Record : 21-26
RPI: 113
Home: 15-11
Away: 6-15
SOS: 61
Quad 1: 1-12
Quad 2: 1-6
Quad 3: 8-3
Quad 4: 11-5
CUSA: 11-7 4th place
Last 10 : 4-6
Teams Stats : ERA 5.90, Fielding % .966, BA .284
CUSA RPI Conference Rank - 8/30 (ASUN 23-30)
Liberty was able to take 2 of 3 at home from FIU in a key CUSA series to get back into 4th place with 2 key series against LA Tech & DBU left. Liberty was also able to win a slugfest at home against Campbell in the midweek. All in all the Flames have battled through a second consecutive season of ups and downs. The RPI has stayed fairly strong at #113 thanks to the Flames difficult OOC schedule and the relative strength of CUSA. The Flames will want to show they belong at the top of the league this last 2 series along with the DBU's, WKU's & La Tech's. Liberty has endured 3 season ending injuries to critical pieces Garret Horn, Three Hillier and Ryan Butler. They lost LF Noah Rabon for over a month and a hand injury to Brayden Horton essentially cost him the first month of the season between missed time and a couple weeks to round back into form. Despite all that the Flames have shown well in their first season in CUSA with an 11-7 mark headed into the final 2 weekend's of regular season play. CUSA is 8th overall in RPI and is in reach of the 7th spot held by the Big East. The ASUN is down a bit this year but is 23rd for comparison. So an 11-7 mark in the league is nothing to scoff at with the level of competition within CUSA even with the top 2 teams remaining. As reminder KSU will join the league next year and they are 82nd in the RPI and 25-20. Delaware is on deck as well and they sit at #146 with a 25-21 mark. So again 2 more solid additions to the baseball footprint on the way.
All that being said, the season has been a bit shy of what we've come to expect of the program overall. Obviously, injuries have played a huge role. At the mid major level you don't have another Garret Horn on the bench when easily one of your top pitchers on the roster goes down with the UCL. Ryan Butler and Three Hillier were starting caliber players as well that challenged depth. Horton and Rabon's injuries challenged the depth as well and caused the Flames to re-shuffle the defensive alignment. Also 2/3 assistant coaches were new heading into the season which is quite a bit of turnover. So how do the Flames stack up nationally in the key stats with all these changes and injuries?
Team BA - .280 120/295
OBP - .395 97/295
HR - 57 103/295
Slug % - .475 92/295
Team Fielding % - is .967% #201/295.
Stolen Bases : 47 - 196/295
WHIP - 1.68 185/295
Team ERA - 5.92 #138/295.
K per 9 - 8.3 152/295
BB per 9 - 5.52 232/295
Every good baseball team has an identity. For years the Flames identity was pitching and defense under HCSJ while also playing to the dimensions of the ballpark. The Flames have focused heavily on left handed hitters as the wind blows out to right particularly early. Offensively, the Flames have one of the better if not the best attacks they've had in years. They are in the upper third of the nation in virtually all categories and top 100 in both Slug and OBP which are the 2 most important stats in my mind. They've also shown improved power and BA. Fielding % is the second to worst stat of the above metrics. But when you look closely 33/58 total errors are on the left side of infield from Marsh/Foster. The Outfield defense has been nearly flawless as they have 3 total. Dye is a freshman catcher and has a .990 fielding % and has thrown out 21% of would be base stealers which is a little below 30% which is a general rule of thumb in baseball. Sweatt has a .991 and Mclellin and Simmons are .983 at 1b. So all in all the Flames are much improved defensively aside from the left side of the infield. Marsh has shown tremendous range and potential but just needs to clean up the routine plays. The average fan would think the pitching numbers would be much worse than they are. That tells you the state of College Baseball. Most teams are looking for reliable relief pitchers. The killer stat is walks per 9 which has cost the Flames many of the close games this year along with key errors on the left side. When Matt Williams left for South Carolina it took a couple weeks to get Tyler Robinson in place and by that time there just aren't many established portal guys available. It will take Robinson some time to get his type of pitchers on the roster and developed but his track record says it will get better long term.
For years it felt like the Flames lineup just wasn't deep enough. That doesn't seem to be the case this year as there are about 12-13 guys that can make the case to be in the lineup every day even with Hillier going down for the year. The defense was much improved and Marsh will surely take a big step forward next year. Pitching wise you have to bet on year 2 of Robinson making a much bigger impact of not only bringing in his type of pitchers but developing the remaining talent on the roster. The numbers would tell you the Flames are close but need to refine a couple key area's that have drastically hurt 2024.
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