseball player.

[shox1989]

It's possible that T. Boone Pickens gave an assist to many colleges fundraising efforts last night. If you caught him being interviewed during the second half of the KU game, he told Musburger and ??? that people need to give $$$$ when they are alive and not after they've passed from this earth... in other words, he wants to "see" his large donations working and paying dividends... his goal is for T. Boone Pickens Stadium to be the best facility in the country. It was an interesting interview with one of the richest men in the world. WSU is fortunate to have several wealthy alumni providing support to the university on a regular basis. We also have a special friend of the university with over five (5) times the net worth of T. Boone Pickens. The continued rise in crude oil prices will result in some astronomical tax liabilities and donation possibilities... it's the perfect time for a huge tax shelter... hmmm.


I didn't get to see the Kentucky game but hopefully some of those wealthy Kansans will come through for Shocker baseball!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens

:good:

[NCAABound]

So the Practice Facility probably won't be nickmaned The 'Fort as previously speculated.

With the Bombardier/Learjet sponsorship any new thoughts on a nickname.

I'm thinking maybe the Factory. It will certainly help us keep the production of good Ball Players going.

:posterwu: :goshocks: :posterwsu:

Has anyone mentioned the Hangar?

[RoyalShock]

Has anyone mentioned the Hangar?

Excellent!!! :good:

[SB Shock]

I'm not sure about their All-American status but our top hitter - Derek Schermerhorn his .354, Damon Sublette hit .347 and Conor Gillespie hit .325. These guys didn't come close to your .375 - .400 Elite Squad

And they were not All-American either. If you look at some of the best hitters for recent Shock teams you will see a certain trend.

Pat Magness - 0.409, 0.464 (All-America)
Jeff Ryan - 0.424 (All-American)
Zach Sorenson - 0.422 (All-American)
Brian Burgamy - 0.400 (All-American)
Kevin Hooper - 0.402 (All-America)
Blake Blasi - 0.396, 0.391 (All-American)
Koyie Hill - 0.391
Brandon Green - 0.395 (All-American)
Damon Sublette - 0.394
Logan Sorenson - 0.377
Nick Blasi - 0.366

and but I'm pretty certain anyone will tell you these three were studs on our 2007 team and we don't get to the Super Regional without them.

No doubt that they were the best hitter on the 2007 team and without them the abysmal 6.3 runs per game would have been much worse.

But two of the three players also had down year when compared to 2006 (in parenthesis)

Sublette - 0.354 (0.394)
Schemerhorn 0.347 (0.329)
Gillaspie 0.325 (0.352)

Also, out of the 293 D1 baseball programs, only 7 had a team batting average over .325. So your notion that .325 would be a decent team batting average is absurd. The Shox's team batting average last year was .299 as an FYI.

The 0.299 BA and 6.3 run per game in 2007 was historically 2nd to worst in Shocker History. Also the team 0.325 average is not so absurd.

The first chart shows the correlation with Wichita State offense runs scored with Batting Average. You will notice there seems to be a strong correlation that the better WSU hit, the more runs they score. 17 out the 30 seasons, WSU team has hit above 0.320. The latest was in 2004 when the team hit 0.324.



This second chart shows compares the 2003 and 2004 teams and where they fell in the NCAA college baseball population. 2003 is very comparable to the 2007 hitting output. 2004 season was the last season that Wichita State hit near 0.325. Previously they had a string of season from 1995 to 1999 where they hit above 0.325 (0.331, 0.332, 0.335, 0.339 and 0.328).

You will notice that the 0.300 hitting team in 2003 fell right in the middle of the population - they were just average.

In 2004, the team had a 0.324 batting average and I would characterize their run production as being Well Above Average.



Since 1999, had some good hitting teams and some bad hitting teams. IMO, the problem is two fold.

1. There has been a lack of depth. If you look at good hitting Shocker teams, they had threats from top to bottom in their order. In some of the recent "bad" hitting shocker teams, there have been holes in the hitting lineup card where the teams can pitch around the meat of the WSU lineup and/or WSU is forced to give up outs (i.e. play small ball all the time).

2. 2nd - recent Shocker teams have had abysmal power (i.e. slugging percentage). The 2007 team slightly changed the direction of the slugging percentage from 0.381 (2005) to 0.426 (2007). But this a far cry from the 0.508 numbers in 2004 and well below the 1995-2004 average of 0.499.

I'm hopefull that 2008 Shocker team will emerge as one of the better hitting teams with some of the returning players and the potential that others may bring to the table.

It is not an issue of mediocrity, it appears to be an issue of you having a far-fetched unrealistic imagination of what constitutes as a great batting average for the college baseball player.

As I have shown historically (in the last 10 years), WSU All-American either were hitting near or hit over 0.400.

Historically from 1995 to 2004 - WSU hitters had a 0.322 average. So, I don't see how saying a team 0.325 average would be a good benchmark is that far out of line.

[Shockerman]

Damn bro, kudos to you for backing up your argument with facts figures and graphs. Remind me not to get in a debate with you in the future. I am pro-football at WSU, I hope to God you are too!

[KC Shox]

SB - I commend you with your impressive array of graphs, charts and data you have put together to support your arguement. However, I would like to see data that does not compare past Shocker teams, I am referring to college baseball as a whole and what constitutes a benchmark for a team batting average.

I say again, out of 293 D1 teams last year, only 7 had a team batting average over .325 - 2 percent of all D1 teams. You said .325 would be a decent team average. I want to emphasize your choice of words - specifically "decent".

Given the fact only 7 teams achieved this mark, this is not decent, this is rather remarkable and major props need to go out to those teams. Am I so wrong to say .325 would be a benchmark since only 7 teams achieved this last year? It appears I may be over the line to think .325 should be the benchmark since this appears to be very rare in college baseball.

Perhaps I should lower the benchmark to .310, .315.

I have not researched past seasons, just last year's, so I'm not sure whether or not this was a down year in college baseball hitting. Who knows, perhaps the prior 10 years had an average team average over .350, I don't know, but I doubt it.

[SB Shock]

SB - I commend you with your impressive array of graphs, charts and data you have put together to support your arguement. However, I would like to see data that does not compare past Shocker teams, I am referring to college baseball as a whole and what constitutes a benchmark for a team batting average.

Ultimately, I did compare the shocker teams with the the college baseball. Instead using batting average, it was with "Runs per Game" because ultimately that is what's really important and the data is more readily available. As I have previously shown, RPG and batting average are related.

You said .325 would be a decent team average. I want to emphasize your choice of words - specifically "decent".

Actually I said "Good Decent". Maybe not the best choice of words, but everybody understood what I was saying.

Perhaps I should lower the benchmark to .310, .315.

Tell me how many runs the pitching staff is going to give up and what winning percentage you think WSU needs to have to be a national seed and I'll tell you how well WSU need to hit and how many runs they need to score to achieve that goal.

[haysdb]

There's no question (in MY mind anyway) that our pitching is what set us apart this last season, and the season before that, and...

Our pitching can't do much more than it has, and our defense has been top notch, so any improvement must come from our offense.

[Harold_Shox]

Bombardier Lear Jet rocks !