(01-10-2017 12:56 PM)_x_ Wrote:  

(01-10-2017 09:06 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  I'd forgive you for not following SLC baseball, but I'd put UTA on par with Texas State and Georgia Southern. The Mavs won the SLC tourney our last year, finishing ahead of the 'cats. Our lone year in the WAC we were regular season champs. In the three years in the SBC, we have finished ahead, behind and tied with TXST. (We just suck against them in any conference tournament in any sport)

Maybe he was following SLC baseball and noticed we won the last 3 regular season titles back-to-back-to-back before leaving the conference.....

Sam was the regular season champ our last year in the SLC. But 5 years is a good enough indicator. No need to drag up the first decade of the 21st century.

(01-10-2017 09:06 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(01-09-2017 08:49 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(01-09-2017 08:45 PM)moehler Wrote:  my fault, again, I haven't kept up with baseball, I thought Ark State was one of the better teams, if not please educate me on who should be good, average, and bad.

We've got like a quarter of the facilities the rest of the conference does for baseball. Because of that, we're generally a middle or bottom half of the league team outside of a couple good years every now and then.

Good:

ULL
CCU
USA
Troy

Sometimes Good:

TXSt
GS

Average: But generally a conference tournament team, sometimes above average

UTA
ArkSt

Struggle to make the Conference Tournament:

App
GSU
ULM
LR

I'd forgive you for not following SLC baseball, but I'd put UTA on par with Texas State and Georgia Southern. The Mavs won the SLC tourney our last year, finishing ahead of the 'cats. Our lone year in the WAC we were regular season champs. In the three years in the SBC, we have finished ahead, behind and tied with TXST. (We just suck against them in any conference tournament in any sport)

I chose to ignore your WAC title since the only actual competition in that league was NMSU. I also noted the 3 consecutive Southland titles won by your southern neighbors almost right before they left.

Tourney championships are a crap shoot, especially in baseball. I know people like to claim them, but winning a conference baseball tournament often comes down to which teams 7th best pitcher is better, or which teams Ace is better off 3 days rest. I count them for the sake of NCAA appearances, but otherwise I rank Regular Season titles far higher.

To me, it is more impressive to have at Large Regional berth than an automatic berth, unless you were going to get an At Large and won the tourney title anyway.

A few words on each team

CCU--They're going to be good again. But they have a lot of firepower to replace offensively. The depth of their pitching staff will tell their story in this league.

USA--Speaking of pitching staffs, this one is mostly brand new. Some think the staff could be better than last years. But South has most of their everyday guys back and they'll be there at the end.

LA--Almost the entire pitching staff returns and they should be better offensively. Can they win the tournament for the fourth straight year? When Dylan Moore enters the game, it's over.

GASO--They've been a middle of the pack team since joining the league. But they should be a challenger (pun intended) this season. And, the tournament is in Statesboro. They'll pitch well. Will they hit enough?

LR--Everyone forgets this team was the #3 seed in last year's tournament. Ryan Scott is gone, but the rest of the firepower returns. Questions remain about the pitching staff.

UTA--They'll score runs. But unless they went out and signed some good arms, they're going to give up a lot of runs, too.

TXST--They've been solid. But I think they take a step back this year after losing their weekend rotation, their closer and most of their offense.

ARK ST--See Texas State. A lot to replace offensively for this team. Their pitching should be a little better, but it needs to be a lot better if they're going to be a factor.

TROY--They lost two really good arms, but they've got a lot coming back. They'll challenge for an NCAA bid.

APP ST--Still a very young club. But they have some seasoning and a new coach. They're going to be better than some folks think.

ULM--They've upgraded their talent. But will it be enough to get into the first division? Probably not.

GA. STATE--Their pitching staff was poor last year. If they haven't upgraded it considerably, they won't be much better than last year.

NCAA Regional teams--LA, CCU, USA
Could join them: GS, Troy

This will be the best Sun Belt, top to bottom, in many years

Key with stAte this year is as BOP said, all about replacing the offense. We lost basically every productive bat in our lineup, but return basically every productive Arm in the pitching staff (Not that we had many)

If we can produce enough offensively to score runs, we can finish mid pack in the league. If we don't, our pitching probably isn't going to be good enough to get us better than 8th or 9th.

(01-10-2017 01:16 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(01-10-2017 09:06 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  I'd forgive you for not following SLC baseball, but I'd put UTA on par with Texas State and Georgia Southern. The Mavs won the SLC tourney our last year, finishing ahead of the 'cats. Our lone year in the WAC we were regular season champs. In the three years in the SBC, we have finished ahead, behind and tied with TXST. (We just suck against them in any conference tournament in any sport)

I chose to ignore your WAC title since the only actual competition in that league was NMSU. I also noted the 3 consecutive Southland titles won by your southern neighbors almost right before they left.

Tourney championships are a crap shoot, especially in baseball. I know people like to claim them, but winning a conference baseball tournament often comes down to which teams 7th best pitcher is better, or which teams Ace is better off 3 days rest. I count them for the sake of NCAA appearances, but otherwise I rank Regular Season titles far higher.

To me, it is more impressive to have at Large Regional berth than an automatic berth, unless you were going to get an At Large and won the tourney title anyway.

So many errors here. UTA and TXST finished tied for third in the SLC in 2012, our last year there. Sam was the regular season champ. The Mavs and 'cats were one game behind second place. UTA went four up and four down to take the tourney crown, and did it with their weekend rotation, not relying on their "7th best pitcher."

You can discount the 2013 WAC all you want, but UTA still finished ahead of TXST and won a regular season crown, which is what my point was. It didn't help that Dallas Baptist had a down year and the Bobcats weren't their normal selves either, but Bakersfield was solid that year with a lot of quality wins. Either way, it is still UTA ahead in the standings.

UTA also finished ahead of TXST in 2014. UTA's second place finish was well ahead of TXST's 4th. Had the Mavs not S-ed the bed in OOC play, losing for some odd reason or another, they would have gotten that at-large and were already a bubble team, though we all knew they weren't getting in. That said, UTA was the only one to give Louisiana a run for their money, handing them a regular season loss and a quality championship game that has not been matched since.

In 2015, the two Texas teams finished tied for 6th. Not great I know, but still no reason to say the 'cats are ahead of UTA in any tier.

Last year, UTA finished a game behind TXST in the standings for the first time since 2011, and that was by one game. A competitive series that TXST won 2-1 was the decider.

If you have to go back to 2010 & 2011 to say TXST is in a higher tier, ignoring 2012-2016 against arguably better conference competition, I will respectfully disagree and hang-up and listen.