Rebel 2B Alex Yarbrough

[ED: Much appreciated, Thile. I added a picture and some words, and then I frontpaged it.]

The Rebels (27-14, 8-8) approach a crucial series this weekend in a road trip to Starkville [ED: What sick sonofabitch has our baseball team travelling to Starkville during Double Decker?] and I was finally able to look at some numbers to get an idea as to just how this team has performed thus far. Earlier this, the question had been asked, what has new hitting coach Cliff Godwin meant to our team? Where have we improved, offensively, this season. Back then, I looked at some individual numbers, as well as some team stats, if I remember correctly. But now I think we have a big enough sample to look at our team stats more accurately.

I have not yet got to the individuals, though.

Sorry, this is stats heavy (#nerd), and I did not redefine anything from last year so if you have any questions, comments, or criticisms, let me know in the comments section. One last thing, when I use the term currently for 2012, that is through April 23rd.

We are currently second in the SEC in batting average, at .315, closely trailing UK at .316. Let's look at that little closer. I wish I had the time/effort/inclination to look at home/away and put the ball park and schedule factors into play, because I think we play in a pretty favorable park, but UK really plays in a bandbox, as we all know. I have our OPS at .833 (107 OPS+) which is 3rd behind UK (.891/115) and Florida (.839/108). Last year, we were at .770/98 which places us 7th in the SEC and just under average at .787. Our OBP has increased from .360 to .390 from '11 to '12. Slugging has increased from .410 to .443. We scored 5.53 runs per game last year (8th); we are at 6.35 runs per game this year (4th); while the SEC produced 5.78 runs per game last year and is producing 5.73 runs per game this year.

Really, we've improved across the board offensively.

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Lance Lynn, World Champion of the World

Over the past year, we have seen quite a few of our former Rebels make the jump to the Majors. Lance Lynn landed in a great position as the Cardinals won the World Series, and he was a key member of the bullpen down the stretch. We've had some updates on the Major Leaguers so I'll just start with the latest info I found on our alumni toiling in the Minors.

Nathan Baker is in double A Altoona (Eastern League) for the Pirates organization this year after spending the last year in high A ball. In 2011, he was 10 - 8 with a 3.34 ERA with a 1.36 WHIP.

Aaron Barrett is in A ball for Hagerstown of the South Atlantic League (SALL) for the parent club Washington Nationals. Last year he was 1-2 with a 4.05 ERA in low A ball with 9 saves and a 1.35 WHIP striking out 32 but walking 20 in 26 2/3 IP.

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Drew Pomeranz

As a follow up to last year, I'll do one now, for the players starting the year on a Major League roster, and another when the minor league camps break and I know who is where. We do have quite a few former Ole Miss players starting the season in the majors this year, so it is a pretty exciting time to be a Rebel given that and our nice start to the NCAA season. If I miss anything, please be sure to let me know.

Chris Coghlan, former NL Rookie of the Year, trying to get back on track, is the fourth outfielder for the Florida Miami Marlins this year.

Zack Cozart is the starting shortstop for the Cincinnati Reds. (Words I can never spell: Cincinnati and centennial). Looks like he had off-season elbow surgery, but I don't know much about that. Slated to bat second as well.

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Did we all forget how good he was when he was relatively healthy in 2010? Granted it was the last year with the old bats, but he was our best hitter then, easily.

He hit .347/.481/.653 with 12 HR and 40 RBI. He was even better in SEC play at .356/.500/.644 with 6 HR and 21 RBI. Reaching base every other time he got to bat!

Last year, he had a horrible start, but I think he was injured? He was definitely in a slump to start, and sat on the bench for a couple games, if I remember correctly. At the end of March 2011, he was only hitting .250/.389/.386. He finished the year at .301/.425/.534 with 9 HR and 39 RBI. Led the team in HR, RBI, and OBP. Tied with Yarbrough with 14 doubles and second to Yarb in SLG to finish just ahead of Yarb in OPS.

