Quote from: Just Bill on May 26, 2010, 11:04:59 AM
Anyone seen an ABCA All-Midwest Region team yet?  I see discussion on other region boards about their teams.

Year in, year out the Midwest is always slow on releasing its All-Region team. The fact that it's not out by the time the World Series is almost over is just silly. ABCA releases its teams for DI and DII literally the day they are voted on and etched out. Maybe in this case it's the regional committee just not being organized at all or something else, but there's no reason for it to be out by now.

I'm sorry, I just can't bite my tongue. How the hell did this Midwest bracket turn out this way, especially considering how EASY the Central bracket is?

--- How do you get off rewarding North Central for getting absolutely slammed in their conf. tourney by giving them a 2 seed in arguably the easiest regional? And then, how do you get off penalizing St. Thomas on the same side of the coin for finishing up their conf. tourney with 2 blowout wins.

--- You send CARTHAGE to Whitewater? What?! I know the committee only looks at numbers, but I can guarantee every team in the Midwest had a collective groan when they heard Carthage and not IWU, North Central, or Ripon was sent off. Maybe it was bad luck, but getting an underperforming Carthage team shipped in really makes this a bit tougher.

--- It's crazy that to think that teams like St. Scholastica and St. Thomas are held in the relatively same regard when it comes to tourney seedings as Ripon and North Central. It just feels wrong that two regionals separated by such a paltry distance are so completely different in their difficulty.

Just like every year (in my estimation), the Midwest regional looks to be the toughest. While I know it doesn't really matter who you play to get to the championship (since beating everyone is the goal of a national champion), it irks me how this region get stacked like this every year without pause. I think the Mideast and West regions are really tough this year too, but the Midwest far and away takes the cake.

Quote from: hkchang on May 10, 2010, 06:27:33 PM
I just saw the Cobbers play Bethel this Sunday and needless to say I was not impressed. If the wind were not blowing in from center/right center the Royals would have hit at least 3 more homeruns than the lone one that they did. The Cobbers did not look good at all hitting. The majority of the hits that they had were off the end of the bat, or little seeing-eye singles that found holes just out of the middle infield's reach. Also, in the two games, I believe the Cobbers had one hit to the opposite field (Krause's lead off double to start game 1). They pretty much tried to pull the ball from what I could see.

It's a sad year for the MIAC and really shows how down the conference is as a whole when (in my opinion) two pretty poor teams get into the playoffs (Concordia and Augsburg) and Olaf is left out. This should be a cakewalk for the Tommies into regionals. And I too would have liked to see/hear about a Schuld/Murray Rematch

Considering all the splits St. Thomas had this year in conference, I wouldn't call this a cakewalk. Their pitching is probably the best in the country top-to-bottom, but recently they've had trouble scoring runs. Who knows, my money is on the Toms but I wouldn't say anything is a given.

Quote from: Gustie13 on May 10, 2010, 10:52:47 PM

Quote from: supermiac on May 10, 2010, 05:05:21 PM

Quote from: BigPoppa on May 10, 2010, 03:13:28 PM
I really wanted to see Macalester get in to see what kind of damage Murray could do the tourney.

I was looking over his stats and Schuld's earlier today to see how they matched up and everything. Mac reaaaally used him a lot this year on short-rest it seemed, which might have caused a couple slip-ups for Murray along the way. Both are great pitchers, but I think Schuld has an enormous advantage in terms of rest and the team that's playing behind him. Nonetheless, I think he finished with something outrageous like 115 k's in 80 innings this year pitching almost every series. I would have loved to see a rematch between Schuld and Murray (a little revenge for my Tommies ), but I think the tournament is already going to produce some good games as is.

Concordia can flat out hit the baseball. I've been seriously impressed with the way they came out and played in conference. If there is any team that could potentially steal a Pool A in the MIAC, it's Concordia. That being said, I don't think St. Thomas will throw Schuld in the first game for exactly that reason. Augsburg isn't really a "gimme" game, but St. Thomas' pitching is stacked top-to-bottom, so holding Schuld for the second game is really nothing to get worried about.

This is what I have:

St. Thomas over Augsburg
Cord. over St. Johns

St. Johns over Auggies
St. Thomas over Cord.

Cord. over SJU

Cord. over UST
UST over Cord. to win conf. tourney

I'm not cutting Murrey any slack for his workload, there were 4 other pitchers that threw 40+ conf innings.

Well looking at the outings where he did not pitch well, it was on 2-3 days rest after throwing a CG or starting back-to-back DHs. Not to mention throwing CGs every time he went out there... I think in the case for Mac, it was a good idea on paper to have him relieve against several teams along the way or throw back-to-back series, but it just didn't work out in reality for whatever reason.

