Who's the MVP?

Another ho-hum win for the Tigers. Down 4-0 in the 9th inning, the Tigers drew two walks to lead off the inning (a difficult task since you could have driven a Buick through the umpire’s strike zone), setting up Matt Clark’s three-run bomb. Not to be outdone, Ryan Schimpf doubled home the tying run with two outs and two strikes. No pressure or anything. By the time Blake Dean hit a solo shot to win it in the 10th, the whole thing seemed pre-ordained. Here’s the highlights:


Win #17. No biggee. So, let’s answer the unanswered question from yesterday: who is the Tigers MVP? Well, let’s look at the contenders:

It could be this guy. Blake Dean leads the team with a 339 batting average, though I’m not really a batting average kind of guy. Let’s get used to the trilogy stats right now: AVG/OBP/SLG. It gives an idea of how a guy hits, how often he gets on, and with how much power. Dean hit 339/421/610. He had 14 HR and 49 RBI. He even steals the occasional base (4 of 6). He plays decent defense, and his been a rock in the middle of the order all season, batting third in 45 games and never batting lower than 5th. He’s the guy the team relies on, he’s the star player, he’s the obvious choice.


But it could be this guy. On a team that relies so heavily on freshmen and sophomores, Michael Hollander is the senior leader that holds the team together. As the times got harder, Hollander played better. He hit 296/380/466 overall, but 308/379/519 in SEC play. He stole 4 of his 6 bases in SEC play, and only made 4 of his 15 errors in conference play. He’s been a stellar defensive third baseman, and he’s added the sock.


It could be this guy. Jared Bradford was a preseason All-American, but he was moved to the pen not because of poor pitching, but because Mainieri could use him in more games. He pitched in almost half of LSU’s games, and was a valuable swingman to get from the starters to the pen. But come on, he wasn’t as valuable of a pitcher as…


… this guy. Ryan Verdugo’s gonna make a lot of money next year. Mainly because lefties who throw a biting curveball are in high demand. Especially ones who go 8-2 with a 3.61 ERA, averaging almost a strikeout per inning. He’s given LSU the ace they have lacked for so long, and the team is no longer just giving away the Friday game.


It could be this guy. Ryan Schimpf has helped anchor the infield along with freshman DJ LeMahieu. I’m a firm believer that teams are built from the middle of the defensive spectrum out, so middle infielders are dear to my heart. Schimpf is probably the most well-rounded player on the team. He hits 301/407/550. He hit 10 homers, but also stole 13 bases. He also only made 2 errors all season, at one of the most demanding defensive positions. I hate to say he is without flaw, but he is pretty good at everything.


Or it could be this guy. Matt Clark is a force of nature at the plate. He’s actually a pretty good defensive 1st baseman, but he’s not here for his glove. He’s here because he hit 332/428/717. That’s right, he slugged 717. He hit 20 home runs in 52 games, an absurd total which harkens back to Gorilla Ball and aluminum bats. He hit slightly better in SEC play: 344/439/760. They say he can’t lefties, but that just means he doesn’t absolutely humiliate them the way he does righties.

Heck, you decide.

A Letter To the Bandwagon

Dear Richard,

First off, welcome to the bandwagon. You’re not REALLY a bandwagon fan since you are, first and foremost, an LSU fan. It’s not like you’ve spent the last few years rooting for Rice’s baseball team and are suddenly switching loyalties. You’re not switching teams, you’re just reacquainting yourself with a team you are already inclined to root for.

That said, I’m here to help you get up to speed with the team. I’m always willing to help. Who’s the star? A good question, actually. According to the SEC, no one. Not a single LSU player was named either first or second team All-SEC. Not one. And only Micah Gibbs was named to the All-Freshman team. I’m not asking for the world here. But you would think at least one player from the West Division champions, owners of the 2nd best record, and possible national seed would at least made 2nd team. And you’d think a successful, freshman dominated team like LSU would have someone other than Gibbs make the All-Freshman team.

OK, we’ll get into that. Let’s start with the basics: why is LSU winning? Well, a cynic would point out the winning streak has not exactly come against the powers of the SEC. South Carolina and Kentucky were both ranked when they played LSU, but they finished the season a combined two games above .500 in conference play. USC will be the seventh seed in the SEC tournament. Auburn and Mississippi State battled for the cellar, a combined 20 games below .500 in conference play. But 16 wins in a row is 16 wins in a row (and Tulane and UNO are both hovering around the rankings, so its not all chumps). Winning 12 straight games in a conference schedule that is only 30 games goes beyond a mere streak. That’s almost half a season without a loss.

LSU has the best offense in the SEC. Remember last year when I called the offense historically pitiful? Well, things have turned around. LSU has scored 220 runs, tops in the SEC. And scoring runs is what offenses should be judged on. LSU gets a lot of hits (tied for 1st with Alabama) and hits for a lot of power (tied for 1st in total bases, 2nd in slugging). Bama’s component stats are a little better, but LSU wins the bottom line: they score runs.

LSU’s got good pitching, too. They rank third overall in conference ERA. So they prevent runs. Pittman, you were right. Like any good team, they score runs and don’t let up very many. It’s more the offense than the defense, but the defense is pretty darn good. Relief pitching? How did you know? Bradford’s become sort of a swingman uber-reliever, pitching in relief so he can get in more games. Mainieri’s been comfortable getting saves from Coleman, Bertuccini, Ross, or the nominal closer Bradshaw. Why not? All of them have ERA’s 3.50 or lower.

This is running a bit long, so I’ll try to help you identify the best player tomorrow, which is a tougher task than you might think. Besides, it’ll give you a chance to meet most of the team. Right now, just enjoy the bandwagon.

Signed,
Poseur

Poseur: End of the Omaha Era

Alex Box Stadium will host its last weekend series this weekend. LSU’s doing everything right, throwing a big party, naming the All-Alex Box team (broken up into eras like the Omaha Era… nice touch). The baseball team has even gotten into the act by winning some games and making this final series somewhat meaningful.

There’s been some idle speculation that LSU could host a regional. I like that such talk even exists, and that its not wholly delusional, but it’s still not likely. Sure, LSU has won 9 games in a row and now sits #29 in the RPI, but unless the regionals are handed out based on sentiment, it’s at best a longshot. So let’s consider this the last games in the Box.

Alex Box doesn’t pack in the crowds like she used to. Fan support has been good these last three years, but not great. Some blame it on the losing, but except for last year, the team was never that bad. I know it seems like an eternity, but LSU has only been absent from the postseason for two seasons. And we were last in Omaha back in 2004. Not that long ago, really. So it’s not Smoke that drove off the crowds. It’s not the drudgery of losing.

It’s football.

Nothing has hurt LSU baseball more than the rise of LSU football. Let’s step into the Wayback Machine a mere 13 years ago to the springof 1993. LSU football was mired in the depths of the Curly Hallman era. Four losing seasons were behind us, two more lay ahead. The team was coming off of a 2-9 year highlighted by a loss to Colorado St. The basketball team had been to its 15th straight tourney, but little did we know, it was the last one for almost a decade. In 1993, baseball was the only game in town. And they were awesome.

