Baseball's Coming Back

[Blue & Gold]

4 hours ago, Zipmeister said:

We have got to start scheduling weaker D3 teams.

The Yellow Jackets beat the Zips in 7 innings today - 17 to 2.

[Sergeant Zip]

On 3/12/2022 at 7:26 PM, MDZip said:

Just saw an alert that Chris Bassitt is being traded to the Mets. 

 

 

[Spin]

I was hoping to catch game 1 Saturday and walk over to the Spring Game, but that's out. 

 

There's no telling which Zips team will show up anyway. And the Spring Game is a wash for me. Bad move...

Edited April 29, 2022 by Spin

[Zipmeister]

Just noticed an interesting/discouraging fact:

The Zips are the only D1 team that has a losing record against non D1 teams.

Ouch. Stop playing non D1 teams, Please.

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/baseball/d1/rpi

 

Here's how to solve it; drop the 3 non D1 teams, replace them with ( a home and home) against three of the closest/worst non-MAC D1 teams - pick from

Team                               Current Rank     Miles from Akron

YSU                                        223                       51

Oakland                                 242                      192

Purdue Fort Wayne               244                      210

Northern Kentucky               228                      243

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Zipmeister
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[Spin]

On 4/30/2022 at 12:43 AM, Zipmeister said:

Just noticed an interesting/discouraging fact:

The Zips are the only D1 team that has a losing record against non D1 teams.

Ouch. Stop playing non D1 teams, Please.

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/baseball/d1/rpi

 

Here's how to solve it; drop the 3 non D1 teams, replace them with ( a home and home) against three of the closest/worst non-MAC D1 teams - pick from

Team                               Current Rank     Miles from Akron

YSU                                        223                       51

Oakland                                 242                      192

Purdue Fort Wayne               244                      210

Northern Kentucky               228                      243

 

It would be more interesting to play former rival YSU in baseball every year than going to Lipscomb (although it’s probably warmer and safer in Nashville in February). See 2 games Saturday, get a room at the casino, and be back on Sunday for a matinee game. They’re playing at a level I would like to see the Zips play in a couple years. Getting hammered by schools the size of Wayne College doesn’t do much but ruin confidence and whatever pride they had.

Edited May 1, 2022 by Spin

[Blue & Gold]

We just beat KSUcks 7-3 to even the weekend series at 2 games each.

[Spin]

On 4/30/2022 at 12:43 AM, Zipmeister said:

Here's how to solve it; drop the 3 non D1 teams, replace them with ( a home and home) against three of the closest/worst non-MAC D1 teams - pick from

Team                               Current Rank     Miles from Akron

Oakland                                 242                      192

 

 

You know. Oakland would be one hell of rivalry series. That's where Jordan Banfield jumped ship to be head coach, poaching several of our players with him. I see former Zip Brad Goulet leads the team with 57 hits and 5 homers. Brenton Phillips, Quinton Kujawa, and a couple other names sound veeeery familiar. 

 

Yeah that still stings.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Spin

[Blue & Gold]

10 hours ago, Spin said:

 

You know. Oakland would be one hell of rivalry series. That's where Jordan Banfield jumped ship to be head coach, poaching several of our players with him. I see former Zip Brad Goulet leads the team with 57 hits and 5 homers. Brenton Phillips, Quinton Kujawa, and a couple other names sound veeeery familiar. 

 

Yeah that still stings.

And during our first year back, IIRC. What an epic curveball thrown at Sabo while trying to build a team from scratch.

[Zipmeister]

12 hours ago, Spin said:

 

You know. Oakland would be one hell of rivalry series. That's where Jordan Banfield jumped ship to be head coach, poaching several of our players with him. I see former Zip Brad Goulet leads the team with 57 hits and 5 homers. Brenton Phillips, Quinton Kujawa, and a couple other names sound veeeery familiar. 

 

Yeah that still stings.

 

Oakland would not be my first pick. They are normally better than their performance so far this season.

[AkronAlumnus]

Does Akron have a good baseball team? Record? 

[Blue & Gold]

1 hour ago, AkronAlumnus said:

Does Akron have a good baseball team? Record? 

No.

Hopefully in a couple of years.

Current record is 13-31.

At least we split with KSUcks.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Blue & Gold

[Blue & Gold]

 

[Spin]

https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/33815283

[Potato11]

On 5/2/2022 at 9:46 AM, Zipmeister said:

 

Oakland would not be my first pick. They are normally better than their performance so far this season.

Might want to double check that….

 

Seems they’re having their best season ever and have beaten Michigan, Pitt and Wright State (4 times). 
 

 

[Spin]

0-4 against the kitties.

 

But look at the bright side, we're not in last place. 