Regardless, I think it should be noted that Schuld and Murray are two of the best pitchers to ever pitch in this conference, and I really wish there was another opportunity to see them square off. I'm glad to see that even within a season where the conference as a whole is down, there is something like a good pitching rivalry that draws some attention to the conference and region.

Quote from: BigPoppa on May 10, 2010, 03:13:28 PM
I really wanted to see Macalester get in to see what kind of damage Murray could do the tourney.

I was looking over his stats and Schuld's earlier today to see how they matched up and everything. Mac reaaaally used him a lot this year on short-rest it seemed, which might have caused a couple slip-ups for Murray along the way. Both are great pitchers, but I think Schuld has an enormous advantage in terms of rest and the team that's playing behind him. Nonetheless, I think he finished with something outrageous like 115 k's in 80 innings this year pitching almost every series. I would have loved to see a rematch between Schuld and Murray (a little revenge for my Tommies ), but I think the tournament is already going to produce some good games as is.

Concordia can flat out hit the baseball. I've been seriously impressed with the way they came out and played in conference. If there is any team that could potentially steal a Pool A in the MIAC, it's Concordia. That being said, I don't think St. Thomas will throw Schuld in the first game for exactly that reason. Augsburg isn't really a "gimme" game, but St. Thomas' pitching is stacked top-to-bottom, so holding Schuld for the second game is really nothing to get worried about.

This is what I have:

St. Thomas over Augsburg
Cord. over St. Johns

St. Johns over Auggies
St. Thomas over Cord.

Cord. over SJU

Cord. over UST
UST over Cord. to win conf. tourney

The Cobbers and Johnnies are looking very good early on. The Johnnies big recruiting class is really showing its strength along with its veterans. They aren't a team that will wow people will big talent, but they are very solid. I would put them, Concordia and USt in the playoffs now if I had to decide who was in. The fourth could really go to anyone, it's a complete crapshoot at this point. Although I'm somewhat surprised by the success Concordia is having, given they graduated some pretty good players, they really are playing well. Some good seasons being produced by several of their plays already.

ON A SIDE NOTE: I got to see the pitching matchup of the year today in the DH between USt and Mac. I linked the box score and am waiting on the Tommie SID to release his full recap of the game.

http://athletics.macalester.edu/custompages/baseball_statistics/stats10/0413-st1.htm

Mac- 5
USt- 2

Murrey and Schuld both throw complete games and the game was played very cleanly on both sides. Schuld was pretty pinpoint on his control early on like usual, but just didn't really have anything in terms of offspeed. His change up looked good for the most part, but he got behind in counts alot and the Macalaster hitters did well putting the ball in play in their big inning. Overall, I wasn't really impressed though and have seen him pitch much better than this on numerous occasions.

Murrey had several instances where he got behind in counts early in the game, but worked through them and cruised through the middle and late innings before giving up a couple runs in the last frame. In terms of stuff, his is simply better than Schuld's. Fastball looked harder (doesn't spot it nearly as well though), breaking pitches were a league above Schuld's... Change-up wise not really sure if he threw any to be honest. If he did, they didn't seem particularly effective. Overall, he was simply the better pitcher today. However, there's no doubt in my mind that these two are the best in the region especially considering how "down" the WIAC pitching seems to be compared to years past.

Quote from: whozonfirst on March 28, 2010, 05:10:10 PM
While  Carleton is not as strong as last year, the team is better than you would think from the scores - perhaps should have played only five or six days instead of seven in Arizona. It was good for the hitters to face good pitching and to have lots of innings to work on fielding/defense , but not good for pitchers stats. With so many innings to play in a short time they had to stretch arms to go longer in these games. Starting pitchers looked good through 5 or 6 innings, but were just left in one inning too long or were pitching on too little rest.  They will bounce back in MIAC.

Maybe, we'll see. Their pitching has been absolutely horrendous so far though; and most other MIAC teams have gone through the same strenuous schedule over their spring break trips without the sort of numbers CAR has been showing.

On a different note, what is going on with St. Olaf? Getting swept by Bowdoin, losing to Colby (a pretty bad team), and then Chicago (an even worse team that St. Thomas clobbered in a DH while tossing 2 new pitchers). The only "bright spot" of their trip so far has been the 16k strikeout performance by Hughes today. Even there is something fishy about that when you check out the box score:

http://www.stolaf.edu/athletics/baseball/media/2009-10/box/sto-ec1.htm

Why in the world is Hughes throwing a 9 IP CG, giving up 4 runs, 12 hits and a bunch of K's this early in the year in a blowout? If you use a pitch count estimator, the box score puts him roughly at 170-175. WHAT?!

Quote from: OshDude on March 27, 2010, 12:36:01 AM

Quote from: MIACLUV on March 26, 2010, 05:38:19 PM
Not a good sign for the Oles considering Steven Point just rolled that squad the other day 14-2! Oles may not be as deep on the mound as expected.