This year so far he is only at .310/.356/.405. I think he is the epitome of a streak hitter. He'll go through some rough times, but then will absolutely tear the cover off of the ball. But he ain't exactly been chopped liver up there.

Kirksey has been the most impressive from '11 to '12 so far. Q has been outstanding. I've been impressed with Mathis from '11 to '12 so far with his .471 OBP. I just don't think Snyder has hit his stride, yet.

As you may know, I attempted to look at our team and our weekend match-ups through a sabermetric eye last year. I thought I would attempt to do the same again this year, once we got into SEC play*, but wanted to see how seasoned our team was and how that stacked up with the rest of the SEC going into the season.

(*April is going to be rough for me so it may not be as complete as last year)

I listed the top 100 players from college baseball daily, rankings from baseball news and baseball america for both preseason rankings and recruiting classes. I am not going to get into the specifics of how I ranked each team for now... but I tried to include quality as well as quantity returning. The average wOBA is trending towards .350 for the SEC as well (only 1 year of data with the new bats) since I've listed that for position players. But I am not attempting to predict the finish from this, just an exercise to see if there is any viability to it for now...

I hope to make improvements upon this for next year. I ranked the SEC as a whole, without regard to division. I did not include any recruiting or non-qualifying players. I have included the total number of "starters"; South Carolina returns the fewest with 7, but those 7 provide quite a bit of value. We are tied with several with 8 returning. Some teams will have more players listed than I've included as returning, as some made the SEC list without qualifying; I did not include them in my analysis, but I did want to list them here.

Just to be clear: I am not predicting we will be last in the SEC.

Without further adieu...

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HT: Thile. This should be an interesting read.

I am not much of a chef around the house, especially when compared to some of the things that have been included in Red Cup Cooks, but I do use my kitchen for one very important provision:  Beer!    

I am a beer geek.  I love craft beer and homebrew.  I enjoy making my own beer.  You can pare up your food with various gourmet beers just as you could with wine.  (Cheese is supposed to actually pair better with beer)  Right now, homebrewing is not legal in the state of Mississippi.  Raise Your Pints is trying to legalize homebrewing as well as increasing the ABV cap on beers available in this state.  

I have been a home brewer for just over a year now.  I just bottled up my 1st anniversary batch the day before I made this latest one, Chinook IPA.  I have made this kit before, but am making a couple adjustments to the recipe.  If you click on the link, you can see the basic ingredients and some of the process.  I'll repeat a lot of that here, but wanted to have that available too.  

For the uninitiated, an IPA is an India Pale Ale.  This particular one is a single-hopped beer that uses only chinook hops (in pellet form, but I'll be dry hopping with whole leaf hops). The base kit for this beer does not quite fit to style, but I'll make some adjustments as well.  

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I thought about ending that with a question mark - Zack Cozart finally called up? As this article did before the update

- Yonder Alonso, a teammate of Cozart’s at Triple-A Louisville, has confirmed that the shortstop is on his way to Milwaukee. The move should be made official before Thursday night’s game.

But it does appear that Cozart is now a Cincinnati Red...

Cozart appears as if he's getting the call by the Reds before Thursday night's game against the Brewers, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Spin:  We haven't had official confirmation from the Reds yet, but in addition to the Enquirer article, we've seen tweets from his Triple-A Louisville teammates congratulating him on the promotion.

 

I was going to include another update as I did previously but thought I would go ahead and post this about Cozart and a couple minor updates...

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As we all know Lance Lynn made his ML debut and now has two starts under his belt. Lynn picked up his first ML win with a 5-inning outing last night, yielding 1 run (earned) on 6 hits and 3 walks with 3 strikeouts.  Lynn ran into a little bit of trouble in his first outing, yielding 5 runs (all earned) before Bianco LaRussa pulled him at the top of the 6th.  Some positives in the debut were he only allowed 4 hits and no walks while striking out 5, but he did allow a homerun.

