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Dallas Regional Discussion

142

My initial feeling is the Beavs got a tough 3 seed in Texas, when you consider Columbia, Stony Brook, Wright State and Oral Roberts are three seeds. If they committee were going to hose the Beavs, at least they could have sent them to an easier bracket.

Pat Casey seemed to have the same reaction.

Texas seems to be playing their best baseball, and though I couldn’t find much about their team, you have to assume that being Texas they have the usual under-performing talent that could dominate at any time, plus they’ll essentially be playing at home. Beavs will also be in hot and humid weather. Rough.

On the flipside, as I wrote earlier, the Beavs should have more than chips on their shoulders, and are also playing good ball, so that emotion might propel them through this tough regional.

Beavs weakness, from what I saw, is lack of slugging. If you take out Gabe Clark beating up on bad pitching, the Beavs slugged under .390. Their conference slugging percentage was .337. That’s a bad OBP, never mind a slugging percentage. Speaking of OBP, their slugging percentage was lower than the team OBP (.340) in conference play. Weird. So while I think many are focused on the poor bullpen, this team has other problems. I actually think the starters are good enough to get to the 7th each game, and at that point Heimlich (pitching good ball, lowing his ERA to a respectiable 3.57 and 2.45 in Pac play), Church, and Hickey they can close out the 8th and 9th with those three guys. I’m more concerned about the lack of pop. Decent speed can make up for that in some regard (i.e. turn a single into a double via the SB), but their two best base-stealers are only at 66% combined. Statistically, they are hurting the team with that rate (i.e. anything under 75% makes the stolen base risk higher than the reward). So the question in my mind is this: can the Beavs get enough starting pitching, play effective enough station-to-station ball, and win in Texas’ backyard vs two Texas schools, and in hot/humid weather? It’s possible Hendrix and Harrison have big series and negate the slugging talk. But the Beavs are missing one bat. It’s too bad Gabe Clark only puts up numbers vs bad pitching, because he’d be the 3rd guy they desperately need.

If OSU wins this regional it will be a feat. My gut says they’ll have to do it by playing a fiery, emotional brand of baseball and out efforting the opponents.

 

142 COMMENTS

  1. I would go with Mak Fox instead of Heimlich. He’s better and he misses bats. I’d go with Church in the 7th and then in the 8th and 9th go with Fox and Hickey.

    The offense went through issues earlier in the year with Ice struggling, Hamilton struggling and not really having a RF to go to. Having Cary in RF and Hamilton and Ice playing well is a big difference maker. Trever Morrison returning is big. He’ll be rusty but he’ll still have a good eye at the plate. Gretler is good defensively but he can’t hit. Get Morrison back in there at the lineup is looking decent.

    Team relies on Harrison and Hendrix for the pop but there are some wild cards for that. Cary has some pop in his bat but it hasn’t been shown enough. Humid days and night in Dallas will also help. Goss is a nice park but not exactly a launching pad like a lot of ballparks in the south. Good news for Beavers hitters.

    Texas has some good bats but none on the level of Hendrix or Harrison. If Moore is on his game he should be able to mow them down. I think this is a regional where the Beavers starters could really dominate. I expect Texas to go 0-2 and be eliminated and for the regional to come down to DBU and Oregon State.

    • Cary has a good swing. I think he’ll be good eventually. He’s gotten better over the course of the year. Not sure Casey would want to use Fox in a key situation since his sample is too small.

      • Options are pretty limited in the pen but they have been giving Fox more opportunities in bigger situations and he’s been good. Would like to see him get more chances in high leverage spots.

          • I seem to recall noise before Fox enrolled (I guess it was mostly in the New Zealand press) about his having been wooed by MLB and what a big choice it was for him to come to Oregon State. I expected him to be in the starting rotation his freshman year!

        • For some reason it has seemed that Luke is having a tougher time getting leftys out. If you needed to get a LHB out I’d go with Fox. Long relief, Heimlich.

  2. I read somewhere that the Beavs and ducks are sharing a chartered plane to fly to their respective tournaments? Is this true?

  3. The Beav’s have a good shot at winning this regional.

    Dallas Baptist seems to be a paper tiger. They are not as good as their RPI says they are. They did not win their conference nor their conference tourney.

    Texas is hot right now but they have not been consistent at all this year.

    VCU is on a roll and may beat Dallas Baptist but they built a lot of wins against weak teams.

    If Moore performs like he has all season, chances are very good to advance. I don’t think the Beavs would be able to dig out of the hole if they lost the first game.

    • Also Texas played in probably the worst power conference. Would have only had two teams if Texas did not win the auto bid.