Who expected that?

Not I... considering they've only thrown 4 pitchers through 8 games is pretty telling.

I'll give my abbreviated outlook for the conference season now, but I'll do some more in-depth capsules once all the teams have finished their spring trips.

1. St. Thomas- Cream of the crop, beating good teams without much offense bodes well for them at this stage. Schuld is a horse.

2. Macalester- Pitching has been key so far and Murray continues to dominate every team he faces.

3. St. Olaf- Beat UWSP (nice), got swept by Bowdoin (not nice)... We'll see how things go after their spring trip though.

4. Bethel- Played a pretty pathetic spring trip schedule so any results might be misleading. Still like their hitting though.

5. Augsburg- Tough spring trip with 12 games in 6 days. Hitting will be good, expect Blunt to boost his .148 average at some point 

6. Concordia- Looks like they can run; pitching has been solid so far. Don't know much else about them so far.

7. St. John's- Very tough schedule; but they haven't really beaten any teams of significance. Pitching has been overwhelmed by good hitting teams.  Butorac can rake.

8. Gustavus- Not going to be worse than the teams below, so kind of default for them now being here.

9. Hamline- 4 wins against very poor teams. Pitching isn't there (should be better though) and hitting is below average.

10.  St. Mary's- Playing some good teams close so far. Their pitching looks to be much improved this year, but their hitting looks pretty bad. They might surprise teams this year.

11. Carleton- Welcome back to the cellar. Playing a tough schedule is nice, but getting rocked isn't. Their pitching won't cut it in the MIAC, even though Wirta is actually a pretty decent pitcher. He's pitched 1.2 IP so far, so that's not looking good.

Quote from: pickleshiner on March 21, 2010, 10:15:40 PM
Where do you think Point and Whitewater will end up nationally by year's end?  Can you imagine if St. Thomas, Point, St. Olaf, St. Scholastica, and Carthage were all in the same regional?

I'd like to see St. Olaf make the regional first... That being said, it probably still wouldn't be as stacked as other regions have been in the past several years.

Pretty solid split for Macalester today it looks like according to the Johns Hopkins press release on D3 site

http://d3baseball.com/pressreleases/Johns+Hopkins/2010/03/13/Hopkins-and-Macalester-Split-Doubleheader/5342

4-0 loss and 1-0 win against a traditionally powerhouse team thats been blasting teams away to start the year. 18 K's for Murray in G2 in 8 innings is pretty ridiculous. How sure are we that Schuld is runaway pitcher of the year again?

Well, considering seeing he was sitting 90-91 first 4 innings of the Wartburg DH, I find it hard to believe he was at max 84 in relief for 3 innings of the UWS series. I think the problem is maybe that pitching him a long 7 innings for a complete game the first series of the year was just dumb to say the least. There's no reason he should be in relief the second series with that amount of rest unless his arm was bothering him, which could very well be the case. That being said, it's early in the season and I wouldn't read into it too much. I think the prospects of having 2 pitchers (Schuld and Murray) getting drafted this year are pretty bright. We'll have to see how the season goes, but those two pitchers are the best this region has to offer this year from what I've seen over the past couple years.

So the Macalester players were stumbling over beer cans in the dugout too? Must have made losing to a middle-of-the-pack MIAC team even more embarrassing for Wartburg.

MIAC 8-0 so far this season, pretty good start.

I've only gotten to see the St. Olaf and Bethel DHs.

-- Hughes looked really good in the first game for the Oles; look for him to have a much better year this time around

-- Bethel took care of business; nothing really special about them though from what I saw. Slick can hit, but we all knew that. Their pitching looks pretty average, which is also what I expected.

-- Wish I could have seen the St. John's game. From what I've heard and saw from the box score, they're going to be a pretty tough team this year, especially adding a pretty good recruiting class.

-- Mac handled Wartburg pretty easily it seemed. Murrey throws complete game with 9k's, seems odd burning him in a complete game this early non-conf, but wins are wins I guess. On box scores, they look pretty good beating a team with ranking votes.

I think this has the potential to be one of the more competitive seasons in the MIAC we've seen in awhile. It seems like several of the "middling" teams are returning a significant amount of players from their teams from last year, which could mean trouble for the typical powerhouses up top (UST, StO). I'll take a stab at a write-up, but honestly... I'm not quite certain with the amount of talent returning on most teams.

1. St. Thomas-- Probably the only easy pick here. Their pitching staff this year is going to be ridiculous. After having one of the best pitchers in the country in Schuld, they still have 4 or 5 legitimately good hurlers who would probably be a top 2 starter at any program in the conference. Their hitting will be very solid with Larson, Wippler, Olson and McQuillan; but their pitching will definitely be the highlight of this team. Good chance we see this team back at the Series again this year. I'm reaaally looking forward to seeing this team on the field; it's not everyday that you get a World Series team return this much.