 

By overall percentage points. 🙄

 

I'm hoping to make it out Saturday for the Miami double header. Every home series this season I have something that comes up.

 

Monday night they're playing Georgia Tech at Canal Park, I might pop in after work for that. 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Spin

[Blue & Gold]

I'm going to the GT game.

[Zipmeister]

On 5/7/2022 at 4:23 PM, Potato11 said:

Might want to double check that….

 

Seems they’re having their best season ever and have beaten Michigan, Pitt and Wright State (4 times).

 

 

Oakland's W/L record is even better since I mentioned them as a possible non-D1 opponent for Akron; 6-2.

But W/Ls don't tell the whole story.

Their current RPI is still unimpressive - 227.

Normally 4 wins over Wright State would be considered quite a feat. Unfortunately for the Raiders, they are an incredibly average ball club this year. 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Zipmeister
.

[Zipmeister]

23 hours ago, Zipmeister said:

 

Oakland's W/L record is even better since I mentioned them as a possible non-D1 opponent for Akron; 6-2.

But W/Ls don't tell the whole story.

Their current RPI is still unimpressive - 227.

Normally 4 wins over Wright State would be considered quite a feat. Unfortunately for the Raiders, they are an incredibly average ball club this year. 

 

The Bears cobbled together one of the weakest D1 schedules to carve out their barely above .500 record.

Their current overall SOS is a dismal 285; by far the worst in the Horizon League, and their out of conference SOS is a bottom of the barrel scraping 294.

The Zips should probably hire whoever does Oakland's scheduling to boost our W/L record.

[Potato11]

On 5/13/2022 at 2:07 PM, Zipmeister said:

 

The Bears cobbled together one of the weakest D1 schedules to carve out their barely above .500 record.

Their current overall SOS is a dismal 285; by far the worst in the Horizon League, and their out of conference SOS is a bottom of the barrel scraping 294.

The Zips should probably hire whoever does Oakland's scheduling to boost our W/L record.

Coaches do scheduling…several years in advance. At the end of the day you’ve gotta win some games and they’re winning a heckuva lot more than our Zips. Citing RPI for Midwest DI’s is pretty useless. Most of the MAC and Horizon (almost exactly equal conference according to every metric) are in the 200’s. You can only beat who you play. Our Zips give up 15 and 20 runs on a regular basis. 
 

Oakland has been awful forever and isn’t anymore and there’s a pretty clear reason…. Coaching matters. 
 

Point being, it doesn’t matter who Akron plays, they’ve got to get a lot better to be competitive.  Best players and pitchers all graduating and others have left. 

[Blue & Gold]

[Spin]

Ouch. 

[Spin]

It's Senior Day. Ten players are playing their last college game on campus. Quite a few key players to replace.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Spin

[Blue & Gold]

59 minutes ago, Spin said:

It's Senior Day. Ten players are playing their last college game on campus. Quite a few key players to replace.

I know they were JUCO signees, but it still feels so strange being in year #2 and losing 10 seniors.  

 

Coach Sabo's got a lot of work to do.

 

I'm still going to the Georgia Tech game tomorrow night.

 

Go Zips!

[Spin]

1 hour ago, Blue & Gold said:

I know they were JUCO signees, but it still feels so strange being in year #2 and losing 10 seniors.  

 

Coach Sabo's got a lot of work to do.

 

I'm still going to the Georgia Tech game tomorrow night.

 

Go Zips!

I work until 7:30 a few blocks away but will probably stop in afterward.
 

They’re doing a Rust Belt sweep (Ak, Kent, and three with Pitt) to warm up for the ACC tourney. Kind of interesting.

[Zipmeister]

On 5/14/2022 at 10:15 PM, Potato11 said:

Coaches do scheduling…several years in advance. At the end of the day you’ve gotta win some games and they’re winning a heckuva lot more than our Zips. Citing RPI for Midwest DI’s is pretty useless. Most of the MAC and Horizon (almost exactly equal conference according to every metric) are in the 200’s. You can only beat who you play. Our Zips give up 15 and 20 runs on a regular basis. 
 

Oakland has been awful forever and isn’t anymore and there’s a pretty clear reason…. Coaching matters. 
 

Point being, it doesn’t matter who Akron plays, they’ve got to get a lot better to be competitive.  Best players and pitchers all graduating and others have left. 

 

OK, I give up. You are correct Oakland has always sucked at baseball, and this year they appear to suck a little less because of their embarrassingly weak schedule which, as you mention, must certainly have been locked-in several years ago (after all, that's the way D1 football teams do it).

However, I still think that if the Zips are looking to dump non-D1 teams from their schedule YSU and Purdue Fort Wayne would be better bus ride candidates than Oakland.