        • Gee golly! You would think the rest of the Big 12 sucks, and the two hosts padded their records. Then again, you would think the conference RPI only matters if you play every single opponent in your conference. The reason 14+ conferences can claim greatness is because more than one team can beat up on the dregs without ever facing each other. Then the rare instances when they do face each other become a treat for the fans and “experts” to watch.

          It’s all bullshit. Just beat everyone. Then you can call yourself the champion. When it’s over, there is only one of those.

  4. Beavs being away and Texas essentially being at home is huge — the choices by the NCAA committee crack me up….oh well, hoping the ghost of 2007 shows up, a lucky bounce here and there (remember Michigan), and we squeeze by. Don’t think we get out of the losers bracket should we lose the first game. Keep the errors down (like zero), and I think we can win this thing.
    On another note, UCLA got screwed by getting the #1 seed — anybody remember the last time (or first time) a #1 seed went all the way?….didn’t think so! My realistic take — hope Im wrong, but I think Florida takes it this year….nobody’s talkin about them, and they just keep winning big games.
    Hook’em Beavs!

    • Trying to find some info on the these teams and it’s pretty difficult to come by. Looks like Texas will likely go with Parker French – appears to be a decent pitcher but doesn’t strike a lot of guys out. Apparently he generates a lot of ground balls. Only 85 innings pitched so we should be able to get to their bullpen early. 2.33 era with opponents batting around .250. Beatable, especially when we have Moore on the mound.

      DBU doesn’t have an impressive resume. Best win looks like TCU at home in a mid-week matchup. I’m sure TCU was going with their #4 guy, and by all accounts TCU blew the game with multiple costly errors.

      Texas is probably the biggest threat to the beavs, and with Andrew Moore we have a nice advantage.

      Going to Miami is a slap in the face for Oregon state and the PAC 12.

      • Don’t think road trips are a bad thing. When you get to go to Miami or Dallas for a visit, there’s some fun to be had. I’d hate to live in either town, but visiting is different.

        Sleep is the only factor affecting road trips. Trainers and coaches know this. With the team being so young, will they be mature or focused enough to listen?

        • Having a charter flight to Dallas probably helps, but I imagine they would have to fly commercial to Miami. That’s a long flight to be in such cramped quarters.

          I generally agree with you though. I think getting to go to these different cities would be part of the fun. But I also disagree – Dallas would be a nice place to live. Affordable housing, good economy, no state income tax, attractive women, and a good brand of country music.

          • The housing is affordable for a reason. No income tax means class striation like you wouldn’t believe. Attractive women live everywhere. Talking to them rapidly diminishes the pool of attractive women in such a large population. Then again, some guys like stupid or Stepford in their women. And country music? I guess. I think you used the “good brand” to separate your tastes from what charts nowadays, which is just 70’s soft rock or pop… bleeding into the 80’s lately. But you can find Americana or folk anywhere. And you need to go to Austin or San Antonio (or south) to hear the good Tejano.

            It’s interesting. Whenever I fly to Miami, DFW or Houston are always the layovers. I wonder if the team wouldn’t just travel east after the regional (assuming they win, of course)?

    • Huge really does describe the situation with the Beavs playing Texas teams in Texas. Having the home town(state) crowd is one thing, but the weather may be even more important.

      The primary strength of the Beavs is starting pitching; how do you prepare those guys to go 7+ innings in humidity and heat? A few fatigue/weather caused mistakes can result in runs for the opponent. As if the humidity wasn’t hard enough on pitchers, add in the strong possibility of thunderstorm delays.

      Position players and even hitters should be less effected by the weather, its the pitchers (and catchers) who are physically most active on every pitch throughout the game, hard for emotion and nerve (chip/log) to offset field conditions for so many repetitions.

      It’s gonna take some lucky bounces, gutty performances and a lot of heart for the Beavs to overcome what the committee has done. I doubt if 4 runs will be enough and 4 runs have been hard to get, at least against PAC pitching (and maybe that’s the key, remember how the bats woke up vs UP).

    • Miami 1999. If you were paying attention last year when we got the 1 seed, that was pushed as the trivial stat of note.

  5. Here is the NCAA Bracket
    http://www.ncaa.com/interactive-bracket/baseball/d1

    I think the boys will be excited to visit a new state, many haven’t been to Texas. Sure it will be all Texas fans, but that might work to bind together as us against the world attitude, also with getting slighted to not hosting, have something to prove.

    I am more worried about the defense, which has been good and solid all year, but has also imploded during the end of games that costs us games against Asu, Uo, and Ucla.

    We will need Moore and Rasmussen to be very solid, but more importantly will need somebody to step up in the bullpen and have a great weekend.

    If the bats jump alive in the heat and humidity of Texas then it might take off some of the pressure from the pen and the defense.

