Okay Fine It's A Baseball Preview: CWS Finale
/the final countdown
you know you can embed things, right?
Oh fine
Yeahhhhh buddy.
I shall put on my Detroit Bad Boys gear posthaste.
THE ESSENTIALS
| WHAT | Michigan (50-21) vs #2 Vanderbilt (52-12) |
|---|---|
| WHERE | Fuegobox Field Omaha, Nebraska |
| WHEN | 7 PM Eastern |
| LINE | Michigan +180 |
| TV | ESPN |
ABOUT LAST NIGHT
Erik Bakich decided to go off-script, starting freshman Isaiah Paige and relying on a boatload of pitchers who hadn't seen the field in the College World series. Paige managed to scrape by in four scoreless innings, but the walls caved in a bit when he left.
It probably wouldn't have mattered. Bakich made some decisions that seem bizarre at first glance—he intentionally walked the bases loaded—but make a modicum of sense if you're already down 1-0 and believe that you aren't going to score 3 runs against Rocker. And Michigan did indeed scuffle to just one run despite a couple of Vandy errors. Bakich's high variance strategy paid off until Jack Weisenberger threw wild pitches at consecutive batters.
The good news is that Michigan didn't waste Criswell going up against this guy…
Rocker is 10-1 in his past 11 starts, and he is 4-0 in the NCAA tournament, with a 0.96 ERA, 44 strikeouts and five walks in 28 innings.
…and has him available tonight. Meanwhile Rocker did exit in the seventh and Michigan put 40 pitches on closer Tyler Brown.
[After THE JUMP: Vandy's third starter is also okay]
PITCHING MATCHUP
Vandy being Vandy their third starter is also a dude. Sophomore Mason Hickman has an ERA of 2.08, 119 strikeouts in 90.2 innings, and a WHIP of just under one. He hasn't given up more than 2 earned runs since early March. The high-level scouting:
Mason Hickman exits after 6 innings of two-hit, shutout ball for @VandyBoys. Just typical Hickman: not sexy stuff, but he knows how to use it. That 88-90 fastball plays up because of its high spin rate and extension in his delivery. Another great outing in a great year for him.
— Aaron Fitt (@aaronfitt) June 22, 2019
Hickman has had some issues with control. While this hasn't resulted in a lot of walks (just 25, gross) he does tend to exit games early. He's gotten through six innings in just three of his last eight starts.
Vandy being Vandy, their bullpen doesn't get wacky once you get past their closer. Jake Eder has a WHIP of 1.13 in 36 innings and change; Ethan Smith is at 1.03. Even if Brown is on the shelf or limited to an inning Vandy will put out some guys they can have confidence in. Probably: Vandy's bullpen ERA since the start of the super-regional has been over 6.
Michigan gets Karl Kauffman (2.75 ERA, 1.08 WHIP) back after his Friday start against Texas Tech. This is slightly short rest:
“That’s been the plan all along,” Bakich said. “He’s starting on Friday against Texas Tech, and if it went to Wednesday, he was going to be ready to go. The one thing about Karl, he’s older, he's mature, he knows how to take care of his body, so he has done the things he needs to do from a workout standpoint and a recovery standpoint to get his body and himself ready to go on four days’ rest and pitch on the fifth day.”
With Kauffmann starting on short rest, pitching in his third College World Series game in 11 days, don’t expect him to go long — five, six innings if he can keep his pitch count low.
Kauffman exited shortly after he hit 100 pitches in both Texas Tech outings, and was noticeably less accurate as the second one dragged on.
Michigan did not have a reason to deploy Jeff Criswell (2.58 ERA, 1.27 WHIP) last night and should have him at or close to fully strength. He threw 9 pitches to close out Michigan's win Monday and had ~36 pitch outings in both Texas Tech games. Criswell spent the season as a starter and can be expected to finish the game whenever Kauffman gives way. Michigan's bullpen can get hairy in a hurry, as last night's game demonstrated.
LINEUP BITS
Michigan will not have leadoff hitter Jordan Nwogu after he did something bad to his quad trying to get to first base last night. Bakich appears set to replace him with Riley Bertram, a switch-hitting freshman with 10 hits in 25 plate appearances. Bertram replaced SS Jack Blomgren during the regional and played well.
