2023 Baseball

[throwback]

I think this team will surprise with a big turnaround - 3rd in the B1G sounds about right to me. Going to be tough to catch Maryland.

 

Guessing we'll struggle in the non-con because we have so many positions and roles with quite a bit of competition, so the coaches will have to use those first few weekends to sort things out. 

 

Hopefully once B1G play starts, they'll be settled and ready to take a big jump.

 

[Bugeaters1]

Two weeks!

[Huskerpapa]

22 minutes ago, Bugeaters1 said:

Two weeks!

They should get some practice outside over the next few days.

[Bugeaters1]

2 hours ago, Huskerpapa said:

They should get some practice outside over the next few days.

Hope so, with the weather turning nicer and being able to practice at the Den.

[Bugeaters1]

 

[REDitus]

I was happy to hear Bunz, Perry and Ornelas have recovered from their injuries and deemed healthy.  Should bolster the depth of the staff if they have their strength and control.   It will be interesting to see what they do with Bunz.   Do they work him as a reliever or starter with a pitch limit?   Maybe he is bullpen to start and then towards tourney time he gets stretched out?   Anyone with thoughts?   

 

Possible guys that they could stretch out....Olson,Kaminska,Clarke,Sears,Garza,Bunz,Brockett and Novotony?  Can any baseball gurus enlighten?  My guesses are like throwing darts after a couple of pitchers of beer and Dr Johnny Fever I am not. 

[Bugeaters1]

 

[HuskerFever]

 

[throwback]

Nebraska's spring camp has been sooooo quiet - none of the usual rumors / leaked news / legit news, etc. Some of that has to do with so many newcomers and so many positions up for grabs, but it's a little frustrating for fans. Makes it tough to get a handle on how things may look. Going to be a lot of tweaking of lineups, etc, these first few weekends, which usually leads to a poor record. Hopefully not, but that's usually pretty par for the course for a northern team that has unproven players in so many spots. Ideally, it'll pay dividends once conference play starts.

 

A lot less bravado than last year, too, which is good I think. Live in the moment and let the play on the field do the talking, rather than worrying about trying to live up to -- or completely forget -- what happened the previous year.

 

Hopefully they can split this opening weekend, but 1-3 wouldn't surprise me.

 

 

By the way, Boyd's World did something new this year - a projected RPI for each D-1 team based on his ISR system. The system projects NU at 30-25 with an RPI of #102. Hoping we can do better than that, but that RPI is probably a reflection of a potentially down year in the B1G. Outside of Maryland, the rest of the B1G appears to be way down, at least in this projection. Doubt it plays out quite this badly, but it's hard to see more than 3 B1G teams making the NCAAs, maybe only 2.

 

Here's how he projects our opponents:

• Vandy (1 game/N) - #3
• Ole Miss (1/N) - #9
• Maryland (3/A) - #32
• San Diego (4/A) - #44
• South Alabama (3/A) - #56
• Kansas St (1/A) - #69
• Iowa (3/A) - #74
• Michigan (3/A) - #81
• bluebirds (1/H, 2/A) - #92
• Illinois (3/H) - #99
• Hawaii (1/N) - #127
• North Dakota St (2/H) - #129
• Northwestern (3/H) - #147
• Penn St (3/H) - #148
• Abilene Christian (1/A) - #157
• Nicholls St (4/H) - #167
• Illinois St (3/H) - #168
• Purdue (3/A) - #169
• TAM-Corpus Christi (1/N) - #172
• Omaha (2/H, 1/A) - #219
• South Dakota St (1/H) - #233
• Minnesota (3/H) - #248
• Northern Colorado (2/H) - #291

Other B1G teams:

• Rutgers - #52
• Indiana - #94
• Ohio State - #115
• Michigan State - #189

We need to be great at home with this schedule. Any home loss is going to kill our RPI. To have any hope of being around the top 50 in RPI, we probably have to go 23-4-ish at home. Very difficult.

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by throwback

[Bugeaters1]

I see we have some injuries. and some are season ending, do we know who is out for the year?

 

[REDitus]

12 minutes ago, Bugeaters1 said:

I see we have some injuries. and some are season ending, do we know who is out for the year?

 

 

Brumbaugh, Frahm and Hayden Lewis are out for the year.   Hurts to lose Brumbaugh.    Hughes and Hood are nicked up.   I don't think they will make this trip.  

[throwback]

Well, that was a dumpster fire of an opening weekend. It's too early to make sweeping judgments, and I expected us to lose the series, but the inability to throw strikes in pressure situations is beyond concerning. The competitive "want-to" on the mound was something that should be there from day 1 of the season, even if you're still knocking off the rust, and it was not there. Not by a long shot.

 

We did some good things offensively, especially the last two days, but when you can't throw strikes, it doesn't really matter. All the momentum you gained from coming back from 10-4 on Monday goes out the window because we have two seniors who can't put the ball over the plate in crunch time. 

 

Question now: Is it fixable? Hard to say. I expected the pitching staff to be a pretty good strength, but the bullpen guys, save for a couple of freshmen, were utter garbage this weekend. It's a mentality, and we caved almost every time, while USD rose to the occasion. Coming off the horrible season last year, this thing could spiral pretty fast if they don't get it fixed in Mobile next weekend.

 

Cannot figure out what Shay's problem is, but it's a recurring pattern with him. When the game is on the line, he can't throw strikes far too many times. Your closer can't be someone who can't throw strikes in pressure situations. I was very concerned when they said they were moving him back to that role. I'm not sure who else can do it at this point, though.

 

And they have to get Christo going. He's their most lively arm, but after an offseason of work to develop another pitch and pick up some movement on the fastball, if he wastes this year like he wasted last year ... ugh. Can't even finish that sentence.

