With all of the early season upsets of ranked teams, is this season unusual? Is this another sign of the growing parity in NCAA baseball due to scholarship limitations? I won't have time to do much research on this but it sure seems unusual to me.
Is this season unusual?
- Thread starter OldRed
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I feel like it's normal...some big boys get knocked off in mid week games, fans get frustrated, big boy then sweeps another big boy on the weekend and things are peachy again.
It's just baseball. The game itself provides some parity because there are just some games where you seem to do poorly and the other team is hot. You might beat them 9 of 10 but the pitcher that usually struggles is grooving it and you end up losing that one. Baseball certainly has more parity than other sports, but I think much of it has to do with there being so many people that play and you can be a solid baseball player without having to be exceptional athletically.
Very true.
Look to the d2,d3 and NAIA levels...some of those players have excellent skills, but may lack having the extra tool to get to the higher level.
I've seen some FAT guys rake at the lower levels...D1 level hitters, but in no way could they provide the value in the other areas of the game...some guys have sustained arm injuries at the HS level, but can glove it up and hit...etc.
All of this stuff can be hidden for a game...and that's all it takes for a mid week loss.
Division winners in MLB usually lose about 40% of their games. There's much less parity in college, but still you will lose games, doesn't mean you have a bad team.
I haven’t paid that much attention to it recently because I don’t usually know any of the guys on the other team, but prior to conference play, do lower caliber teams ever save their ace for a mid week game against a better team? I would think that would level the playing field a ton because it is usually the mid week games where the surprises occur.
I haven't seen them do that from what I've seen. A lot of times the lower tier midweek games might be playing good or solid weekend competition.
Yep. Nature of the sport.
Think about it at the pro level. The best team of all time lost 40-something games; the worst team of all time won 40-something.