college baseball discussion

[armadillo slim]

http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/bats/NCAA-stats.html

this a very interesting article that is worth a read by you baseball nuts.  look at the charts in the article especially, they're very revealing.

perhaps you've seen the article before. i had not.
 
the conclusions this researcher draws is that BBCOR bats have returned college baseball back to wood bat standards of the early 1970s (article was last updated after the 2012 season, but there's no reason to think that the results will have changed much in the last two years).
 
from this, its my belief that there will be no changes in the BBCOR bats anytime soon.  they've accomplished their goal, it appears to me, but it causes me to pain to say that.
 
there's one observation i have though worth mentioning.
 
Texas didn't move to DFF until 1975 which is after aluminum bats began to have their impact.  DFF was a larger ball park than Clark Field (Billy Goat Hill and all), so the results of the larger field were masked by the increasingly better performance of the aluminum bats, so much so to the point where they eventually caused the gorilla ball reaction of the late 90's and early 00's which lead us to where we are today with the BBCOR bats. 
 
by moving the performance standards from BESR to BBCOR, we have managed to obsolete DFF in the process--the field stayed the same but the bats went back to 1970 standards-- so my suggestion from two years ago to move the fences in is not all that far fetched of an idea.
 
college baseball has done what golf has not.  it has eliminated (or better said, ameliorated) the technological effects of improving equipment.  golf hasn't done that, to the point where courses have had to lengthen dramatically in order to keep from being obsoleted by the equipment.  
 
why?  my guess is that there's no pitcher involved in golf so nobody runs the risk of dying from a golf ball coming at their head from 60'6" inches away. nobody dies from a golf shot, so there's no societal pressure to reduce the ball speed coming off of the the clubhead.
 
i guess i'm just depressed that we are unlikely to see the changes in the bat that i want to see.  i hope they at least change the ball, and if i was the UT admin, i'd think very hard about pulling the fences in a bit.  fans are sick of no offense and no homeruns.  i go to virtually every game and i hear it virtually every game.  
 
 and yeah, i'm sure jimr will take great issue with this idea and pound me into the sand, but he's a f'cking pitcher.  pitcher's hate homeruns like i hate these f'cking BBCOR bats.    

 

[Matt Cotcher]

Interesting stuff. Good find. TFP.

The BBCOR standard has clearly changed the game. Their stated goal of decreasing the speed of the batted ball seemed to be safety-driven. What I never see the NCAA or BBCOR proponents address is the commensurate retardation of offense.

I'm 100% for making the game safer through technology. I'm 100% against any changes that radically impact the game in order to accomplish that goal. Making the game safer by decreasing the speed of the ball off the bat should be mutually exclusive to changing the entire offensive dynamic of the game, IMO.

To your point about bringing in the fences at DFF, I think they could move the fences and slightly alter the design and by doing so, they'd end up with a more intimate atmosphere/environment (and less corporate/austere).

 

[Duke C #11]

Or UT could start recruiting something other than singles hitters.  Payton would be a terrific lead-off hitter, but they have so little pop in the lineup, they're forced to bat him third.

 

[streettopeschel]

We hit 4 HRs with the bats Sunday right? You've bout convinced me on the DFF dimensions.

 

[Agmaniacmike]

Go out and hit with a BBCOR bat in comparison to the old BESR standards, I consistently notice around a 50 foot difference when I get a good chunk of the ball. NCAA leaders used to hit 30-35 HRs on average, AJ Reed has ridiculous power and only has 21 thus far. I have noticed that attendance has dropped at Blue Bell Park (our team is below average though) and I think this is probably attributed to the ugly baseball where games are won via walks, singles, and steals rather than extra base hits. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to bring up the fences in most parks (Disch Falk has longer corners) because that would make them shorter than high school parks which have the same bat restrictions for their players from what I understand.

 

[Agmaniacmike]

Forgot to mention, alot of high school players prefer to use wood now due to the BBCOR bats, as do I. If we are going to make the bats have less of a trampoline effect, why not get these guys prepared for the big leagues right away by using wood rather than dull aluminum?

