Final Rankings

You just don’t let up Horns ! But that was funny

 

Very lucky to be there

 

We are not the third or fourth best team ! Have you seen our BASERUNNING and lack of triples??

 

You are pissed that our triples production was low

 

I have, but I still love this team.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Does the lack of triples not concern you?

 

Our triples were just homeruns that fell short!​

 

At first it did, but when I saw how we fared against Oklahoma State and Clemson (two schools with better triples vs. triples allowed ratios) I was willing to buy into the idea that the stat might not mean as much everybody says.

But then when you look at the rest of the field in Omaha, it was a bit overwhelming. The rest of the teams combined for nearly 90 triples while allowing fewer than 50. Honestly, just impressed with how well we hung in there all things considered.

I think it's just something we have to focus on more in the offseason work. I'm not concerned, if you and I can see the problem, you know Sully is well aware of it.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

There has been plenty of shallow analysis this year: swinging for HRs probably was most popular, not enough bunts was a common gripe for the offense. Wingtee didn't explain his point, but too few triples probably is more insightful than complaints about the team BA. The guys who understand pitching routinely help me understand the game better, but a brief gripe about the team ERA doesn't tell me much.

While I saw all of the OOC losses in the regular season- and some of them were painful- I disagree that was as big of a problem as the complaints asserted. Half of the midweek losses and a third of the regular season OOC losses were to noles. Those losses were galling, but were to the best OOC program we faced. I believe the worst problem was inconsistency against SEC teams. The Mizzou sweep was, BY FAR, the lowest point of the season. It was the only SEC series against a team that didn't make the postseason and the only SEC sweep. Gators had some good wins, including series wins, against good teams, but beating Mizzou and 2-5 other close SEC games going our way would have kept Gators ranked all year. The early Regional loss to OK St was the only OOC loss after April 9 and the only non-nole OOC loss after March 19.

Playing against SEC teams is murder. All of D1 baseball- the sport, not the website- had that lesson pounded into them in the postseason this year. There were plenty of complaints here about the approach of using midweek games to develop the team for the conference season, but, to me, the value of that approach was borne out by the results. 2025 will be even tougher in the conference, 13 teams playing in the conference next year made Regionals this year. Self-righteous traditionalists certainly will stick to their complaints that directional teams and the runners-up from the Big South, Colonial, Summit and Missouri Valley Conferences should be invited instead of strong SEC teams with losing conference records. After all, Roberto Clemente and Stan Musial played baseball in the old days.

Better performance in a few SEC games would have made a huge difference in perceptions of the 2024 Gators and I hope it is the #1 regular season team improvement next year.

 

@TheBoss—

Sometimes the truth hurts and sometimes standing on toes hurts perception of reality. Then there’s the limits of knowledge….

 

That would be putting too much weight into the midweek games, IMHO. In the end, when every game counts, the Gators were most certainly a playoff worthy team and they should be ranked according to how they played at the end of the year.

Playoff wins... against the best teams in the nation at the end of the year, matter.

 

Triples are either mistakes by the opposing outfielders or something that really fast and hard hitting ball players can pull off.

Langford was no longer playing for us so we needed outfield gaffs that the official scorer would not call an error to get triples.

Really fast and hard hitting was not something that went together on this year's line-up. Langford was last season. Loved him as a player. Robertson was fast but not hard hitting. Cags could hit the crap out of a ball but he almost hit it too hard and the ball would get back to the fielder quickly. And he wasn't extremely fast running the bases.

But like I have said in many threads pitching was the biggest concern.

We had enough run production and our D was pretty good. Our pitching was spotty.