In 1993, the baseball team was in the midst its fifth straight 50 win season. The team would win its second national title, a convincing 8-0 annihilation of Wichita State. Three more were to come. And going to games was a blast. Not just because the team was a true dynasty. Not just because Alex Box was a pretty intimate setting and a fun place to watch a team.

It was because for about five or ten years, baseball was the only winning game in town. While football will always come first in the hearts and minds of the LSU faithful, baseball holds a special place in my heart. During the time I was in school, baseball was about my only taste of winning. And win they did. Now, winning is de rigeur for almost every program. It wasn’t always that way.

The baseball team got us through the darkest days of the LSU athletics program. If nothing else, that’s worth a fireworks show. Thanks, Skip.

Poseur: The Jarrett Lee Era Starts Now

Ryan Perrilloux’s decent is nearly complete in becoming the biggest waste of talent to go through the LSU program since Cecil Collins. Make no mistake, Perrilloux is a phenomenal player and LSU will be a worse team without him. But there comes a time when you finally have to cut bait. Miles gave Perrilloux chance after second chance, all of which Perrilloux has blown. After a failed drug test, Perrilloux had run out of chances. Miles hand was forced, and he showed his star quarterback the door.

An ESPN poll, while admittedly a non-scientific study, showed that almost 94% of 21,000 voters believe Miles did the right thing. You can’t get 94% of any group of people to agree on anything.

I don’t think Miles was wrong to give Perrilloux so many chances. His sins, though multitude, have always been more in the classification of general stupidity than truly harmful. But there were just so many slip ups that eventually, he had no good grace to fall back on when he tested positive, allegedly, for cocaine.

Perrilloux is looking to transfer to Southern, where he can play right away. And I really do wish him nothing but the best. I genuinely hope he can turn his life around because he is going full-throttle down a pretty awful self-destructive course. I’m not talking about not getting into the NFL, I’m worried he’s not going to stay out of jail. Hopefully, this is the thing he needs to finally straighten out and take control of his life. Because the road he is on right now does not end in a happy place.

Just ask Cecil Collins.

Poseur: Finally, To Baseball

This was supposed to be an obituary.

The season was over. LSU was in 11th place in the SEC, and they were playing the 7th ranked team in the country. They sat five games under .500 in SEC play, and another series loss seemed quite likely, which would put LSU six games under with three series left to play. The season was about to be, for all intents and purposes, over.

And then a funny thing happened. LSU swept South Carolina. LSU had to come from behind in every single one of those games. But the game which may have saved the season was Saturday’s epic comeback. Down 7-0 in the 6th inning, LSU rallied to tie the game 9-9 and force extra innings. Seemingly exhausted from the effort, they fell behind again in the 11th inning, only to have South Carolina’s three errors in the bottom half of the inning key another comeback and a 12-11 win.

It was an astounding win, and one LSU followed up on Sunday with a win in a seemingly interminable game broken up by two one-hour rain delays. No one can accuse LSU of not playing on the level, as they could have… actually should have… called it a game when the rains came and LSU was up by 2 in the 8th.

And now the situation, while not exactly rosy, is almost favorable. LSU sits in 9th place in the SEC, one-half game out of the SEC tourney. But the teams are tightly packed. Vandy is in 3rd with an 11-9 record. Arkansas is in 10th at 9-11. At 9-11-1, LSU is at the bottom of the pack, but when only two games separate 3rd from 10th, it’s not that big of a deal. What matters now is that there are only three series left, and LSU has probably the most favorable schedule of any team left in the running. LSU goes on the road to play 11-10 Kentucky this weekend, returns home to play last-place Mississippi State, and then closes out on the road against 11th place Auburn. That’s a pretty soft landing to what had looked like to be another downer of a year.

Hell, I was even ready to bury them. And now, their postseason odds look pretty good. All because they fell behind 7-0.

Poseur: I Hate the Draft

I’ve been meaning to post for awhile about the baseball team, and I swear I will get to it. I’ve been busy with the big move to Dallas and I’m swamped at the new job. The long and short of it is this: the offense is still bad but it’s no longer historically awful. The team is inconsistent, as one would expect with a lot of freshmen and sophomores. And, finally, sweeps are killer. LSU has had two series in which they didn’t win a game, and that can’t happen if you want to make the postseason. But more on that later. I want to follow up on Richard’s thoughts on the draft and add my two cents.

I hate the draft. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Actually, I love prospects and I’m a big dork about GM moves. But the cottage industry surrounding the draft has gone from kind of cool to absolutely obnoxious. All of these mock drafts? Worthless. The draft grades on Monday? Even more worthless. Two to three months of hype over 40 times, body types, and “triangle stats”? It’s just creepy.

Everyone is expert. But the draft is like recruiting, it’s all a numbers game. Most first round picks do pan out, though few will become true franchise players. Middle round players will typically be roster filler, but a few guys will be better and a few worse than expected. Know how you can tell? You can’t. Because if you could, I guarantee an NFL front office can.

That said, I do have some general draft guidelines which I think I’ve picked up over the year. It’s more my general guideline, and I freely admit I could be wrong. Here’s my draft rules:

ONE. Draft linemen. I love linemen. Good teams are built from the inside out, and given the state of quarterbacks in the NFL, you’re almost better off letting someone else develop a guy for few years and then poaching him (SEE Favre, Brett; Anderson, Derek; Brees, Drew). Also, linemen have a low bust ratio. Even the “busts” have turned out to be serviceable players.

TWO. Everyone is an injury risk. I’m going to disagree with Richard on Glen Dorsey. Any team that passes on Dorsey because of his injury is stupid. Over fifty percent of NFL players will miss a game due to injury in any given season. Which means every single player is an injury risk.

THREE. Top picks are overrated. I agree with Richard that the draft trading chart should be ignored. And those top five picks can absolutely sink a team. Seriously, check out the top five picks from the last five drafts:

2007: Jamarcus Russell, Calvin Johnson, Joe Thomas, Gaines Adams, Levi Brown
2006: Mario Williams, Reggie Bush, Vince Young, D’Brickshaw Ferguson, AJ Hawk
2005: Alex Smith, Ronnie Brown, Braylon Edwards, Cedric Benson, Cadillac Williams
2004: Eli Manning, Robert Gallery, Larry Fitzgerald, Philip Rivers, Sean Taylor
2003: Carson Palmer, Charles Rogers, Andre Johnson, Dewayne Robertson, Terrence Newman

How many of those guys are absolutely dominant players? Heck, how many are Pro Bowlers? Of those 25 players, they have a grand total of 13 Pro Bowl appearances between them from 9 players, and no one has made more than 2. And remember, these guys get huge salaries.

FOUR. Take the best player available. If you are plugging a hole, grab a free agent. If you’re building a foundation, unless you have a guy who is the top three at his position signed to a good contract for the next few years, you should just take the best player. Because going back to Point Two: everyone is an injury risk. You might need a running back sooner than you think.