  6. I haven’t seen this elsewhere, but sounds like we lead for Avery McCall, 2016 QB from South Carolina.

    > Dillon’s Avery McCall is destined to be the next Shrine Bowl quarterback from the state to play his college football out of the state. Clemson and USC have quarterbacks committed for 2016, and McCall said neither is showing any interest in him now. This despite the fact he passed for 2,945 yards and 36 touchdowns last season, completing 71 percent of his passes with only two interceptions. McCall has 5,502 career passing yards entering his senior season as he goes for a fourth straight state championship. So where might McCall continue his career after Dillon? “Oregon State,” McCall said last week. “They came to the school to see me throw. Their offense has been something I’ve been running since I’ve been in high school.”

    http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150526/PC20/150529497

    Hudl highlights:

    http://www.hudl.com/athlete/1590739/highlights/160812526/v2

    • weird, thought i replied to this earlier but looks like i must not have submitted my comment.

      was going to say there was a similar article about Mccall last week at 247 or Rivals or some other site, but I think it was behind the paywall. First I’d seen this though. I put it up in the twitter feed. Good find. Almost sounds like he’ll choose OSU if nobody else gives him an offer closer to home.

    • I love that hudl and 247 sports show up first in google search. Rivals is down to 4th. They will soon be extinct with that business model.

      • Makes sense since Rivals is a Yahoo product.

        I wonder how the people who pay for that site like that fact that they gave me a 6 month free trial, after my 2 month trial expired? At this rate, I’ll have a lifetime free trial to their site soon.

      • Hudl is great because the kids upload their own highlights thereby increasing visibility to the coaches.

        Athletic depts do pay for recruiting websites but with Hudl the game has flipped. Coaches/recruits pay to market themselves. I suspect with this new model, there will be less diamonds in the rough since film on nearly every recruit will be readily available for free.

        • The Oregonian has been killing Blitz lately too. They get essentially the same access/stories with kids and coaches, but it’s free to readers who don’t mind a page cluttered with ads, or having to wait a few days for the stories. I really don’t see how the market for Beaver recruiting info can sustain as many media outlets as there currently are. There just aren’t enough fans interested in the product to make it worth their effort.

      • Score two for the climate. I’m a sweatball who has a tendency to cramp in heated environments. And gardening absolutely sucks unless you grow tomatoes.

        • I’m not anti-Eugene per se. There’s just a certain narrative about how Corvallis is just some cow town, and Eugene is somehow cosmopolitan. Eugene is not cosmopolitan in comparison to Corvallis in any metric. Corvallis is quite cool. Eugene is not. But Eugene is still a lovely place with lovely people… and the worst road maintenance ever.

  7. MLB Draft is June 6th.

    Only Hendrix projected as a high pick among current players. Don’t expect him to come back if he’s in the first 5 rounds.

    Moore is rated high but who knows what MLB teams think of him. Seems similar to Sam Gaviglio who has struggled as a pro. 5-10 round selection. I see Moore returning.

    For recruits, Grenier has an outside shot at the 1st round. Likely won’t last into the third round. Unlikely to see him on campus. Nick Madrigal is rated highly too but is only 5’7″ and 155pds so that may drop him. 50/50 he comes to campus. No one else has the hype these two do.

    If Grenier and Madrigal somehow make it to campus, they may quickly unseat the current starters at 2B and SS.

    • I watched the Pac championships. 3rd place was a good showing, especially since UW and Cal will be the favorites for the championship. But there’s a difference between 2nd and 3rd. Our varisty 8 stroke is really strong, but the meat wagon is lacking.

    • All this has been known forever. I don’t know who pissed off the wrong person for this to finally be investigated, but everyone already knows this “conspiracy theory” about FIFA… and many more.

      However, this is worth a hearty chuckle:
      “Nike believes in ethical and fair play in both business and sport and strongly opposes any form of manipulation or bribery….”

      I have a friend who is banned from China specifically because of Nike. And he consulted on he Three Gorges Dam. That’s how stupid and corrupt everything is. You would not believe half the shit they do in the Pacific Rim. And don’t think they’re alone. They just formed and perfected the crap business model of selling glorified crap to kids who probably can’t afford the price.

        • Agreed.

          Wait!

          They supposedly provide something of worth to Oregon, if not the world. So they must be good for something.

          I think they should get a tax break just because I’m writing about them. I wouldn’t want them to get upset and threaten to leave the humungous campus they built in a location that was chosen just because special tax breaks were in play.

          Actually, that would be funny. It will never happen because money… politics. But it would be really funny.

      • Anybody else recall – I thought it was such an interesting article that I do – in the OregonStater magazine a while back about the OSU alumni, designers, who are now in Manhattan – Darrin and Erin – memorable because they rhyme. Somewhere there was mention of her, when she worked in Portland for Nike, having something to do with the design of Brazilian soccer uniforms.

