FanPost

College Baseball Composite Rankings

coachmelissa

As TCU fans, we are all aware of the chaos that can come with polls and rankings (12/7/14 is a day that will live in infamy). As crazy as polling can be in football, college baseball has its own ranking chaos. There are several different well-respected publications that offer their opinion on who the best teams are and if you pay attention to only one or two of them, you might see some crazy outliers that can negatively alter your opinions.

Of all these publications, there are six that most fans pay attention to the most: Baseball America, D1 Baseball, Collegiate Baseball News, National College Baseball Writers Association, USA Today Coaches Poll, and Perfect Game. Each of these websites do fine work covering the game of college baseball, but their perspectives often times do not line up with each other. For this reason, I have been making my own composite ranking based on these six rankings. By taking an average of the six rankings, we can hedge outliers and create a more coherent picture of who the top teams in the nation are.

As of 3/21, here are composite rankings:

Rank Team Previous StDev
SEC 1 Florida 1 0.00
SEC 2 Aggie 3 0.75
PAC 3 Oregon State 5 0.37
ACC 5 Miami 7 1.29
ACC 5 UNC 9 1.49
Big12 6 TCU 8 1.57
SEC 7 Vandy 3 2.27
ACC 8 Louisville 4 1.15
SEC 8 Ole Miss 10 0.58
ACC 12 FSU 11 1.26
SEC 12 LSU 8 1.80
ACC 13 Virginia 14 2.56
SEC 13 Mississippi St 15 2.11
SEC 14 South Carolina 21 3.20
ACC 16 Clemson 21 2.50
ACC 16 NC State 18 2.81
PAC 18 Cal 13 2.06
PAC 20 UCLA 23 3.86
WC 20 Missouri State 23 7.85
SEC 23 Arkansas 16 3.99
Big12 23 Oklahoma State 26 3.65
WC 23 Houston UR 5.07
WC 23 Florida Atlantic 24 5.09
WC 25 UC Santa Barbra UR 4.56
WC 26 Long Beach State UR 4.19
dropped out: Michigan, ULL, Oregon

The "StDev" is the amount of volatility surrounding each team. For example, all six rankings believe Florida is the number 1 team, therefore, their standard deviation is zero. On the other hand, the rankings highly disagree on where to place Missouri State...two rankings have them unranked while three others have them in the top 15.

Another reason I wanted to keep these rankings is to see how the conferences are doing as a whole. To do this, I have taken the composite scores from the rankings above and assigned point values to each position (number one rankings = 25 points, number 2 = 24, etc). This is how it shakes out:

Conference Score Change
SEC 128 -4
ACC 107 11
PAC 37 -8
Big12 23 4
Wild Card 13 5
B1G 0 -3

For simplicity's sake, I have rolled up all the mid-major teams into one "conference" labeled "Wild Card". As you can see, the SEC and ACC completely dominate the top 25. Our beloved Big 12 is being carried solely by TCU (with a little help from OSU).

Finally, I like to get a gauge on how each ranking publication feels about each conference's level of play. Much like the conference rankings above, I accumulated overall ranking points for each conference broken down by publication. This is what is looks like:

Baseball America Percentage D1 Percentage Baseball News Percentage NCBWA Percentage USA Percentage PG Percentage
SEC 248 38% 274 42% 262 40% 267 41% 279 43% 255 39%
ACC 196 30% 210 32% 213 33% 209 32% 214 33% 210 32%
PAC 105 16% 87 13% 69 11% 85 13% 74 11% 99 15%
Big12 50 8% 43 7% 32 5% 46 7% 40 6% 54 8%
B1G 12 2% 0 0% 2 0% 4 1% 5 1% 7 1%
WC 39 6% 36 6% 72 11% 39 6% 38 6% 25 4%

In bold, I have highlighted the high's and low's for each conference (I apologize if it is hard to see, I am limited by the posting format of this blog). Through two weeks of data, nobody favors the SEC and ACC more than the coach's poll. As for the Big 12, Perfect Game are our friends so far while Baseball America does not think too highly of our level of play.

I will continue to track these charts as the season goes and hopefully some people will find it interesting. Why do they matter? It probably doesn't. But to make an argument for them, it could give some insight on who will be national seeds and who will host regionals. As we know, getting a national seed is a fast-track to Omaha.

Based on how play has shaken out so far this season, I strongly believe the national seeds will be made up of three teams from the ACC, three from the SEC, one from the PAC (Oregon State), and one from the Big 12 (TCU). As for potential wild cards, Missouri State has the best shot but will probably need either TCU or Oregon State to slip up in order to get a national seed.

A lot can change as the season goes and I for one will be glued to my TV and laptop each weekend to watch this season unfold.

Go Frogs.

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