FIVE. Always be guided be one simple premise: can this guy play football? Often teams outthink themselves and get caught up in a guy’s “triangle stats” or whatever and forget to just see how the guy plays. While plenty of college stars can’t make the transition to the NFL, GM’s should be advised that if the guy wasn’t good in college, he probably won’t be good in the pros. Guess what? Everyone in the draft is athletic. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or has such a narrow view of athleticism as to render their opinion worthless. Peyton Manning’s “measurable” stink. He’s also a great quarterback. Your goal isn’t to win a relay of 40 yard dashes, it’s to win football games. Get guys who can play.
Finally, don’t watch the draft. Go outside. Just read about it later. Because let’s face it, 24 hours of watching Chris Berman is too much for any rational person to take.

Day Two - Cinderella Gets to Jitterbug

It's not that Day One lacked drama. It's just that aside for about one hour of basketball, it didn't quite deliver. Belmont taking Duke to the limit was dramatic, even if it didn't have a happy ending. Day Two had the happy endings. Just because I'm a firm believer in overanalyzing things, let's jump to way to broad conclusions from each upset. The big boys will have their day in a week, but the first weekend is about the little guy.

LESSON ONE: Stephen Curry is awesome.
Actually, we knew that going in. Curry is one of those guys I am openly rooting for just so I can keep watching him play. He is practically automatic from anywhere on the court. Gonzaga got screwed with this draw.

LESSON TWO: The committee hates and despises mid-majors
Gonzaga v. Davidson. Western Kentucky v. Drake. Butler v. South Alabama. Pretty much every mid-major people were excited to see got matched up with another mid-major power. It's like the draw was designed to get rid of the mid-majors as quickly as possible. But first, we got incredible drama from two of those games. Actually, the WKU game kind of sucked until Drake made a spectacular late run to force overtime, build a lead in OT, only to lose it on a desperation three at the buzzer. How would you rather lose?

LESSON THREE: Clemson was overrated.
Not to call out Clemson, but come on. They beat Duke ad suddenly people act like thy are a great team. They were the fifth best ACC team at best for most of the season, only to benefit from Maryland's late season collapse. They win one game against Duke and suddenly they ar a 5-seed and a popular pick to make noise? Why? That was their first real impressive win all season. Really, they weren't that much better than Villanova.

LESSON FOUR: The SEC stinks.
Tennessee struggled with American but put them away late. Mississippi State, admittedly, looked good against Oregon. Arkansas beat the floundering Hoosiers, which just about any team in the field could have done. End of good news. The SEC took it on the chin in round one , as they really weren't all that great in victory and the defeats piled up. Vanderbilt led the way with an absolute thrashing at the hands of Siena, in a game that was never even competitive. They didn't get upset, they got beat.

LESSON FIVE: Tampa rocks.
Four games, four upsets. UConn and Drake went down in the morning. Then Vandy and Clemson at night. Now, I hate the pod system, but this is something that could only happen because of the pods. Four first round games, all resulting in upsets could only happen in a venue with two 4-13 and two 5-12 games.

LESSON SIX: Let's not get too comfy with Cinderella just yet.
OK, 1st round wins are nice, and there's going to be at least two 12 or 13 seeds in the Sweet Sixteen thanks to Tampa, but let's take a quick step back. Before the tourney, I pointed out there isn't a hell of a lot of difference between teams seeded 5 through 12. The gap is really those top three seed lines. Know how many of the teams seeded 1 through 3 lost? That's right, zero. The decimation of the bracket helps the power teams, and we're still on course for the heavyweights to assert their will. The next two days go a long way towards showing whether this is another Year of the Upset, or whether this was just clearing the way for the top seeds.

Checking in on Baseball

We interrupt the end of basketball season to remind you that LSU baseball has just begun its SEC schedule. LSU went to Tennessee and dropped the first game 6-5 and looks like they will wait until Sunday to play again due to weather. A 6-5 loss is actually a perfect indicia of the season so far.

If you're an optimist, you'll see the good things from the game: Matt Clark hit his seventh home run of the season, which is as many as any tiger hit last season. Every starter got on base once, showing some real depth in the lineup. Bradford, our All-American pitcher, threw nine strikeouts in five innings of work. And Aaron Ross threw three innings of scoreless ball from the pen. The team fell behind and rallied back, and had the tying run at second and the go-ahead run at first in the 9the inning. All of these were good things.

If you're a pessimist, you start with the obvious: we lost. Bradford, a guy we need to be awesome, let up six runs in five innings, which isn't good. Sure, everyone got on base, but no one had a multihit game. Hollander drew the team's only walk, and he was hitless. Jared Mitchell kept up his trend of striking out at a truly prodigious rate. LSU rallied, but that means they fell behind: 6-1 after six innings. And LSU never put up a crooked number on the scoreboard, scoring 3 or more runs.

Both groups are right. There are some really encouraging signs from this team. Clark is a masher. Blake Dean is picking up where he left off last season. DJ LeMahieu has been a revelation both in the field and a the plate. The pitching has been solid, though not overwhelming. Even Mike Hollander is hitting .300. And there are quality bats coming off the bench. They are even playing good defense. This team is ten times better than last year's squad.

But that isn't saying much. Last year's squad was terrible. The bullpen is still unreliable. LSU has been getting wins, but they have played a creampuff schedule. Even with the steady diet of patsies, LSU has been unable to get a sweep, seemingly always dropping the third game. That points to the weakness of finding a third starter and the bullpen. Mainieri has been unable to find a starting job for Helenhi, who is one of the team's better hitters. Hollander's hitting .300, but with no power. And while Dean is a stud, finding the other two outfielders has been the biggest problem. Mitchell strikes out way too much. Escobar was awful but coming off injury, Landry is hitting .229, Jones may not be ready, Pontiff lacks speed and power, and Gaudet... well, I can't find a problem with Gaudet other than he can't seem to get the starting gig.

A lot of this is nitpicking. The team looks pretty good, but the SEC is capital "L" loaded, so pretty good may not cut it. And potential around these parts don't make the sun shine. LSU expects wins in baseball. The pieces are there, and hopefully, they are coming together. Because I'm feeling like an optimist today.

Basebal Preview: Last Year of the Box

Last year, I wrote a particular savage post about the baseball team which may have indicated that I thought last year’s offense was historically pitiful. However, I did close with the hopeful note that it was just Mainieri’s first year and I believe a coach gets a free pass in his first year. That still holds true, but now it’s time for Mainieri to produce.

The team is a preseason pick to finish 5th in the SEC West, but Manieiri openly talked about contending for Omaha. While I admire his gusto, the success of this team should be measured fairly modestly: making the SEC tournament and the NCAA tournament (strangely enough, making the NCAA’s may be the easier task). LSU opens the season ranked #25, so it’s not like the optimism is wholly unjustified. How can this team so quickly reverse is fortunes?

