Do the 2009 OSU Beavers Baseball Team Have What It Takes To Make It To The College World Series?

I ran a baseball postseason poll a few weeks ago and the overwhelming winning of the poll was that the Beavers would make it back to the College World Series. 62% of the poll takers believed that at the time. Wow, talk about confidence/expectations.

Lets take a look at some numbers to see where we compare with the rest of the Pac-10:

Pac-10 Baseball 2009 Stats (through May 17th)

Batting:

Team                   AVG SLG%  OB%  2B 3B HR RBI  BB HBP  SO SB-ATT
Arizona.............  .319 .494 .392 127 32 40 350 163  66 346 68-91 
Arizona State.......  .305 .508 .422 100 28 64 387 305  60 342 90-122
California..........  .299 .488 .375 111 17 63 305 182  46 376 61-91 
UCLA................  .289 .447 .388 103 12 51 294 229  68 396 52-87 
Stanford............  .284 .425 .368  92  7 48 295 206  43 382 45-64 
Oregon State........  .278 .380 .390  73 12 21 291 248  55 305 42-56 
Washington State....  .278 .422 .362  80 11 49 286 158  78 367 37-55 
USC.................  .274 .406 .361  80 17 38 250 202  45 382 54-90 
Washington..........  .268 .439 .361  80 15 63 262 210  52 463 42-72 
Oregon..............  .229 .305 .298  50 12 16 133 124  37 333 59-80 

Clearly not a great hitting year for the Beavs. If it wasn't for the Oregon Ducks, the Beavs would be last in the Pac-10 in HRs, doubles, and slugging %. However, there are some bright spots. OSU is efficient in the running game at a 75% steal rate. The Beavers are tough to strike out, they take a lot of walks, and they drive in a lot of runs despite their low power output. A .278 BA and .390 OBP is respectable.

Pitching:

Team                   ERA    IP   H   R  ER  BB  SO  2B  3B  HR B/Avg 
Arizona State.......  2.76 463.2 404 187 142 131 474  67   8  24  .235 
Oregon State........  3.81 420.0 374 204 178 173 356  67   5  30  .242 
USC.................  4.07 464.1 458 276 210 213 409  80  12  26  .260 
UCLA................  4.27 459.0 452 276 218 178 482 103  11  43  .261 
Washington State....  4.38 441.1 484 270 215 157 378  90  12  38  .282 
Washington..........  4.66 453.2 481 281 235 183 365  82  11  44  .273 
Oregon..............  4.98 439.0 455 292 243 214 321  94   7  40  .272 
Stanford............  5.07 456.0 455 278 257 193 358  74   6  45  .268 
Arizona.............  5.59 441.1 522 333 274 201 345 103  28  35  .297 
California..........  5.74 442.0 500 335 282 239 401  86  14  43  .286

The Beavers are 2nd in the Pac-10 in Pitching. For all the wrangling over lead-off walks and giving up early leads, the pitching is quite good. Remove the ERA portion and the Beavs compare nicely to ASU who has a very good staff. Their walks are high, but giving up way less than a hit an inning is great. Their WHIP (Walks + Hits / IP) is 1.302 whereas ASU's WHIP is 1.153. That's an OK number for the Beavs with the difference being in the extra walks given up. For comparison, the 3rd place pitching team, USC, has a 1.445 WHIP. So that's a baserunner and a half every inning. Tough to keep scores down when that gets that high.

The Beavs are 2nd in fielding (.976) and only have 44 errors on the season. That helps the pitching out a ton.


What about comparing the 2009 Beavers with the great teams of the past?

Batting

Team            AVG  G   AB   R   H  2B  3B  HR RBI  TB SLG%  BB  SO  OB% SB-ATT 
2009 (6th)...  .278 47 1572 323 437  73  12  21 291 597 .380 248 305 .390 42-56  
2008 (7th)...  .292 52 1828 352 534 103  15  37 320 778 .426 257 367 .391 46-57  
2007 (7th)...  .287 67 2297 456 659 128  14  46 404 953 .415 328 448 .387 76-98 
2006 (5th)...  .302 66 2264 463 684 125  31  36 412 979 .432 315 401 .399 79-104
2005 (2nd)...  .320 56 1936 418 619 106  11  39 389 864 .446 275 329 .417 82-113
2004 (6th)...  .293 53 1849 374 541  82  15  48 325 797 .431 270 361 .398 54-74

Pitching

Team            ERA  W-L   G    IP   H   R  ER  BB  SO  2B  3B  HR  B/Avg 
2009 (2nd)...  3.81 31-16 47 420.0 374 204 178 173 356  67   5  30   .242 
2008 (7th)...  5.29 28-24 52 460.2 467 327 271 241 397  96  13  38   .264 
2007 (1st)...  3.48 49-18 67 600.2 542 253 232 193 477  83  12  34   .243 
2006 (1st)...  3.41 50-16 66 585.1 509 261 222 237 461  99  12  35   .236 
2005 (1st)...  3.08 46-10 56 499.0 410 219 171 186 451  61   4  30   .223 
2004 (2nd)...  4.65 31-22 53 466.1 509 308 241 192 344  72   5  51   .281

Clearly our best seasons hinged on good to great pitching. We've never really needed to be a powerhouse hitting team to be successful (including National Championship years). My only concern hitting-wise is the lack of extra base hits period. Not just HRs, but look at the doubles. Not since 2004 have we have a double total this low. And this is the first time our slugging % has been below .400. I love the low strikeout total, but we will have to address the hitting in the coming years.

The pitching is clearly getting close to the level it was at from '05-'07. So last year's horrendous pitching appears to be an aberration. That good for the future, and very good for our chances this season.

Overall, our pitching will carry us as far as it can this season. Hopefully that can be to a super regional or maybe even as far as the College World Series like the fans want.

First things first though. We have to take care of business at Stanford and win that series. Baseball America writer Aaron Fitt has said that if we win that series we are a shoo-in. There's even talk of a regional (reserve that scaffolding now :) ).

Go Beavs!