Otherwise both teams are unlikely to make any lineup changes.
YOUR BUTTS
Hold onto them. We, the dedicated long-time Michigan baseball fans, have been waiting for this moment for upwards of three weeks.
Go Blue!
By the way, not being a baseball guy I had to look up why pitchers need so much rest. Apparently in the 80's pro pitchers would pitch on three days rest and now the average is 5. Sort of obvious, but pitchers who have more rest pitch better and are less prone to injury. 5 days seems to be where they're back to their best.
Throwing 100 pitches is probably better viewed less as workload and more like physical trauma. The arm isn't resting so much as healing. You can recover from fatigue in a day; injuries would much prefer 5 over 3.
Case in point, back when "men were men" and managers were idiots, "workhorse" pitchers invariably got severe arm injuries, often never being the same again, if not career-ending. Five days' rest wasn't implemented out of mercy; it was because clubs finally realized they were pissing away payroll for the sake of bravado.
I once heard of a guy who threw complete games for both ends of a double-header. 315 pitches! In college!
Just kidding. I actually heard more than once. Still, he was a man when men were men. A Michigan Man.
Yes, so the precursor to this was players being paid proportionally to their value, i.e. free agency. That put a cost on the bravado mindset, given the wasted arms limited the amount of hookers, blow, and torture racks the owners of MLB could afford. Capitalism rules.
Invariably is a strong word but your point stands that it's lunacy to burn a talented starter in the hope that he just might be Tom Seaver/Jim Palmer/Steve Carlton...For every one of those guys, there's a bunch more we don't remember because their forearms fell off at the elbow.
Or are remembered because they name a surgical procedure after you.
It's amazing to look at stats from just 43 years ago. In 1976, Mark Fidrych (his rookie year no less), had 19 wins. He had 24 complete games.
Last year a handful of pitchers tied for the league lead with 2.
On June 14, 1974, Nolan Ryan...
INNINGS: 13
PITCHES: 235
ER: 3
H: 8
BB: 10
K: 19
Oh, and Luis Tiant threw a complete game opposite him. NBD.
And The Bird missed the first month of the season.
And blew his arm out.
The Bird injured his knee, then changed his delivery. That’s what tore up his arm. At least, that’s how the papers wrote it up at the time.
No offense, but I think it’s a little more complex than “managers were morons”. Innings lost to arm injuries have remained pretty steady over the last twenty years.
Pitchers are throwing way harder than ever and fastball velocity has become the #1 valued characteristic in pitching.
in 2008 less than 200 pitches were thrown over 100 mph. Last year that number was over a thousand.
I believe in game 1 the announcers said Kerr's pappy threw 313 pitches in a double header.
An extra factor in this was that in the 1920s with many changes in scouting and development good pitchers could no longer coast. It was typical to back off on most of your pitches and save the good stuff for the best hitters. But as baseball began to fill in with better players there weren't so many easy outs.
The standard in the pros is actually 4 days rest. They pitch every 5th day generally.
Pitchers in prior eras used more body to throw the ball. You could throw more innings but the trade-off was that you didn't throw as hard. Now pitchers use more arm to throw the ball, which gives you more velocity but puts more strain on your elbow.
What? Have you ever watched Verlander? He’s among the best examples of a complete throwing motion.
Pitching (actually, all throwing) is leg drive and core first, then arm and mechanics. Always has been.
I think you must mean that you looked up the 1880's. Because a 5 pitcher, and thus a 5-6 day rotation, was the standard well before the 1980's.
"…and has him available tonight". Is this suggesting that he may come in as a mid-reliever at some point today?
That sentence is referring to Criswell, and yes, he's available.
Got it, thanks. Was hoping that wasn't referring to Rocker - saw enough of him yesterday!
I would think so, unless Kauffman is lights out.
This is awesome! I just can't wait until you do a championship preview on Memorial Day weekend for lacrosse. One can dream, right?
Thank you.
WIN THE GAME!
I've been waiting at least since the last time we made it to the tournament for a baseball preview. Loving it. Let's Go Blue!
Kauffman/Criswell gives us our best shot of winning tonight. After that, let the cards fall where they may. (Just keep Weisenberger off the mound please) Go Blue!