Well, for starters, by absolutely gutting the team. Tonight’s starting lineup will include four players who weren’t on the team last year and four sophomores. Mainieri has also announced that Chad Jones and Micah Gibbs, two more newcomers, will start a game in the Indiana series. The weekend rotation will have one newcomer, though tonight’s starter is Jared Bradford, who is on the Golden Spikes Award watch list, and Bradford was about the only bright spot last year. However, don’t think the pitching staff hasn’t been revamped. Verdugo’s been named the midweek starter, and Daniel Bradshaw was the Louisiana High School Pitcher of the Year and is the team’s new closer. Anthony Ranaudo, drafted in the 11th round, turned down the Rangers to pitch at LSU but is right now out with an injury. Someone is just keeping a rotation spot warm for him.

Also, of the returning players, almost all of them lack experience. Mike Hollander is the only 3-year letterman on the entire roster, and he starts off the season moved to a new position (3rd base) and batting last in the order. Normally I have a problem with giving a guy a slot just because of his age, but since this team is so bereft of true senior leadership, I’m okay with one spot for a guy for leadership instead of production. But the leash is short. After Hollander, there are only six other players on the roster with two years in the program (Haydel, Byrd, Coleman, Pontiff, McGhee, and Cain). Of those, only P Ryan Byrd is a starter, though Nicholas Ponitff should be in the outfield rotation while Coleman and Cain were pretty good in the pen last year (Cain was our most effective reliever and Coleman had a great K-BB ratio despite a high ERA). Everyone else on the team has one year or less in the program. Mainieri brought in 19 players in this recruiting class, named #1 in the country, including 12 freshmen.

How are they going to do? Well, we’ll find out pretty quickly. Of the 12 freshmen, 11 of them were named High School All-American. It really is a dream class, and one that LSU needs to produce right away. For this season, Mainieri needs the JUCO studs to step up right away. 1B Matt Clark, DH Matt Gaudet, and SP Jordan Brown are already starters. SP Ryan Verdugo is the midweek starter while INF Rene Escobar and SS Derek Helenihi were both JUCO All-Americans. Ryan Schimp and Mike Hollander better produce or else their seasoned veteran status won’t count for squat.

As bad as last year’s offense was, there is hope the returning starters can turn it around since, aside from Hollander, they were all freshmen. Schimpf and Jared Mitchell were freshmen thrown to wolves last year and looked like it. C Sean Ochinko was the second best freshman on the team last year, and he got better in the offseason, making the Cape Cod leagues All-Star Game. Of course, the best freshman was OF Blake Dean, who now takes up the mantle as LSU’s unquestioned best position player and leader. A huge mantle as a sophomore, but on this team, the sophomores are the veterans.

I’d expect a lot of the new players to have the same growing pains as last year’s freshmen, while the sophomores should now dramatically improved. While Omaha might be a pipe dream, there is the talent to make it if everything breaks right. The real goal for this team should be making the Super Regionals. That would be a great season, and would be a stepping stone to great things next season. But this team absolutely has no excuse to miss the tournament again. It’s a young team, so expect some inconsistent play, but this should be the most exciting LSU team since the Bertman era.

Bring on Indiana.

Non-LSU: Monk Elected To Hall of Fame

Cross-posted on Poseur.

Art Monk finally got elected to the Hall of fame. It’s about friggin’ time.

I’m kind of a Hall of Fame geek. OK, not even kind of. I’m the person who is genuinely outraged by Tim Raines and Bert Blyleven’s stalled candidacies while Jim Rice keeps getting more and more support. But Art Monk has long been my pet candidate, as his absence from the Football Hall of Fame actually lessened the Hall because Monk isn’t just qualified, he’s obscenely qualified.

Passing in the NFL has radically changed in the past 25 years or so. And passing stats have become larger and larger as teams have relied on the pass. To see this in numbers, of the top 50 players ranked by career receptions, 33 of them started their career after 1990 and 15 of them are still active. That’s just a long way of saying passing stats are weighted heavily towards modern players.

Monk ranks 7th all-time in receptions. When he retired, he was #1. Monk played in an era before the current explosion in passes yet his numbers still stack up favorably against modern players, even Hall of Famers. For example, he had more receptions and more yards than Michael Irvin. He was also the first player to catch 100 passes in a season. And until Jerry Rice came along and broke every receiving record there was, Monk held the career receptions record, the single-season record, and the record for most consecutive games with a catch.

Those aren’t borderline Hall of Fame numbers. Those are inner circle, first-ballot numbers. That’s before we get into the three Super Bowl rings. And he had to wait for inferior receivers like James Lofton and Michael Irvin to get in before he got his ugly blazer (not to pick on Irvin who is a legit Hall of Famer, he just wasn’t Art Monk). Not to be mean to Lofton, but the only person who thought Lofton was better than Monk when they were playing at the same time was Lofton’s mom. The point is not that Lofton and Irvin don’t belong in the Hall of Fame, it is that they DO belong in the Hall and Monk is even better. There’s no better case for the Hall of Fame than being better than the people already enshrined.

It only took a decade, but Monk finally gets the honor he’s always deserved. He’s now a Hall of Famer, and he even gets to go in with his teammate, Darrell Green, who is in the conversation for the best cornerback to ever play the game. So not only do things work out, it works out even better if he hadn’t had the wait. The Hall of Fame is richer for having Art Monk in it. That’s the definition of a Hall of Famer.

First Thoughts On the Game

This was no fluke. LSU is better. LSU is a lot better. There was some ability to explain away last year's OSU collapse, like the standard line about them taking their press clippings too seriously. No such excuse exists this year. They got beat by a better team. Simply put, in the first half, Ohio State played about as well as they could possibly expect and they were down 24-10.

When LSU added a TD on the opening drive of the game, it was over. I started sampling the cheese dip and actually talking to people. Everything that happened from that point on was just LSU protecting a lead by running out the clock.

And for all of the talk of Les Miles being too emotional and not being nearly the game day coach Tressel is, it was Miles who exuded calm in the early going when the team fell down 10-0. It would be hard to imagine a worse start for the tigers: a long TD run allowed by a pretty egregious bad line taken by Steltz, a fumbled snap setting up a short field, and a botched coverage allowing a huge gain. All in the first six minutes of play.

And LSU didn't blink. They responded with a 14-play drive which resulted in 3 points. Then the defense got a stop. Then there was another long drive, this one resulting in a touchdown. Tie game. Coaching isn't all about X's and O's. It's about falling behind big early and showing confidence in the team to slowly rally back. Miles is never going to be a top tier tactician, but he was clearly the better coach yesterday. Because his team, even down 10, was cocky and confident. It was great game day management, and I hope this is when Miles' detractors will shut up. In fact, the most common theme of the pregame coverage was Ohio State's huge edge in coaching. Tressel is a great coach, but Miles is now deservedly on that level.