Alex Presley is still hitting the cover off the ball for Indianapolis of the Pirate's farm system (AAA).  He is now hitting .338/.387/.519 for a .907 OPS in 60 games, a step down from the torrid pace he had earlier but still well above the league averages.  He also has continued to run the basepaths well with 13 steals and only 2 caught stealing.

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I suppose it is my bad luck that I picked our worst year in recent memory to undertake this task.  Ole Miss (37 RPI, 66 PR) travels to Arkansas (13 RPI, 20 PR).  Presenting Ole Miss and Arkansas on a position by position basis.   I'm using the most recent positions, not sure if Bianco plans to keep using this lineup, but it seemed to shake things up a bit.  

Despite playing in a hitter friendly environment, Arkansas has posted anemic offensive numbers across the board.  The park factor for them is 94.1%; schedule factor 105%; combined is 98.8%.  Our current numbers are 96.9% (Park); 104.6% (Schedule); and 101.4% (Combined).  Ficociello and McCann are their best hitters at 1B and C respectively. The one thing they have done well is steal bases as they lead the SEC with 104 steals out of 127 (81.8% efficiency).  Bigham, Kuhn, Reynolds, and Carver all have between 15 and 19 steals.

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State seems to be hitting the ball better since we last faced them three weeks ago in Pearl.  The largest increase is in slugging percentage leading them to just over 100 OPS+ when they were just under 100 before the Governor's Cup (And the difference is a little more marked than first glance as they received a boost to compare to the NCAA as a whole which I have moved away from for now).  Parks is still crushing the ball; one of the things I hope to do is probably not going to be done this year, but I'd like to formulate my own WAR system for the SEC.  He is certainly by all standards one of the best players in the SEC, but I'd like to compare players across the board in the future (Such as with Yarbrough, Mahtook, and other standouts.)  

The biggest change for them positively is that Vickerson has moved from average OPS to well above league averages with a 131 OPS+.  He's quieted down on the basepaths, with only 2 steals over the past 3 weeks, but you don't have to steal when you're hitting the cover off the ball, I reckon.

Our park and combined factors are identical:  the combined schedule/park factor for MSU is 100.7 with a park index of 96.4 and a schedule value of 104.6;  Ole Miss is at 100.7, 96.4, and 104.2, so we have only played a slightly less difficult schedule. I have also included our stats with (Ole Miss A) and without (Ole Miss B) Matt Smith.

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I saw where Alex Presley is tearing it up for the Pirate's AAA franchise.  He is currently hitting .377/.421/.561 (.982 OPS) for Indianapolis with 21 runs, 5 doubles, 2 triples, 4 home runs, and 16 RBI.  He is 8 out of 10 in stolen bases as well.

Seems like he should be called up for the lowly Pirates.  He spent last year between AA and AAA putting up pretty good numbers there as well (hitting .320/.373/.494 combined) before being called up in September (.261/.292/.304) with the Pirates.  

We've had quite a few players drafted, and the Rebels in the Pro's thing is a little out of date on olemissports.com so I thought I'd see what I could dig up.

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Better late than never.  Maybe.  Pretty depressing looking at Florida and USC back to back when we should be playing at that level, and at least seem competitive against them.  I'm posting this anyway; didn't get a chance to get on here and add a little dialogue though I had the stats uploaded already.  USC is just solid, top to bottom, but led by star first baseman Christian Walker.

They use their rotation in a very interesting way, to me.  They have Roth as an Ace; but their Saturday and Sunday starters have not been that great, but they use another stopper to come in, John Taylor - seems like they use him as a setup man for their closer, Matt Price.  Overall they have a pretty dominant staff, as you can see.

We've already lost the Friday night game, and it looks bad for us for the rest of the weekend too.  

I have the park factors and schedule factors on my laptop, but they actually weigh in slightly downgraded overall, their schedule has been tough but  their home park is apparently very much a hitters park.  Which may mean their staff is even better than advertised.  