 

Another potential problem: I'm not sure USD is all that good (meaning talented). Outside of a couple of really good hitters and a couple of really good pitchers, I don't think that's a great team. They pounced on our mistakes, though, which is more than half the battle in college baseball. Ultimately, I think that's a bubble team, which makes what happened even worse.

 

And the fact that our offense was pretty poor against USD's better pitchers also could be a big red flag. The offense Sunday and Monday was great, but the jury is still out there because of too many Ks Saturday and no clutch hits Friday against their top guys.

 

Ultimately, though, this is on the pitching staff. Mentality going into Mobile has to be: Throw strikes immediately, or we'll try the next guy. Very short leashes.

 

Unfortunately, it's very difficult to build a good bullpen with guys in defined roles doing it that way, but I'm not sure what else they can do after what happened with so many guys being afraid of the moment this weekend. 

 

We have to get this fixed fast, or you start putting far too much pressure on your starters, who were actually pretty solid this weekend. Eventually, they succumb to the pressure of feeling like they have to go 9 innings every game or the bullpen will blow it.

 

Edited February 21, 2023 by throwback

[Bugeaters1]

 

[hskr4life]

Not that it means anything at this point in the season, but we're #2 in RPI.  San Diego is #1 and is still undefeated at 5-0-1

[Huskerpapa]

Iowa had a big win against LSU.

[brfrad]

I was looking on Warren Nolan under predicted Big 10 standings.  It had us at 40-14-1, and 16-8 in conference, behind Rutgers (22-2), Iowa (20-4), and Illinois (17-7).  15 minutes later, it has us 34-20-1, and 15-9 in conference, behind Iowa (21-3), Illinois (16-8) and Rutgers (16-8).  Tied with Maryland and Purdue.  Previously, we were getting swept by Iowa.  Now, we take one game.  They had us taking two of 3 from Maryland.  Now, we are getting swept.  I find this kind of weird.  RPI was 98.  Now, is 156.  I think the schedule is pretty weak this year.  Hurting us is getting Northwestern and Minnesota at home.  

 

As for this weekend, they have us losing all 3 both times.  If our starters can give us 6 and our bullpen pitches like last week, we should steal 1.  It would be huge for us to take one against Vandy or Ole Miss.  A chance at a quality win.  

[throwback]

Warren Nolan's site typically needs more data to make it more relevant - probably need to get through 40% to 50% of the season before we can start counting on those predictions. 

 

Even at this point, though, if his data is saying Maryland is going to finish only 4th or 5th in the B1G, his data is smoking crack. 

 

Having said that, the B1G has had 2 pretty good weekends to this point, which should help everyone's RPI. 

 

Stealing one this weekend vs those SEC teams would be huge down the road. Curious if the coaches will take a chance and bump Kaminska back to Sunday vs Ole Miss and start Garza or Clark on Saturday vs Hawaii. They probably won't - it's not really their style to mess with the rotation like that. But if they're ever going to do it, this is the weekend.

 

San Diego still doing well at 5-1-1, but they have 9 straight games over 2 weeks vs really good teams coming up, all on the road. We'll have a pretty good idea if that series is going to help or hurt our RPI after that stretch.

 

[brfrad]

19 minutes ago, throwback said:

Warren Nolan's site typically needs more data to make it more relevant - probably need to get through 40% to 50% of the season before we can start counting on those predictions. 

 

Even at this point, though, if his data is saying Maryland is going to finish only 4th or 5th in the B1G, his data is smoking crack. 

 

 

I was just interested in seeing what they were saying.  Then, when I looked again it had changed so much in 15 minutes, which is odd because no games had been played.

[hskr4life]

Man taking 1 of the 2 games against the SEC schools would be huge this weekend.  a 2/3 weekend would be really big too.

 

Which pitching shows up?

[throwback]

2 hours ago, brfrad said:

I was just interested in seeing what they were saying.  Then, when I looked again it had changed so much in 15 minutes, which is odd because no games had been played.

Yeah, agreed, that is odd - but that site has always had some oddities. Boyd's World is far more accurate, but it doesn't do anything for the first few weeks or so because there's just not enough data. Unfortunately, Boyd doesn't care about making his site look "pretty," either, so it's not as easy to navigate as Nolan. But he has really good data as the season progresses, if you're interested in that stuff.

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by throwback

[The Polish Rifle]

7 hours ago, hskr4life said:

Man taking 1 of the 2 games against the SEC schools would be huge this weekend.  a 2/3 weekend would be really big too.

 

Which pitching shows up?

Friday is not gonna be easy. Vandy's ace was a preseason All-American, lefty with a mid-90s fastball, a lock to be a 1st rounder. 5.1 and only allowed 1 hit against to  top 25 UCLA last week. Not many teams getting Vandy on Friday this year. 

[brfrad]

19 hours ago, The Polish Rifle said:

Friday is not gonna be easy. Vandy's ace was a preseason All-American, lefty with a mid-90s fastball, a lock to be a 1st rounder. 5.1 and only allowed 1 hit against to  top 25 UCLA last week. Not many teams getting Vandy on Friday this year. 

I wonder if they save him for Maryland.

[The Polish Rifle]

8 minutes ago, brfrad said:

I wonder if they save him for Maryland.

Not worth getting him off schedule. They want him on Friday in the SEC

[hskr4life]

Northern Colorado is absolutely awful.  We absolutely have to go 2-0 mid-week this week.  They’ve lost weekend series games to the tune of 30-1 and 32-7.

 

Illinois State has actually played decent and played a mid-week game at Arkansas that they only lost 10-9.  2-1 wouldn’t be the end of the world this weekend.

 

4-1 week on tap I hope.

[hskr4life]

Looks like Anglem will be out for a while… that’s a blow.