  8. Fuck Texas. I’m still butthurt over that Alamo Bowl loss. Remember the one where Riley stopping calling run plays in the 4th quarter and that defensive end had a bazillion QB sacks because someone couldn’t block him and Riley refused to have a TE or RB help blocking. Yeah. That game. That Riley fucked up. Fuck Texas. And Riley

    • Riley stopped calling run plays in the 3rd. What was absolutely amazing was when Mannion came in before the half and handed the ball off five times for a 75 yard march… against one of the worst run defenses in the nation.

      Stop talking about that game. You’re pissing me off.

  9. Two things:

    1. Harrison Barnes is getting three steps… flagrant three steps… not Magic shuffle three steps… three steps from half court three steps kinda stuff. It’s beyond ridiculous.

    2. Klay Thompson should have been called for an O-foul for jumping into the D on the pump fake. I disagree with any level of hoops that calls anything which contradicts verticality.

    • be as those may, hats off to the Golden St Warriors. First NBA finals appearance in 40 years. Now go give Lebronda a golden shower.

  10. I’ve enjoyed the NHL playoffs much more than the NBA. Good hockey and nary a fight. And now with HD TV I can actually follow the puck.

    • the conference finals series have been very competitive, especially Chicago/Anaheim. First time in 40 years both conference finals have gone 7 games.

      • NHL can go to hell until they get rid of goons and fighting. Multiple game suspensions for that complete crapsicle shitsicle should have been introduced way back before TNBA became more valuable than the NHL.

        Again… fuck the NHLsicle. Watching someone watching grass grow is more enjoyable than that poopsicle.

  11. Since Nike never controls the marketing or narrative of any of its products… or the company itself… I can’t call them the most fucking arrogant and cynical bastards that ever lived. Never mind that bribing a foreign official is tantamount to treason.

    “What fans or consumers are going to be much more concerned about is doping of athletes, fixing of matches, that kind of thing,” said Matt Powell, a sports industry analyst for NPD Group. “I think they couldn’t care less who paid whom for what marketing deal.”
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/27/meet-the-unscrupulous-executives-who-conspired-with-fifa-officials-to-funnel-150-million-in-bribes/

      • Now I get to officially (allegedly) call Nike a treasonous entity.

        My “opinion” is now reality. While my work is not done here… to coin a phrase… I feel vindicated in one arena… not really… but there is a lot more that can be told, and this one layer might start that tale.

  12. Jason Quick up with another article, word was he’d do three so this is probably it for now. A look inside Andrew Moore with props to Yeskie.

    While Connor repeats what he is told, re-hashes stats, and provides links, Jason gets into some depth. Now, if there were a true beat reporter who developed contacts we’d probably already know if Morrison was on that plane to Dallas.

    http://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/index.ssf/2015/05/oregon_state_pitcher_andrew_mo_1.html

  13. In soapybeavs news: Instead of the usual Bath & Body Works, I bought my sister artisan soap from the local Saturday Market for a gift. It all smells so good I want to eat each bar, but the vendor told me not to. Buzzkill : (

    EAT IT, BIG SOAP

  14. Friday’s game will be broadcast on the Longhorn network. Advise watching with the volume muted.

    Dish channel 407

    • thanks for the heads up. I turn off the twitter machine for a few minutes and look what happens…..
      it never rests.

  15. What’s the weather looking like in Corvallis today?

    Connor Letourneau ?@ConnOregonian 40m40 minutes ago

    Thunderstorms were intense last night. Per Dallas Baptist, they’ve brought in a helicopter to blow water out of the outfield.

    • I wonder what this means for Malik Staples? Do we take 2 RB’s again in 2016? Staples originally was high on the Beavs, but has been taking his time. It’s now or never for him if he wants to be part of this class. I like Staples a little better, but Pierce looks to be a solid back.

      Rivals is the only site that has Pierce as a 2*. All the rest say he’s a 3* or don’t rank him at all. I’d imagine now that he’s a Beav commit, he’ll magically be moved up to 3* status when they re-rank guys in June.

  16. Another Dual-Threat QB transferring out his current program. This time John Franklin from FSU. Likely because they just brought in Everett Golson from Notre Dame. Sucks that some of these guys have to sit for a year while others don’t.

    Sleeper Athletes ?@SleeperAthletes 2m2 minutes ago

    #SouthPlantation HS (FL) alum QB John Franklin (@jf3_11) will be transferring from the #FSU #Seminoles

  17. Sounds like that long snapper I mentioned a couple weeks back, Ryan Navarro, is on campus today and will likely be announcing his commitment later.

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