As far as talent, two things struck me: Our secondary absolutely dominated their receivers and we have tons and tons more depth. The secondary's performance speaks for itself, as they blanketed the Buckeyes' receivers all night, forcing Boeckman to make pretty bad decisions, as he is wont to do. His line gave him time, but there was no one open.

But the depth was the key. OSU's starters are just as good as LSU's at most positions. But our depth at almost every position was staggering. Their offense was Beanie Wells and not much else. Only 6 players showed up on their rushing/passing/receiving scoresheet. LSU had 8 different players rush the ball and 8 players catch a pass (only 2 of them also rushed the ball). That's 14 players who got a touch. And though it doesn't show on the boxscore, our defense also showed a similar kind of depth. Steltz went down with injury and the defense didn't miss a beat. LSU just kept coming in waves.

To say some nice things about Ohio State, Beanie Wells is the real deal and their offensive line is awesome. Their line won most of the battles during the game, but it didn't matter because no one was open. You're not going to stop Dorsey from making plays, but they did a pretty good job. Ohio State is a good team. LSU is just better.

Then again, LSU is the best team in the nation. #1 in the AP. #1 in the BCS. #1. Feels nice to say. We're #1.

Deserving?

Gene Wojciechowski wrote a column for ESPN which, well, let's just quote him:

I hate to break this to the Buckeyes, and the Tigers, and that drunk dude with horse dung on his hands, but I'm not sure Monday night's matchup is really THE national title game. Just because it says so on the TV promos and the BCS crystal trophy doesn't necessarily make it true.

To begin with, are Ohio State and LSU even the two best teams in the country? I'm just asking.

Well, I'm pretty damn sure it's THE National title Game. In fact, I'm 100% positive. Look, I hate the BCS. It's a stupid system. There's a reason the formula gets tweaked every year, and that's because the powers-that-be have no faith in the system itself. That said, the BCS is designed to pick two teams. That's the crappy system we have in place, and it picked two teams. LSU was the team selected among a whole bunch of flawed candidates. Had the BCS spit out another team, I wouldn't have been outraged, but LSU doesn't need to apologize for being the team selected. Is LSU perfect? Of course not. But all of the other contenders were flawed.

Wojo then claims Georgia and USC have a better claim because they are hotter right now. Well, LSU was the hottest team last year and know what that meant? Absolutely nothing. Also, his list is intellectually dishonest, as he leaves off Virginia Tech, who WAS the hottest team in the country until the Orange Bowl. Whoops.

As for USC, they have not lost since losing to Oregon. And that win over Oregon St was pretty darn impressive. Then they beat a Cal team in total collapse, an Arizona State team that was busy performing an epic choke not completed until getting waxed by Texas in the Holiday Bowl, and then a pretty average UCLA team. Sure, they won those games, but that's a pretty weak "hottest team in the country". Oh, and they pasted an overmatched Illinois team.

Georgia hasn't lost since October 6th, when they got absolutely crushed by Tennessee. And they even scored some big scalps: Florida, Auburn, and Kentucky (depending on who you ask if that's a big scalp). Hell, the only game they played decided by less than 10 points was against Vandy. And we saw what they did against Hawaii. So I think it is fair to call them "the hottest team in the country." Too bad they didn't win their conference. The same conference LSU plays in. It's not who had the best second half of the season, but who had the best total season. And that is LSU.

Hell, all of a sudden, Kansas has a better claim than either Georgia or USC. Or West Virginia, who did choke away the title in the Backyard Brawl. The thing is, every team in flawed. Someone had to get picked in our given system. That team was LSU. We don't have to apologize for that.

Brady Ball Is Fantastic

LSU is saying 6-8 weeks, but ESPN is reporting Tasmin Mitchell is out for the year. Guess who I think is more reliable source? So, a season in which the Tigers were going to struggle to stay out of the SEC cellar has just gotten worse given the loss of LSU’s best player.

This leaves LSU with fundamentally a seven-man rotation, and a deeply flawed one at that. If the Maui invitational is to be any indication of the sort of team we have, it is this: a hard-working bunch who will fall just short. Anthony Randolph gives LSU a legit presence inside, even though he’s just a freshman. It will be interesting to see how the season progresses if he can hold up under all of the minutes he’s going to play. Speaking of miunutes, Marcus Thornton is going to play a lot of them. He also is going to score a lot points as the whole offense seems to go through him. Brady’s never been a great offensive mind, so expect a lot of Thornton jacking up shots with Randolph trying to get easy put-backs.
Damean Mason is the only senior in the rotation, and Nichols State was only his second game of the season. He’s a decent role player, but this is a very young team that is not going to rely on its senior for anything other than leadership. Randolph is already our best inside player and bo Spencer is already installed as the starting point guard. Our third freshman, Garett Green, is already threatening to getin the rotation and should slowly eat away at Alex Farrer’s minutes.

So where are we? The same place we always are. The freshmen look pretty good so far, but the team does not look like it can play with the top teams in the SEC on anything other than raw athleticism. The one good season in every four of John Brady’s tenure seems to hold, and by the time these guys are juniors, LSU could be really good. Heck, LSU might even be good next year with healthy Mitchell, Thornton, Temple, and Martin all in their senior years. But that’s next year.

This year is going to be ugly. The SEC may be a little down overall, so LSU has a shot at putting things together and making a run at an NCAA bid, but that’s where things look like they tap out. This is an NIT-caliber team. Which is par for the course under John Brady. He’s a year away from needing a tourney run to save his job, which he inevitably gets. When a coach does just enough to keep his job, it’s probably a sign he shouldn’t be the coach anymore, especially not the coach with the second-longest tenure in the conference. This is Brady Ball.

BCS Number Crunching

We’re #1 in the BCS. There’s a cottage industry of breaking down the BCS, and I don’t want to disparage their work, particularly TigerDropping’s LSUMatt, who really should draw a paycheck for his LSU-centric BCS analysis. So don’t think I’m trying to disparage his terrific work when I say this:

It’s all a load of crap.

There’s going to be no shortage of people telling us who to root for and what we need to have happen, but here’s the long and the short of it: the human polls are two-thirds of the formula. So the BCS analysis is really just breaking down the one-third of the BCS which is predictable: the computers. The other two-thirds is just guesswork. In short, it is the illusion of a mathematical objective criteria to selecting the BCS teams when it really is this: the top two teams in the polls with a brake in case they do something remarkably stupid.

This is what you need to know: LSU is #1 in the Coaches and the Harris Poll. And teams which are #1 don’t drop if they don’t lose. Ever. So, if LSU wins out, they are in the BCS title game. If they lose, they are not. Don’t kill yourself working out the Strength of Schedule consequences of Kentucky losing their last two games. It doesn’t really matter.

If we win out, who do we play? Well, probably the #2 team in the polls unless the computers fall in love with a team. I’m not smart enough to run those numbers, but I’d consider it pretty unlikely for Oregon to drop from #2 in the human polls without a loss, so their computer ranking would have to crater for them to miss out on the BCS if they win out. Which I’m sure could happen. The Big 12 is essentially a four-team conference (OU, Kansas, Mizzou, and Texas) and their lack of depth allows the big boys to just pad their record against the Iowa States and Baylors of the world. But if whoever comes out of the Big 12 Elimination Tournament will be hard to keep out of the title game, and Oregon has already proven to be rather easy to screw over (see 2001).