And to think that Weisenburger was drafted in the 20th round by the Oakland A's just a few weeks ago. One has to think the A's are a little nervous about what they're getting after seeing his last two outings, blowing a save against Creighton and what happened last night.
Once you're out in the 20th round, isn't it just a crapshoot anyway? I doubt the franchise's future is hanging on the balance of a 20th round pick
That has no bearing on what the A's think. He has a bit of life to his arm and has some stuff. He just had two get away. It happens. It's baseball.
Ah, yes, baseball. The sport that notoriously eschews development and drafts guys for what they'll do in the majors the following season.
Seems like Bakich played the starters about as well as he could. We didn't get to Rocker last night, so it doesn't really matter who started, but Paige gave you four innings, and we saved Criswell for tonight. Unless things go unexpectedly sideways tonight, Kaufmann/Criswell should be able to cover 9 innings, and so it's up to the bats to get the win.
Bakich set up his hand perfectly; the rest is down to luck.
The last line is GOLD. Great preview and Go Blue!!!
Was that so hard?? I am just hoping you were holding off on writing this for superstitious reasons alleviated by last night's loss... (said the guy who is aware that this is all free content and shouldn't complain about free things:)
We've been scoring plenty of runs - except against the insanely talented Rocker. We score 4 runs in the first 6 innings, and I think we will, and we're gonna be celebrating tonight!
Isaiah Page deserves a lot of credit. Despite seeing two would-be home runs go barely foul after getting crushed, he was crafty and gutsy. Despite facing a leadoff hitter batting .406, the NCAA HR leader and a 9-hole hitter with 12 HR, he gave his team a chance to win. Despite going up opposite one of the most dominant tight en— er, starting pitchers in the country, Page essentially pitched him to a draw for 4 innings by putting the ball in great spots. Hail.
That said, I’m looking forward to Kauffman being able to challenge hitters more and our defense being a bit more crisp today.
Side note: did anyone chuckle a bit at the size differential between Rocker and Angelo Smith?
GO BLUE!
As a fellow member with many of the long term fan of Michigan College Baseball, I don't really know what you are saying but it sounds good to me. Go Blue!
This must be how my wife feels when I talk football to her.
Long post I'm sure has been discussed in threads I missed:
You know as I’ve watched the games and heard the constant “B1G teams can’t compete” I’ve been expecting that Michigan would look outclassed at some point. Like they were an overachieving underdog that was just scraping by running bases or being scrappy, and that was going to fade. That’s true to some extent, they play very smart and small ball (and the bottom of the order is pretty rough), but I haven’t seen a huge dearth of talent on Michigan vs. these other teams (especially UCLA and Vandy). I keep waiting for Cabrera-type monsters to walk to the plate and bomb home runs 3-4-5-6 hitters. But it just hasn’t happened. The Vandy #3 or #4 hitter, whoever that lefty is, looks like 5* type better than anyone Michigan has, but the rest of the lineup seems close. They have Rocker but we have Henry.
It seems like Bakich could use the momentum from this, continue to sell the brand as he’s done so well so far, up the recruiting a tick and grab a few highly rated players, continue to find good players among lower-ranked recruits, develop them, and keep this going. He’s clearly an excellent coach. But then I’m confronted with no B1G team winning a national title since 1966, and Michigan not having been to the CWS since 1984, and does seem impossible to keep up. How do I reconcile this? Either some confluence of circumstances has come together for team 153 so that it's extremely lucky to have this roster, or it seems like this could continue.
Vandy's sixth hitter has a like .350 average with 13 homers and 70 RBI. Their ninth hitter has 12 homers. Vandy is a ridiculous baseball team.
just looking at size alone, Vandy has a huge advantage. their roster is loaded with 6'5 - 6'6 guys. bigger doesn't always mean better, and even though I think Michigan looks more like the classic scrappy kids, they have great talent. lots of draft picks. very well coached, especially with hitting: being patient and work the count. They could not be set up better. they will get the W.
So you think this is sustainable?
By all accounts, Bakich is a fantastic recruiter. I think Vanderbilt's Tim Corbin has a quote out there crediting Bakich for giving him the recruiting blueprint while he was there that's helped turn Vandy into a national power. We're not good because of luck. We have talent. This isn't John Beilein smoke-and-mirrors turning cast offs into draft picks. Think we had like 11 guys drafted a year ago? Bakich is bringing in dudes.
