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A changing of the guard has been brewing in college baseball for a few years now. Each year there are different teams contending for regional, super regional, and College World Series berths. Most college baseball polls start by ranking the traditional powers or the teams who bring in the flashy recruits who bypassed a mid-round draft selection to attend college. And more times than not, we’re seeing teams that were afterthoughts in those preseason rankings knocking off the “juggernauts” of the game and making their case to be among the elite.
Make no mistake, the changes to who is contending are not unexplainable. It’s not simply a case of one team getting hot at the right time. College baseball has undergone fundamental changes over the years to make the game more competitive. Not with the intent of deterring the traditional powers from investing in baseball, but rather with the way some of them went about playing the game. Gone are the days of slapping an aluminum barrel at a pitch down the middle of the zone and watching what should be a bloop hit in front of an outfielder or down the line turn into a home run that barely clears the fences. Here to stay are the sacrifice hits, the web gems, the pressure of making a precise throw or pitch in a tight game.
No, theses changes are deliberate. They have a purpose; to make the game better. More competitive — for everyone. Despite the grumblings of how ballparks are built or designed, or how there are too few scholarships, or how the bats don’t have enough pop. That doesn’t seem to be the case among those who played the game, teach the game, and are looking out for its best interest.
“This is the direction that the NCAA wanted to see this go,” said Texas head coaching legend Augie Garrido. “I think it represents the legislation that has been voted upon and I think it’s up to us to be able to perform within the framework of that. Whatever the process is to get to Omaha and win a national championship … somebody’s going to win it. So what are your reasons for wanting them to win? The NCAA just opened it up for 300 schools to win. That’s their job. Our job is to find a way to win.”
A specific response from a straight forward man who has been around the game a long time. Whether it is the BBCOR bats that were introduced in 2011, the 11.7 scholarships, the collective bargaining agreement in Major League Baseball preventing teams from luring mid-round selections away from college, or how big you build a ballpark. The effect of these circumstances is now you have to teach the game a different way, which is Garrido’s opinion is the way it should be taught in the first place.
“I’ve always felt that way. Right from the very beginning. I’ve always felt it was about pitching and defense. I think the game was designed for the pitcher. Hitting is described by Sports Illustrated as the most difficult single skill in all of sport — it’s hard to score runs,” Garrido said.
He’s not alone, either. Kyle Peterson, ESPN college baseball analyst and two-time CWS participant with Stanford, believes that while the game still isn’t perfect it’s going in the right direction. He believes the new ball will help provide more scoring and improve the game’s offensive number to make it more exciting for the players, coaches, and fans involved with it now, but also for the kids in the stands who will be a part of it in the future. However, he also echoes Garrido’s thoughts in that pitching and defense are always going to be what ultimately separates teams when it gets down to championship time.
“It’s hasn’t been that way every year, there have been a few blips in the past,” said Peterson. “I wish there was more scoring, and I think the ball will help, but we talk about every year. When you get in the middle of the season and you want to see a team who has the best chance of getting [to Omaha] go look at the ERAs and look at the Fielding Percentages. I’ll take those two things combined over offense anytime,” he added.
Creighton head coach Ed Servais (Mike Spomer // Click to Buy Photos by WBR)
The only head coach in the country who literally gets to call the home of the College World Series his home as well, Creighton’s Ed Servais, is in full agreement with Garrido and Peterson regarding how the changes the game is currently going through are better for its future. In 2014, Servais’ Bluejays led all of Division-1 in fielding percentage with a .984%, just ahead of CWS participants Virginia (3rd) and Texas Tech (5th). Like the Longhorn coaching legend, Servais has been around the game a long time. He’s coached it the same way Garrido has. Throw strikes, play good defense, manufacture your offense, and execute. Because of that he takes a lot of pride in seeing the game go back to the fundamentals that made it fun to teach, fun to play, and also fun to watch.
“I could attribute four or five different reasons for the parity,” Servais said. “But it’s great for the game. It keeps people in tuned. It’s not just the same eight teams coming to Omaha every year. Every year you’re going to see different teams that people haven’t recognized as World Series teams in Omaha because of all the changes. These [changes] are good for our game. I think our game is as popular as it has ever been because of the parity.”
With any new direction comes criticism, however, and many people from inside and outside the game have criticized the home of the CWS, Omaha’s TD Ameritrade Park, as being too big for offense to thrive. “Move the fences in”, they say. How can teams from so-called power conferences compete for a championship when the park is “impossible” to clear the wall in? Well, so far, the TD Ameritrade Park Omaha has produced one national champion from the SEC and two from the Pac-12 in its three years of existence. Why? Pitching depth and defensive efficiency. All of those teams had it. All of the teams in this tournament have it as well. Seven of the eight teams in the 2014 College World Series are ranked in the top 21 in Division-1 in earned run average. The eighth team is Texas Tech, who has an NCAA Tournament-best 0.65 team ERA. The Red Raiders have allowed just four runs in six tournament games in 2014. As for the defense? Six of the eight teams who will take the field at TD Ameritrade Park this weekend are in the top 50 in Division-1 in fielding percentage.
Like Garrido said, the changes were made to help everyone compete, but it still doesn’t guarantee anything. The game still has to be played and executed at a high level like it was designed. It’s up to the coaches and players involved to figure out how to be successful under the current circumstances.