Let’s just pretend I’ve now gone on the standard futile rant about how the BCS is a total farce. The fact that the NCAA changes the formula every single year pretty much sums up why the system is broken. It has absolutely no legitimacy. Let’s put it like this, the RPI is a flawed measure in basketball, but it has a certain level of respect due to its consistent application, and the check of the human committee. The BCS has no such consistency and no such human oversight, despite 2/3 of the formula being human polls. It’s the illusion of objectivity.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. We win, we’re in. We lose, we’re not. You don’t need tea leaves to figure that out. What is right or what a team deserves is completely irrelevant in the BCS and always has been. But beware anyone who makes an argument based on the weakest part of a team’s resume (their loss) then the strongest part of their resume (their quality wins). At the end of the day, the question of quality is answered by answering this question: what has this team accomplished? No one in the nation has accomplished more than LSU. Apologize for nothing. No team has LSU’s resume of quality wins. If they win out, maybe Oklahoma will be on the same level (Texas, Mizzou, and Kansas or Mizzou a second time). Oregon has some great wins, but they have done nothing on the road, which hurts them. And their wins don’t look as impressive, though why has everyone forgotten about Arizona State already?

But based purely on watching teams, as an LSU fan I ask myself this question: what team scares me? Oklahoma has talent but seems even flakier than LSU and doesn’t look as impressive as their gaudy record. Oregon’s offense is terrific but their D is beyond porous. Kansas is crushing teams but the best team they have beaten is Texas A&M so I’m not sold. West Virginia turns the ball over at a disturbing rate though White and Slaton are incredibly explosive. Honestly, the team that matches up best against LSU and I don’t want to face surprises even me: Mizzou. Daniels is quietly having a great year and is the type of QB who eats our defense alive. And they have a pretty stout defense to go with their offense. The one team I find myself a little afraid of is the other Tigers. I never thought I’d find myself thinking that. Then again, they lost to OU.

And we lost to Kentucky. Beware of morons who compare losses.

Luck

Poseur checking in…

If there has been two general comments about LSU seasons so far it has been this: 1) LSU is way more talented than anybody but manages to not play to their ability and 2) LSU is really lucky. OK, these two beliefs aren’t anyway consistent when you stop to think about it. I believe #1 is pretty much correct. LSU is loaded with potential draft picks but manages to play nail-biter after nail-biter against teams it should blow out on paper. The Alabama game was probably just the worst example of it, as LSU made penalty after penalty and committed turnover after turnover.

“Luck is the residue of design.” – Branch Rickey

I want to talk about luck. If Belief #1 is correct, that LSU has extremely talented but finds ways to keep inferior teams in the game, than there are a lot of words to describe this team… but lucky ain’t one of them. LSU commits more penalties than anyone else in the SEC. That is not luck. It’s probably the complete opposite of luck.

LSU is among the SEC leaders in just about every imaginable statistical category. 4th in scoring offense. 2nd in scoring defense. 4th in total offense. 1st in total defense. Not surprisingly, LSU is 8-1 and leading the SEC. That’s not luck. That’s just being a good team. Luck would be if the team could barely find ways to score yet won every week.

The Tigers have played four straight games that have gone down to the wire, and they’ve gone 3-1 in those games. So we can assume they just weren’t lucky against Kentucky. The Florida game involved all those fourth down conversions, but were any of those plays lucky? There was no trick play, there was no lucky bounce. It just required Les Miles making some ballsy calls. The luck was simply having the guts to go for it.

How was Auburn lucky? Sure, there was a conversion for a TD on the last play of the game, but that’s not a luck. If that play happens with 8:42 left in the third quarter, it passes without comment. It was just a simple deep route. Nothing fancy, nothing lucky. Just executing a play in the clutch.

How was Bama lucky? The only reason the game was even close was because LSU played so bad as to let Bama in the game. They allowed 34 points in a game in which they allowed negative rushing yards. LSU played about as bad as a team can play and still won. It wasn’t a performance I’d describe as lucky.

This is not a lucky team. It is a maddeningly inconsistent team. It is team that plays on pure emotion, meaning it runs both hot and cold. It is a team that can’t seem to stand success and makes things difficult on itself. It is not a lucky team. Dumb? That might be fair. Inconsistent? Yes. The most talented and exciting LSU team I have ever seen in my entire life? Most definitely. But lucky? Absolutely not.

But let’s put it like this, I’ll put LSU up against anyone in the country anywhere and anytime. You want lucky? How about Ohio State’s luck that the Big Ten has absolutely imploded this year? That isn’t to say OSU isn’t good, they have certainly earned the benefit of the doubt, but the Buckeyes have played only one team ranked in the BCS top 25 (#23 Penn St). LSU has played five. It’s not in their control that the Big Ten stinks this year, but I’ll trade their luck for our luck.

O-Line Stats Part One

This is part one of Poseur’s two-part series for offensive line statistics.

One of the hardest things to evaluate in football is line play, just because there is a complete dearth of analytical tools at our disposal. We are pretty much at the mercy of common wisdom, which becomes a sort of group think. Team X has a good line because one expert said so, who is usually parroting another expert who is parroting another. And our statistical toolbox is virtually empty for evaluating lines.

I’m trying to rectify that. Now, I’m not claiming my o-line states are flawless. No statistic is, but it at least gives us something to start a debate with. It gives us a context to objectively evaluate the lines. Before I unveil the system, let’s admit the difficulties and flaws of creating an objective statistic for offensive line play.

First, an offensive line works as a unit, not as a bunch of individuals. At no position is the cliché “only as good as the weakest link” as true as it is with the offensive line play. So I don’t even attempt to evaluate individual linemen. If you want to know how good Ben Grubbs is, I really can’t help you. The system here is to evaluate each unit as a group.

Secondly, everything an offensive line is dependent on someone else. The line has essentially two jobs: prevent sacks and open up holes for the running game. So by counting the sacks or the average yards per carry is not just the responsibility of the line, it is determined by the mobility of the quarterback or the skill of a running back. This is an unavoidable fact of ANY football stat. Every statistic is influenced by more than just the player being evaluated. Receptions are a function not of a receiver’s skill but of the quarterback’s skill and the coach’s decision to throw the ball. Hell, every running stat has been dependent on the offensive line and we don’t throw those numbers out, so turnabout seems like fair play. Isolation of a skill in football statistics is frankly an impossible task.

Finally, opportunity matters. The number of sacks allowed for a pass-happy team like Kentucky is not the same as the run-oriented offense of Arkansas. This is actually a fairly easy problem to rectify, as we will look solely at rate stats. It’s not raw sack totals or raw rushing yards, but sacks per attempts and yards per attempt. This puts teams on an equal footing regardless of their offensive philosophy.