(Disclaimer, I use the wOBA and FIP information from College Splits)

I think we know the drill.  We have now moved slightly over 100 on our combined schedule and park factor as our level of competition has increased due to having played more SEC games.  Combined we are at 100.7 with a park factor of 96.5 and a schedule factor of 104.2.  While Tracy has struggled pitching against increased level of competition he does appear to be an SEC level outfielder, as he is at a 105 OPS+.  I haven't included the park/schedule factor and merely weigh it against the league averages.  Snyder appears to be trending upward as well, which we will definitely need as we move into the remainder of SEC play.  As a team, we are still below league average. 'Cept for strike outs, we are good at those.

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[Thile delivers once again. Frontpag'd]

Pretty much the same format for Auburn as previously posted, but I did want to look at Huber and Wahl a bit first.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to rehash our team before the Florida series which is the traditional Friday, Saturday, Sunday affair.  

USM (4/12) Brett Huber came in to start the 7th vs USM, pitched one inning and gave up a run on 2 hits and an error.  Wahl came into relieve Mayers in the 8th after a hit with an error; got a K and then pitched two relatively clean innings, gave up a double in one and a walk in the other but no runs. 

UK (4/14) Huber got the win.  Relieved Callender in the 8th.  Huber got a K and a popup to strand a runner at 3rd.  Faced the #4 and #5 hitters.  Wahl came on in the 9th for the save; after two quick outs, ran into trouble, allowed a run on 3 hits before nailing down the save.  Faced the bottom of the line-up, worked around to the #2 position.

UK (4/15)  Huber did not pitch.  Wahl got the save in similar fashion.  Two quick outs then two hits before getting the third to preserve the Rebel victory.  He faced the bottom of the line up, worked its way around to lead-off hitter.

UK (4/16) Huber got the save on Sunday with two innings of pitching.  Allowed one hit in the 8th, made things a little tricky in the 9th with a lead off walk followed by a SAC bunt, struck out the last UK batter with the runner on 3rd to save the 6-5 win.  Faced all but #7 and #8 hitters. Wahl did not pitch.

Neither figured in the mid-week game. Here are the peripherals to date.

Moving on to Auburn, with the exception of team totals, I haven't updated to take into account midweek games as of yet.  I've only included the /slash/ stats for Andrews as he was a non-qualifier. He stared all three games against LSU as their leadoff hitter (and against USA as well).  Alvord has played some infield as well:  .264/.328/.377.

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I haven't looked too much at the mid-week games, due to time constraints and on general purposes; they're usually not a good opponent and a one-game series isn't much of a sample size.  Since we are playing MSU, I've already put together there basics and wanted a peak ahead at our last regular season opponent.

As with Kentucky, I've presented the qualifiers and some basic sabermetric stats.  At this point, the season will be over before I get to play around too much with other things, but want to go back and do some further analysis while watching the Majors.  Also similarly, I've tried to guess positions based on recent trends.  Brownlee played a lot against Auburn, but the Oxford native (which is obviously where he picked up such obscene gestures) is suspended (has not had the plate appearances to qualify irregardless).  Johnson (.286/.355/.393 in 28 ABs), Stark (.261/.452/.522 in 23 ABs), and Frazier (.240/.264/.240 in 50 ABs) have all seen recent action as well.  None of the advanced stats I've used yet, or presented here in any even have taken base running into account.  I'm sure it will be mentioned but Vickerson has 20 stolen bases in 22 attempts and I would be remiss to not mention that fact.  Obviously Parks, 3B, is a beast.

Curious to see how these will turn out across the board, and when I try to look solely at the SEC.  MSU has a Park Factor of 95.8, a Schedule Factor of 107.1, and a combined Park and Schedule Factor of 102.2.  Ole Miss is at 95.9, 106.4, and 97.6 respectifely.  

Since it's normalized for the NCAA, I think the Schedule Factor will all be greater than a 100 for every team in the SEC especially as we continue to add SEC games into the mix. 

