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

cookoutdeac said:
drop your venmo handle on here and we can crowdfund the treats $$$$ to keep the kids happy
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That and a phone stand that can be set up and we're golden. I guess a battery/charger as well.
 
cookoutdeac said:
drop your venmo handle on here and we can crowdfund the treats $$$$ to keep the kids happy
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Wouldn’t be the first time BBD had to explain to his wife that he got income from a bunch of dudes paying for him to stream on the internet. At least this time you won’t have to sanitize the shampoo bottle.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
MD-NK-001-03-01.png
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Nick Kurtz | #8

Shop your NIL Athletes today
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Also the Nukes shirt is pretty dope.
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This is from the epilepsy collection that he is giving all proceeds back to those impacted in Pa and NC.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Wouldn’t be the first time BBD had to explain to his wife that he got income from a bunch of dudes paying for him to stream on the internet. At least this time you won’t have to sanitize the shampoo bottle.
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I'm sure we're not the onlyfans who would like some live-action video.
 
Looks like I'll have 2 FSU Tix for both Friday and Saturday games. I'll be visiting my Wake roommate in Wilmington, NC.
 
have been running the #s and it's actually pretty easy to build a plausible scenario where this team can be as good as last year's.

i've said this a bunch, but last year's offense was overrated (was more towards the middle of the pack in the ACC). we averaged 6.7 runs per acc game last year, this year we are already up to 7.94, despite facing a tougher schedule.

obviously the big difference is going from allowing 3.5 runs per game to 6.5 runs per game. howeva -- last year our expected allowed runs was 4.02. this year we are worse, but not nearly that much worse, stting at 5.16 (2nd in the ACC after Clemson). some of the difference is probably just bad pitching in big situations but a lot of it is bad defense (and probably some bad luck).

with our defense in order and revamped bullpen pecking order (assuming roland and wade can continue to perform), we should continue to pitch better. and if hartle can get back to last year's level and we can get more length out of massey (5 ip), then we could get down to allowing 4.2 runs per game (4.6 expected). obviously lots of IFs there (didn't even mention that we need the offense to continue performing well), but i think all are very plausible.
 
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Along those lines, last year we only had 15 unearned runs in 29 conference games. This year, we already have 23 in 18 games -- (only one this past weekend and two the previous weekend @ VT tho)

Errors aren't a great indication of defense (we've definitely had bad double play throws, misplayed flyballs, not catching the ball behind the plate that don't contribute) but I think definitely correlated.
 
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IAppreciateIt said:
I've said this a bunch, but last year's offense was overrated (was more towards the middle of the pack in the ACC). we averaged 6.7 runs per acc game last year, this year we are already up to 7.94, despite facing a tougher schedule.
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I understand that the numbers suggest that this year's offense has performed better thus far, but I really struggle to wrap my head around that based on how I would rate the players:

2023 team has an advantage at: C (Lee > Gill), 3B (Wilken > King), CF (Hawke > Nelson), and LF (Cecere/Costello > Williams). 2024 team has an advantage at RF (Winnay > Bennett), and SS (Soph Houston > Fresh Houston). It's basically even at 2B (Tellier, Johnson), 1B (Kurtz), DH (Reinisch, Corona).

So based on that assessment, this year's team is only obviously better at two positions (RF and SS). Meanwhile this year's team is clearly much worse at three positions (C, CF, and LF), and arguably 4 based on your opinion of 3B. The depth hitters on this year's team (Ballestero, Hawke, Katz) have also largely been terrible. So why is this year's team performing better?
 
deacon14 said:
I understand that the numbers suggest that this year's offense has performed better thus far, but I really struggle to wrap my head around that based on how I would rate the players:

2023 team has an advantage at: C (Lee > Gill), 3B (Wilken > King), CF (Hawke > Nelson), and LF (Cecere/Costello > Williams). 2024 team has an advantage at RF (Winnay > Bennett), and SS (Soph Houston > Fresh Houston). It's basically even at 2B (Tellier, Johnson), 1B (Kurtz), DH (Reinisch, Corona).

So based on that assessment, this year's team is only obviously better at two positions (RF and SS). Meanwhile this year's team is clearly much worse at three positions (C, CF, and LF), and arguably 4 based on your opinion of 3B. The depth hitters on this year's team (Ballestero, Hawke, Katz) have also largely been terrible. So why is this year's team performing better?
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Hitting better with runners in scoring position? More walks?
 
No way is Cecere/Costello better than Williams on either side.

The King - Wilken comparison is probably really nuanced in the splits.

First half of the season only, Rhino > Corona

I want to say Johnson is much better than Tellier, but that’s probably not correct.
 
Nope, this year's team has been better offensively all around. Higher OBP (.387 vs .374), high SLG (.499 vs .460) and better on the basepaths.

If you broke it out by batting order, we have better production with the bat at every spot except 8th (where our catchers have hit).

Some notable conference-game OPS last year that are lower than you might think:
Hawke: .826
Lee: .762
Cecere: .652
Corona: .680
Bennett: .811 (same as Javar this season)


But some of it is that Nick Kurtz has a 1.625 OPS in conference games this season
 
Deacfreak07 said:
No way is Cecere/Costello better than Williams on either side.

The King - Wilken comparison is probably really nuanced in the splits.

First half of the season only, Rhino > Corona

I want to say Johnson is much better than Tellier, but that’s probably not correct.
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I just looked briefly at OPS in order to compare guys:

Cecere had an OPS of 1.005 in 141 ABs, Costello had an OPS of 0.832 in 163 ABs, WIlliams has an 0.787 in 76 ABs.

Wilken had an OPS of 1.313 in 238 ABs, King has an OPS of 0.984 in 149 ABs.

Corona had an OPS of 0.970 in 151 ABs, Rhino has an OPS of 1.009 in 132 ABs.

Johnson had an OPS of 1.042 in 238 ABs, Tellier has an OPS of 1.069 in 144 ABs.

I know there are much more nuanced and deeper ways to evaluate than literally just OPS, but I just quickly glanced at stats as I was making my assessment for that post.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
Last year's team had a number of guys who could really mash bad pitching but lacked the talent / bat speed to hit against good pitching.
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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
 
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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