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2024 Wake Baseball Thread: What Did We Do To Deserve This?

A big difference between the 2023 and 2024 offense is Marek Houston. One was end of the order likely out; the other is a top of the lineup run producer, even though they are the same guy. Also, DH is a problem for WF in 2023
 
deacon14 said:
Evaluating conference-only stats leads to some small sample sizes (especially for the 2024 team), but eye test also suggests that you're right.

I mean only three Wake players have >70 in-conference ABs in 2024
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Yeah, definitely smaller sample sizes in conference games. but I think it's the most legit way to look at things.

I hate always bringing it up since he always seemed like such a good guy and had my fav HR celebration, but the Adam Cecere corollary is such a big thing in baseball:

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(not surprised how well he's doing at Penn State this year -- do not think he had a chance of coming close to duplicating that if stayed in the ACC)
 
KennyRogersRoast said:
I wonder what our OB% and SLG% is in ACC games 2024 vs 2023? Are we outperforming our expected runs per game this year? We have more speed this season, for sure.

Perhaps it does come back to whether you think our offense last season feasted on bad pitching. We were more feast or famine. Maybe we were more home run dependent. I remember a couple games last year where we played in conditions with the wind really blowing in and we struggled because we did not hit homers.

Last year we scored 3 or fewer runs in 5 ACC regular season game. This year we have done that once. Last year we scored 4 runs in 5 ACC regular season games. This year we have done that once.

The caveat is we have a lot of tough game left this ACC season.
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Our schedule to date is probably already harder than last year. We definitely got some luck last year.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
Yeah, definitely smaller sample sizes in conference games. but I think it's the most legit way to look at things.

I hate always bringing it up since he always seemed like such a good guy and had my fav HR celebration, but the Adam Cecere corollary is such a big thing in baseball:

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I totally get what you're saying, it's true that some of last year's major contributors struggled against good pitching. Cecere is a great example, although he wasn't a starter on that team when the team was fully healthy.

I'm just not going to be super convinced that this year's team is significantly better against the good pitching until some of these guys get more in-conference ABs. Guys like Winnay, Houston, and Williams have been great so far, but they only have 66, 65, and 59 conference ABs so far, and none of them have prior year track records of mashing elite pitching to fall back on. Hopefully Winnay and Houston have taken huge leaps forward, I just want to see it over a bit longer than 15-18 conference games before setting that in stone.

The team stats are also pretty heavily weighted by what Kurtz has done to VT and BC, which I know you mentioned but is worth bringing up again. I mean the dude is incredible, but he isn't going to keep this pace up forever lol
 
deacon14 said:
Lol catcher was the second worst position on the team last year and still manages to have close to double the OPS of this year.

Nice!
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In hindsight if we could have taken whatever we paid Monsanto or Griffis in NIL and spent it on Lee, we’d probably have the same results in basketball and football and still be the number 1 team in baseball.
 
deacon14 said:
I totally get what you're saying, it's true that some of last year's major contributors struggled against good pitching. Cecere is a great example, although he wasn't a starter on that team when the team was fully healthy.

I'm just not going to be super convinced that this year's team is significantly better against the good pitching until some of these guys get more in-conference ABs. Guys like Winnay, Houston, and Williams have been great so far, but they only have 66, 65, and 59 conference ABs so far, and none of them have prior year track records of mashing elite pitching to fall back on. Hopefully Winnay and Houston have taken huge leaps forward, I just want to see it over a bit longer than 15-18 conference games before setting that in stone.

The team stats are also pretty heavily weighted by what Kurtz has done to VT and BC, which I know you mentioned but is worth bringing up again. I mean the dude is incredible, but he isn't going to keep this pace up forever lol
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There’s no rule against it.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
In hindsight if we could have taken whatever we paid Monsanto or Griffis in NIL and spent it on Lee, we’d probably have the same results in basketball and football and still be the number 1 team in baseball.
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I get that it's fun to dunk on catcher production this year, but I don't think upgrading from horrendous hitting from the 8th spot in the lineup to passable would have kept us ranked number 1 overall. Even with the gigantic leap in defense that Lee would bring.

The reason we've fallen as far as we have has been disappointing (relative to expectations) seasons from Hartle and Massey. Get those guys performing like we thought they would and we'll get back to being a top 5 team even if our catchers don't hit a ball again all season.
 
deacon14 said:
I get that it's fun to dunk on catcher production this year, but I don't think upgrading from horrendous hitting from the 8th spot in the lineup to passable would have kept us ranked number 1 overall. Even with the gigantic leap in defense that Lee would bring.

The reason we've fallen as far as we have has been disappointing (relative to expectations) seasons from Hartle and Massey. Get those guys performing like we thought they would and we'll get back to being a top 5 team even if our catchers don't hit a ball again all season.
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I meant that more as a statement of BLee’s leadership behind the plate. Settling pitchers down. Framing an extra couple strikes here and there, and staying in front of the ball. Add in a couple more times on base every other game, and you found some wins.
 
IamThunderbolt said:
Because of both with comfort level and pitch framing, I believe Hartle would be having a much better year this year with Lee (Can't really say the same about Massey because of injury/new role)
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You won’t convince me otherwise.
 
Offensively, it's baseball so there is lots of noise, plus players generally going into slumps and hot streaks. But hard for me to find much in the data to suggest our offensive performance won't maintain.

Runs by series:

Duke- 19
UVA- 29
Louisville- 24
UNC- 21
VT- 24
BC- 26

So we've actually scored more runs per game in every series besides Duke than we did on average last season (and each of those games we started Ballestero at DH and Hawke at 2B). I think it's likely Kurtz cools off a bit and other guys come back down to earth, but it's also equally that Gill and Nelson get better luck on balls in play and maybe someone like Tellier goes on a heater.

So certainly possible we cool down on offense, but but not something I’m expecting based on the trends.
 
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UNCW's 1b and #3 hitter, Tanner Thach is 3rd in the nation in HRs with 19.
 
Who will deliver the '23 vs '24 pitching comparison?
 
Catcher is the only position where we lost production? Our centerfielder is batting .150?
 
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