My thoughts about this week:
It continues to be beyond me how a team can go on the road and win a conference series in 40-degree weather and be punished for it, maybe that’s a sign the national media is holding Texas Tech to more elite expectations. Either way, the Red Raiders dropped slightly in many rankings however the computer and RPI rankings continue to like them and their strength of schedule.
Tech continues to look for an answer at shortstop and for another bat to emerge in the lineup. Freshman hurler Micah Dallas got the first game start this weekend and looked strong in that. Bryce Bonnin got the start at New Mexico, the Red Raiders won Tuesday 15-6 and hit four dingers on the day from Cameron Warren, Dru Baker, and two from Cole Stillwell. The coaching staff is high on Stillwell’s bat and he may be the regular DH moving forward. Both he and Mason Minzy have work to do defensively and strength to build, but they’ll both be strong in the future at catcher.
Each week I’ll bring you a roundup of all of the rankings I can find out there on the interwebs. I’ll effort to post these on Wednesday when most have updated for the week. Early in the season, I’ll hide those that haven’t come out of their winter naps yet and just bring you the active stuff.
A few things about the rankings:
Do they all matter?
No, absolutely not, most of them are worthless and only exist because a baseball/statistics nerd decided to make them. Some are an attempt by various outlets to keep RPI live rather than updated weekly by the NCAA. Many are wholly subjective in the case of those from various news outlets or composites of many rankings affected by outliers. Some also update at odd times, like on Friday.
Does that mean I won’t include them?
Also, absolutely not. I’m going to include every ranking, RPI, composite, and strength of schedule I can find. It doesn’t matter how “legit” they are, I’m going to put them on the list. I like seeing them change and move fluidly over time. It’s also nice to see that even some of the top recognized lists are subject to knee-jerk reactions.
Why include it if it doesn’t matter?
Because we count everything in baseball.