So, onto the system itself.

Like I mentioned, the offensive line has essentially two jobs: preventing sacks and opening up holes for the running game. Which means we can evaluate the line in two separate facets of the game: the running game and the passing game.

PASSING
It’s actually pretty easy. Take the total number of allowed sacks compared to the total number of pass attempts. OK, not exactly because there is some slight modifications needed. In college, sacks count as rushing attempts, not pass attempts, so the sacks have to be added to the total number of pass attempts. Also, to put the number on a more readable scale, we multiply the result by 100. It leaves us with this formula:

100*Sacks/(Pass Attempts + Sacks)

Taking the average SEC team, we plug in these numbers: 24 sacks and 359 attempts (actually, 24.167 and 358.583). The average team allows 6.739 sacks per 100 pass attempts.

RUSHING
Well, we can’t use simple yards per attempt because of the problem with sacks. Sacks count as rushes, not as pass attempts and we need to avoid penalizing a team twice for allowing a sack. The modified yards per rush formula we’ll evaluate offensive lines purely on rushing with is this:

(Rush Yards – Sack Yards)/(Rush Attempts – Sacks)

Once again, taking the average SEC team, let’s plug in some numbers. The average team attempts 435 rushes on the season, gains 1815 yards, and allows 24 sacks for 165 yards (actual figures: 435.333 rushes, 1815.083 yard, 24.167 sacks, and 165.083 yards). The average team averages 3.938 yards per attempt.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER
We’ve now encountered another problem. The numbers are on completely different scales. Take a look at the average team: 6.739 sacks and 3.938 yards/rush. If we work on the assumption that pass blocking is equally important as rush blocking, it’s impossible to simply add those numbers together. The ratio is too bizarre.

What we need to do is get these two variables on the same scale. And here we turn to one of our friends from your college statistics course: standard deviation.

We can take figure out how many standard deviations a team’s performance has been from the mean in both run blocking and pass blocking. This puts both variables on the same scale and also makes the numbers completely dependant on how the rest of the league has performed. We’ll call each computation of the number of standard deviations the PSCORE and the RSCORE.

Then, it’s a simple matter of adding the two numbers together to get an OLINE score. To keep the total number from being a long decimal, I multiply the result by 100 just to make it more readable.

This also means that 0 is a perfectly average offensive line. Any number in the negative is a below average team, and any number in the positive range is above average. Since this is running a bit long, we’ll put this into practice and apply these formulas to last year’s SEC teams in the next installment. There are some surprises on who ranks as a quality and poor offensive line. But without spoiling the suspense, Arkansas’ line was not just awesome, it was fucking awesome. It was every bit as good as we thought it was.

So at least the numbers passed the early smell test.

Quick Notes

A couple quick notes, not in reference to the earlier post of the day:

• I need to announce a Blog Alliance with BearMeat, a Baylor sports blog that is really entertaining, despite the rather homo-erotic name of their little club, the BearBackers. I met them through Poseur, our occasional guest-writer, who is a member of the BearBackers and has written for BearMeat. They were kind enough to be complimentary towards our blog here, and their blog is really quite entertaining. I'll never be quite as funny as they are.
• And finally, congratulations are in order to Glen "Big Baby" Davis who was drafted 35th in the NBA draft last night, and his rights traded to the Boston Celtics, which I maintain should be pronounced with a hard C, but it will never happen. He won't get guaranteed money due to not being drafted in the first round, but he has a legitimate shot to make this team.

How Thing Have Changed

The preseason magazines are beginning to filter out, and while I agree with Pittman’s skepticism of any and all preseason polls, it is nice to see LSU consistently ranked as a national title contender, usually as the #2 team in the nation behind USC. Of course, as Spider-Man warns us, with great power comes great responsibility.

Outside of the 2005 team, which had their season derailed by Katrina (and by derailed, I mean we went 11-2), this is the most heralded team in LSU history going into the season. Frankly, this team has to compete for a national title for it to be viewed as a success. Failing to win the SEC will be a failure. Failing to even make Atlanta would be catastrophic. I simply have no experience rooting for a team like this.

We are now one of the elite. We’ve arrived. This is what it feels like, Tiger fans. This is what it feels like to be burdened by expectations every season. This is what it feels like to take wins over decent SEC teams like Kentucky for granted. And completely looking past Mississippi State, who we own almost like no other team owns any other in the nation. State couldn’t even beat LSU when we were in the darkest days of Curly Hallman’s reign and they were consistent SEC contenders. Their only win in the past 15 years over LSU was in 1999, and was courtesy of a controversial call.

Seriously, can you imagine feeling like this ten years ago?

Actually, you probably could because we’re at the ten-year anniversary of the false spring that was the Dinardo Era. The 1997 Tigers went 9-3, finished the season ranked #13, and closed out the year with a blowout win over Notre Dame in a bowl game. It was in 1998 when things went bad.

But even then, we expected to have good teams, and maybe make Atlanta if everything went right. The feeling didn’t change that much under Saban, as we had the feeling we could win the SEC or we could lose to UAB (two feats Saban accomplished). This isn’t the same thing as today’s team. Every Tiger fan fully expects to win at least 10 games, win the SEC, and play in a BCS bowl. Anything less is going to be a disappointment.

Arrogant? A little. But it’s also true. This team is loaded. And the West lacks a real foil this season as Bama will be improved, but Arkansas and Auburn will likely take minor steps backwards. Those won’t be easy wins, but LSU will likely be favored in every single game it plays this year. We are now the hunted.

I have no idea how I feel about this. There’s already a generation of fans who don’t appreciate how nice it is to support a winning team. The idea the LSU faithful would even consider bashing a coach who had gone 22-4 in two seasons back when I was in school was insane. Twenty-two wins in two years? I would have pushed my mother under a Mardi Gras float for that level of success back in the Hallman days.

Losing breeds character. The 2003 title was so enjoyable because it brought back so many memories of so many players who bled purple and gold and so many disasters the fans suffered through. Even losing to Florida 58-3 seemed worth it. The Interception Game. The Purple Pants. Bring Back the Magic. Kevin Mawae never playing for a winning team. I don’t know if a second title, if we’re lucky enough to even play for it, would mean as much to me. Heck, I don't know if the 2003 Sugar Bowl meant as much to me as making the ndependence Bowl in 1996. There's something about coming in from the football wilderness.

I'm not blaming any Tiger fan for their high expectations. this team merits high expectations. But let's remember how far this program has come. We've climbed the mountain. We don't need another national title to confirm our place at the table. We should expect to win every game, but the sky won't fall when we don't. Even great teams lose games.

When you expect to win every game, every loss is a disappointment. But not every win is a cause for a celebration. I miss the days when it was.

Baseball: How Bad Was It?

Pittman said the team couldn’t hit. That does not begin to describe it. Let’s take a stroll through the numbers to find out exactly how terrible LSU’s offense was, because it really is kind of impressive. The levels of incompetence the Tiger offense achieved will not be matched any time in the near future.