2. St. Olaf-- I like the Oles returning lineup this year, especially with the Jones' brothers and Nelson up top. Not quite sure they have the pitching to make a run into the NCAA playoffs. Agneberg is a very good #1, and Hughes could have a big year with his good stuff. Well coached team that always plays hard and is always in the hunt for a MIAC crown. Don't really see them posing a threat to UST though this year, but as always St. Olaf could put together a very legitimate season and make a run like they always manage to do.

3. Augsburg-- The middle of their lineup could potentially be one of the best in the MIAC with Blunt, Pierce and Henry. Still waiting on Henry to have a bigger breakout season, but they'll have a lot of support from their offense this year, which will be necessary considering their pitching staff is pretty average. Ozga has great stuff and got pretty unlucky with results last year, and like Henry, I'm still waiting on Weber to show the stuff he had freshman year and then some. They'll definitely have to be on their game to outcompete teams 4 through 9 this year, as the discrepancy is talent in paper thin this year across the board.

4. Macalester-- Not quite sure how I feel about this one yet. They won't be surprising teams this year like they did last year (sweeping Bethel, Oles, Cord.) They aren't losing anyone in their lineup from last year, but need to get some production outside of their top 5. Wilson-Traismen is a probably the best offensive shortstop in the conference, and I expect they'll get a bit more production from the several freshmen they started last year. They have arguably the best pitcher in the region (Schuld being a very close second) with Murray, but after that the rest of their rotation will need to step up; typically having the weakest staff in the MIAC. But if their bats gel like they could and Murray gets the ball every 4 days, I think they are a lock for the playoffs.

5. Bethel--- On the outside looking in as of now. Their hitting with Oesterlin, Churchill, and Slick heading it could be nasty. After watching him in several DHs last year, I'm convinced Slick will be one of the best offensive players conference has seen in awhile. The only problem for Bethel is that their pitching staff projects to be pretty bad this year. They return McCracken, who has shown himself to be a reliable pitcher... but after that it's slim pickins. Bethel's going to have trouble if they can't find ways to outscore teams this year.

6. Carleton--- While I don't expect Carleton to compete for the MIAC playoffs as they did last year; they are definitely not the doormat of the MIAC as they'd been in the past. They lose Melson and Guevin, which who will be hard to replace, but they still have several very quality players in Fujisawa, Wirta and Troyanski who I expect to have pretty big impacts this year. I'm not entirely counting them out, but they'd need to play pretty flawless against teams like Bethel, MAC, Aug, and StO (who have better talent) if they expect to make a return trip to Dundas this year.

7. Hamline--- Very young team who I think will have trouble keeping up in close games this year with the teams above them. Based on the simple fact that they don't really have a heap of talent in their lineup (solid hitters, but no big names like Kaczrowski or Bennett anymore), combined with a young pitching staff; I don't think they'll pose much of a threat. They do have several talented players, namely Mullendore who had a great year last year. Well coached, but not sure they have the firepower.

8. Concordia--- Concordia may very well be better than I am listing them; however, considering the players they had in the middle of their lineup last year and finishing 8-12 still in conf., I don't see things getting better. Losing Schumacher for their pitching staff (despite not having a good year last year) will be significant, as will Johnson from their lineup. They still return 3 hitters than put out some very good numbers, but I have a sneaking suspicion those might have been inflated a bit by having one of the best power hitters in college baseball hitting around them.

9. St. John's--- Similar to Concordia in that they very well could sneak ahead of few of the teams listed before them. Can they make the playoffs? Most likely not. Can they ruin another team's chances at making the places? Certainly. They have a couple bright spots in their lineup, but outside of 1-4, nothing is proven. Their pitching also showed some bright spots, but experience and depth are also in question there as well.

10. Gustavus--- Simply put, they don't have the talent they've had the past 3-4 years that will let them move up in conf. this year. Their pitching has always been their weakness, and not having a solid offense as they've had in years past hampers them quite a bit. They could prove me wrong, but I think rebuilding might be the name of the game in St. Peter this year.

11. St. Mary's--- Someone has to take this spot, and while SMU is here almost every year, they (like Carleton) are not the doormat they once were as well. They had a lot of contributions from underclassmen last year, especially within their pitching staff, so I expect the experience of last year might toughen them in that regard a bit. Olberding is one of the better hitters in the MIAC, but we'll have to see what kinda production pops up around him.

Lemme know what ya think. Pretty rough right now, might have to catch some dome games the next couple weeks and make some adjustments to my picks, but this is what I got for now.

it's not whack at all... look at Schuld's conference statistics. not very impressive at all.

there were two pitchers who were a head above him in conference (Adams and Murray) and one (Adams) who threw 4 complete game shutouts against conf. teams, including St. Olaf and St. Thomas. i think that was pretty much expected.