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For the Kentucky series, I am presenting their offensive and pitching stats.  I did a summary of the UK team stats, Ole Miss team stats, and have estimated them at the end of the players as presented from a defensive standpoint.  As with Georgia, I have to fill in some blanks, as they've moved players around - Maile and Williams have both caught and played first base, for example.  Also, Reber has played recently at DH and is hitting .412/.500/.765 but has only accumulated 17 at bats in his recent action.  Witt is at .268/.404/.341 but does not appear to have played lately if I remember correctly.  McConkey is also a non-factor but has played some as of late and is hitting a King like .188/.350/.188.  The italicized numbers indicate an estimation on my behalf from the data.  

A word about that, I'm trying to discern the park factors and schedule factors use, so with Kentucky, they've played in an easy to hit in ball park with a harder schedule.  So, the weighted average park factor for them (as a percentile) is a 97; and the schedule factor is a 105.5; combined they have a 103 park factor/schedule factor - present in the wOBA+ and then back calculated in my OPS+.   

Those factors for Ole Miss are a park factor of 94; schedule factor of 104, and a park/schedule factor of 98.  

One final note, for the SEC, I have used those to be completely neutral (OPS is 100 for the SEC; not really the case but haven't put together my own data yet and am interpolating from NCAA overall data).  Same for wOBA+, and for wOBA itself I do not have non intentional bases on balls yet or reached base on error stats.  

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Well I took the time to do the position by position analysis.  I really dig this stuff so once I get going; it just takes off.  I've based the positions as best I could; ours is a little easier, but you can take Hamblin for example who has played both C and 1B.  So there is some variance for us, and am sure even more for them; based it as much as I could on their most recent series.   I've included the 'slash' stats, OPS, OPS+, and wOBA/wOBA+ from college splits.  They use weighted on-base average; wOBA attempts to measure a player's overall offensive contributions (a home run is worth more than a single).  It is not a derivation from OPS but a separate formula.  They adjust it for park & schedule; Georgia's offensive adjustment was 1.1; ours varied from .9 to .99.  (Tougher schedule for sure; not familiar with their park.)  

I adjusted the OPS based on their adjustments and normalized it to the league.  For non-qualifiers, I used a non-linear weighted average as theirs was 1.1 across the board, and ours had some variance, but won't matter too much in the grand scheme of things.  I also included strikeout per plate appearance.  One of the articles on their main page lists 18% as crucial for MLB prospects.  I've started looking at some historical data, so will include that - plan on doing 05 offense for starters and 03 pitching, I think it was and will post that at a later date.  Italicized numbers are those I derived from the averages.

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It has been a little tough to get motivated, to look further into what is shaping up to be a mediocre Ole Miss Baseball team.  However, I like playing with the numbers, so hopefully will find a chance to do a little bit more.  And it beats the mascot discussion, for me, at least.

When I first looked over the Georgia squad, before the Memphis game, I felt pretty good about our chances.  They come in with a 16-14 record, though they've played a tougher schedule, and Georgia sits at 67 in the Power Rankings according to College Splits.  We are currently 25th in their rankings, having dropped a few spots.  (RPI is close, we are 14 and they are 16).  Hopefully, I can use their site a little more, though we have some differences in statistical analysis, and am not sure I agree with their FIP numbers.

As a team, Georgia is batting .265/.328/.364 with an OPS of .692 (SEC is .799).  They have two players who are above the league average in OPS.  Their second baseman, Levi Hyams is hitting .328/.397/.414 with an OPS of .811.  Part-time catcher Brett DeLoach is hitting .941 with splits of .289/.407/.533.  

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Haven't had a chance to look at much this week, as of yet.  Have a night class tonight so been working and preparing for it.  

We have two rematches, mayhap I'll get a little time to look at our game next week.  Plan on looking at our weekend series with Georgia too.  

Ran across an article on espn insider about bunting in baseball (NCAA) and want to look at it closer, too.  It also led me to this website - College Splits - so it seems like they've done most of my work for me... But I'll look into things, and maybe be able to present an SEC biased version of it here?  "No se!"  I do think I can do some things but will have to look and see.  I like playing with the numbers though some of it is very daunting.  We shall see.

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