As far as keeping it up, somebody here (maybe Brian) compared our ceiling to being the Gonzaga of baseball. That'd be okay with me. Become the dominant regional power in a non-traditional baseball conference and take your annual crack at the national tournament. That doesn't seem like a terrible goal.
In general, the program has been trending up. Hopefully this is the breakthrough that will lead to sustained national success. Fingers crossed.
That would be outstanding. But it is a little off, no? I mean (apologies to Hoke haters) this is Michigan. Every kid playing baseball knows the school, academics, and history, even if athletic success is on other sports. In that way it's nothing like Gonzaga, it has many more advantages.
Put another way, if you can be Gonzaga, why can't you be Vandy? And frankly, if Michigan can do it, why can't Ohio State/Nebraska/another if they had the right coach? It seems like there's probably enough good players willing to brave the cold to field a couple of very good rosters in the B1G. But yet it hasn't happened in a very long time.
Yes, this is Michigan - which means precisely squat when it comes to baseball. We can't be Vandy because we're not in Tennessee. Come on, man. I need a little bit of help from you. We're a cold-weather school in a warm-weather sport. We have an inherent recruiting disadvantage that Bakich seems to be overcoming. Read Froze Mangoes post below. Why can't OSU/Nebraska do it? You tell me. Why can't Arkansas be Alabama Football? Why can't Clemson basketball be Duke?
This is short-sighted. It doesn't mean squat today. Or more correctly, it means something today more so than it meant prior to this CWS. You build on that. If you're a national power like Michigan, the building is much easier. Loyola making a run to the Final Four means they get a very temporary bump and everyone goes back to forgetting they existed. Not so a school like Michigan.
Vandy wasn't Vandy before Corbin got there. Arkansas/Alabama in football and Clemson/Duke basketball aren't the right questions. It's why can't Alabama be great in basketball? The answer is they can. They haven't been historically, but they have all the built in advantages that national power has. If they get the right coach, they can be excellent.
Michigan has the right coach, maybe a generational coach, in Bakich. They have the national powerhouse brand. They have a roster full of talent right now. This seems sustainable. Yes even with the cold weather disadvantage, I'd bet there are enough good players that would look past that.
In college football, it's my contention that history, funding, brand, and academics are what drive the ceiling, provided you couple that with a great coach. The coach is the most important thing in college football. Not sure about baseball, but probably true here as well.
I think you are minimizing the cold weather disadvantage. Baseball is played year round in California. If we had 27 scholarships, we could at least recruit with the California schools on an even playing field. But we don’t. We get, what, 11.7 scholarships to distribute? Paying out of state tuition for baseball is tough. So you have to fill out your roster with in-state walk-on/partial scholarship kids. Maybe that’s why our bullpen is less than dominant.
"If you're a national power like Michigan"
Michigan is not a national power in baseball. We haven't even won our own conference in over a decade - and our conference is subpar relative to the south. We are not a national power and will not become one overnight even on the back of this single historic run. It has to do with geography. Until you can grasp that concept, I can't help you.
You lack vision.
We face a similar challenge to what southern schools face in developing a dominant hockey program. Could they do it? Sure, but stacked up against the advantages of the Minnesota schools, the Northeast schools and the rest of the North, it's one hell of a challenge.
Our prestige as a university helps, but can you foresee Virginia or Duke becoming a hockey powerhouse?
For a lot of sports, Michigan being Michigan is enough. But sports like baseball are so regional that it's hard to expect a school that basically doesn't play a home game for the first 4-5 weeks of a season to consistently field teams with as much talent as schools where guys can play year-round and don't have such disjointed schedules.
It's not that there aren't talented guys in the region but my guess is a lot of them either find themselves moving elsewhere to pursue baseball (similar to how young golfers all move south so they can play year-round) or pivot to another sport.
This year is likely an aberration in that Michigan isn't going to play for a national title every season, but they absolutely could settle into the Gonzaga-level of "consistent winner who sometimes catches lightning in a bottle." Vandy has a lot of regional (plus systemic) advantages, and expecting Michigan to replicate that is unlikely. But Michigan being consistent is a huge step toward the Big 10 at least being considered a viable conference for baseball.
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