 

[armadillo slim]

Go out and hit with a BBCOR bat in comparison to the old BESR standards, I consistently notice around a 50 foot difference when I get a good chunk of the ball. NCAA leaders used to hit 30-35 HRs on average, AJ Reed has ridiculous power and only has 21 thus far. I have noticed that attendance has dropped at Blue Bell Park (our team is below average though) and I think this is probably attributed to the ugly baseball where games are won via walks, singles, and steals rather than extra base hits. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to bring up the fences in most parks (Disch Falk has longer corners) because that would make them shorter than high school parks which have the same bat restrictions for their players from what I understand.

i'm not suggesting it for all ballparks.  just for the oversized ones where the impact of the bats has  been exacerbated.  disch falk has deep corners, but its the power alleys and dead center where the impact is felt the most.  center is still only 400, with deep power alleys both left and right that are deeper than that.  and theres a 20-25' ft wall there you have to carry too.   i would bring in the corners to 315 and then center to 390 and lower the screen a bit.  that would force the alleys in.  combining that with a change in the ball would get you where you need to get, i think.

to be sure, there are ballparks out there that are the same size as DFF, but for some reason, the ball doesn't carry here the way it does in those ballparks.  that may be an orientation issue (hitting into a prevailing wind, for example) but thats a much more nebulous problem that may not be able to be fixed. 

and while i'm on the subject, i might as well also say id rip up the carpet and put down natural grass.  the carpet is too perfect and it hurts our players when we go to play at someone elses place.  baseball is an outdoor game.  we don't need to be playing on the living room carpet.

our players hit a normal number of homeruns when we go away, its just at home where we take a beating.  i'll probably go thru all the stats this weekend and see what the home/away stats are but im certain its dramatic..

agmaniamike hit the nail on the head.  i think fan interest in college baseball is waning after growing for several years.  the primary reason in my view is that the powers that be have turned the game into soccer scores.  people come to the ballpark and they want to see at least a little offense.  they want to believe that if their team is down by 3 or 4 runs in the 6th inning, that there's a chance for a rally or big fly that gets them back in the game.  as it now stands, the chance of a comeback with a 3,4,5 run type rally is all but gone.  sure, it happens, but not very damn often.  

 the pitchers love it and the pitchers mom's love it (and their ERA's show it) but the safety committee is strangling the life out of the game.

 

[armadillo slim]

Forgot to mention, alot of high school players prefer to use wood now due to the BBCOR bats, as do I. If we are going to make the bats have less of a trampoline effect, why not get these guys prepared for the big leagues right away by using wood rather than dull aluminum?

i'm more speculating than speaking with real knowledge, but i think there the two main reasons for this are 1.  cost, and 2. the developing scarcity in really good bat wood.

the majors and minors use a lot of bats and they're getting increasingly more expensive, in significant part because finding the best wood for bats has become harder.    and of course, as the cost of the bats increases, replacing all the broken ones becomes an expensive proposition.  schools like Texas and A&M won't have a big issue with it, but i'm sure there are schools where that's a pretty big concern.

 

[streettopeschel]

Slim, to bolster your claim about DFF, this year the Horns played 21 games away from home and hit 15 HRs. That would seem to be a fairly respectable number. However, at home (31 games) we hit all of 4.

Pretty telling if you ask me.

 

[JimR]

Clark Field was a small park only in RF. slim must have loved the Steroid Era.

the problem I see with UT's hitters is too many balls in the air and too few line drives and hard ground balls. damn right, I did not like to give up HRs! when you move the fences in, you are helping the opponents hit HRs too.

 

[armadillo slim]

Clark Field was a small park only in RF. slim must have loved the Steroid Era.

the problem I see with UT's hitters is too many balls in the air and too few line drives and hard ground balls. damn right, I did not like to give up HRs! when you move the fences in, you are helping the opponents hit HRs too.

i didn't love the gorilla ball the developed for sure, jim.  but i think the dumbing down of the bats has achieved what the safety guys wanted which is to match the wooden bat standards that existed before aluminum was introduced.  

the problem is the negative effects have been compounded somewhat by DFF when compared to other parks.  homeruns everywhere are down, but as street points out, when we travel we hit our fair share and i don't think hitting 0.75 HR/game is taking it too far.  it went too far in the gorilla ball era for sure, but we've got to bring a little offense back into the game.  titrating the bats has achieved what they wanted but in the process, it has had its effect really compounded because of the size and layout of DFF.  all i want is to bring it back into proportion with the "away" ball parks.

yes, other teams can hit homeruns too, but if we consistently have the best pitching staffs, then logically we should be able to control their HR's better than they control ours.  reintroducing a bit of offense into the mix isn't going to be a bad thing and it will help the fan base.  

 

[Los Corralles]

My vote would be to bring in the fences and get rid of the f'ing field turf.  Give me dirt and grass, with a few long balls mixed in and of course a cold beer (which is now a reality).  That would make the disch much more enjoyable.  Of course the days of winning 40+ to make a return would be nice too.

Something about the field turf just takes away everything that is baseball.  The smell is not baseball.