The average SEC team posted an AVG/OBP/SLG of 299/385/450. That’s a good baseline for what an average SEC player should be able to produce. LSU, as a team, hit 256/331/379. That’s right, kids. LSU’s slugging percentage was lower than the average SEC team’s ON BASE PERCENTAGE. That’s not just terrible, that’s cover-your-eyes awful. But it gets worse.

LSU’s best hitter was Blake Dean, who hit 316/366/505. So he posted a slightly above average batting average, slightly below average OBP, and a pretty good slugging. If that’s your best player, you have problems. Once he got to SEC play, those numbers collapsed and he hit 270/323/417. That .417 SLG still lead the team in conference play. Dean beat up on crappy teams and got housed once he faced quality teams in the SEC. And this is the best we had.

No other player posted a conference average AVG, OBP, or SLG in a minimum of 100 at bats, except Sean Ochinko’s .371 OBP. Ochinko displayed almost no power in SEC play, but at least he got on base at a good clip. Other than that, every single player posted a below average rate stat. That’s so bad you almost have to be trying to suck that hard.

Check out LSU’s ranks in offensive categories in conference play (the raw figure is in parentheses, divide by 30 games for the per game rate, next to is the league leader’s number for some perspective):

AVG – 12th (254/311)
OBP – 12th (327/394)
SLG – 12th (360/512)
Runs – 12th (127/235)
Hits – 12th (254/337)
RBI – 12th (118/221)
HR – 11th (17/57)
TB – 12th (360/560)
PA – 12th (1131/1313)
BB – 10th (87/146)
SO – 4th (229/242)
SB – 4th (29/55)
CS – 1st (19/19)
GIDP – 1st (24/24)

I mean, wow. At least all of the small ball people should be happy because LSU is finally stealing bases. Of course, it is at the expense of any semblance of an effective offense. And how the hell can LSU lead the league in double plays given its paucity of baserunners?

I don’t even know how it is possible to lead the league in double plays while also finish dead last in baserunners by a wide margin. Especially considering one of the best ways to avoid a double play is to either hit a home run or to strike out. And LSU managed to strike out more than most of the teams, despite finishing dead last in plate appearances.

These numbers are nightmarish in their sheer ineptitude. Most of them fly in the face of logic. Bad offensive teams tend to not hit in many double plays because they don’t have a lot baserunners to double up. Teams that don’t get on base and strike out a ton, like LSU, usually have low GIDP totals due to their own offensive incompetence. But not our Tigers! They manage to actually excel at sucking.

There simply is no encouraging sign anywhere in those numbers. The team couldn’t get base hits. They couldn’t draw walks. They struck out a ton. They couldn’t run the bases well. When they did make contact, it was with little power. And they grounded into a ton of double plays.

There’s no nice way to say it: we suck.

Stats and Tools and JaMarcus Russell

With Pittman getting ready to take a rest, I think I should get more involved with this blog again. I just got out of law school finals, so I’ve got some free time again. And I’m no longer bitter about perhaps the worst NCAA basketball tourney ever played. They can’t all be winners, I guess. I also like to talk baseball, and things are getting intersting for the Tigers squad. But that's for another day.

I don’t really watch the Draft. I like player personnel decision and am actually quite interested in the actions of front offices, but actually sitting down and watching the Draft? That’s just excrutiating. Aside from a morbid fascination with Mel Kiper’s hair, I just can’t bring myself to watch it. Except for the first 15 minutes this year, because I wanted to see JaMarcus Russell go #1.

Most of the commentary made me happy. They talked about how great he was, his record as a starter (25-4), and his extraordinary physical tools (as if he’s ever going to be asked to throw a 60 yard pass from his knees). Ron Jaworksi, who I believe is the best NFL analyst on TV, called Russell the only franchise QB in this draft. High praise indeed. So I want to be clear, I’m not talking about some sort of ESPN conspiracy to badmouth LSU. That doesn’t exist except in the heads of some fans who equate any criticism with “bashing”. With that caveat in mind, I hate how there is this false debate between Quinn and Russell as a continuation of the stats vs. scouts argument.

I’m a stats guy. I think a player’s 40-time and his bench press are certainly relevant pieces of information, but take a backseat to the basic question: can he play football? Which means I like guys who have a record of performance. While it is possible for a successful college player to bomb in the pros, it is extremely unlikely for a player to fail in college and then succeed in the pros. The first thing I look at when evaluating a player in the Draft is simple: what has this guy done?

And the general storyline is that Quinn put up the big numbers in college, and Russell has the “tools” with mediocre numbers. Quinn is the, for lack of a better term, the “Moneybal” player and Russell is the tools goof. That general storyline is flat-out wrong. Russell’s numbers are unbelievably good.

232-342, 67.8%, 3129 yds, 28 TD/8 INT, 167.0 Rating, 9.15 yds/att
289-467, 61.9%, 3426 yds, 37 TD/7 INT, 146.7 Rating, 7.34 yds/att

That’s Russell vs. Quinn. Both players put up huge numbers, and I won’t even getting into an adjustment for playing in the SEC versus Notre Dame’s schedule. It took Quinn 125 more passes to throw for just 297 more yards. Russell completed a staggering 67.8% of his passes, which is so ridiculously high I can’t understand why people aren’t more impressed by it. And its not like he’s a dink and dunk passer. Every time Russell drops back to throw, he’s worth 9.15 yards to Quinn’s 7.34. Russell is worth almost two more yards a play. That’s a chasm.

Columnist love to point to the TD/INT ratio, but the key number is not the TD’s but the INT’s. Are we really supposed to reward Quinn because the Irish had an absolutely anemic running game and had to pass if there were ever going to score? TD’s are a usage stat, like saves or RBIs. It’s the INT’s we should focus on, and it’s a dead heat between the two. Russell doesn’t just have the tools, he has better numbers than Quinn as well.

Which leads to the next layer of the argument against Russell, that he is a one-year wonder. Like his previous season was poor or something. His 2005 numbers?

188-311, 60.5%, 2443 yds, 15 TD/9 INT, 136.6 Rating, 7.86 yds/att

Same completion percentage as Quinn, and a similar QB Rating and yards attempt. OK, Quinn has the TD advantage and the INT advantage, but it’s not like Rusell’s numbers were terrible. They compare quite favorable to Quinn’s 2006 numbers. And the way people are trying to spin 9 interceptions in 13 games as a really bad thing is just silly. Russell has never thrown a lot of interceptions. He has always put up lots of yards coupled with great rate stats. On top of that, he has a gaudy winning percentage and an almost unbelievable record of coming through in the clutch. He had eight fourth quarter comebacks in his career, and would have had nine had Iowa not scored on a hail mary.

There is no performance vs. measurables debate with Russell and Quinn. Russell has better numbers and he has better tools. He even has better intangibles and soft leadership skills. The debate between Russell and Quinn has always been completely phony.

Now, Russell and Calvin Johnson…