Florida Scout

[vol66]

I'm going to break this week's scout into a couple of posts.

This weekend is a big weekend for every SEC team except Missouri. They are in last place and even if they managed to sweep Arkansas this weekend, they'd still be in last place.

TOP OF THE HEAP

Kendall Rogers did a nice piece on the 8 National Seeds. Right now he feels like Florida is one of six locks, right now they are the only SEC team in that situation.

There are several teams fighting for the last two spots, from the SEC, Rogers feels like Ole Miss, Vanderbilt and South Carolina have legit shots at a national seed depending on the outcomes this weekend.

The anatomy of a national seed | Perfect Game USA

Ole Miss goes on the road to TAMU (13-14), if they sweep they will likely get one of the remaining national seeds. Mississippi State is only 1 game behind Ole Miss in the west and they go to Alabama for a tough series.

The road for UV and USC is tougher because they play each other. USC goes to Vandy, both are 16-11. For one of them to get the final National Seed, one team would need to sweep the other IMO.

What does this have to do with Florida and Tennessee?

If Florida wins 1 game versus UT, they win the SEC East out right, neither Vandy or SC would catch them, even with a sweep.

MIDDLE OF THE PACK

These are teams that are likely in the SEC tourney but still fighting for spots in the NCAA tourney...14 SEC wins is sort of a standard for the NCAA tourney...win 14 SEC games and a team generally makes the field of 64.

LSU (14-11-1) and Bama (14-12), TAMU and ARKY are both at (13-14) and UK is (12-15)...


I think all those teams are in the SEC, barring a serious collapse. UK goes to UGA and that is THE series to keep an eye on if you are a UT fan...

A WORST-CASE SCENARIO

If UGA wins the series at home 2-1...UGA's record would be 12-17-1 and UK's record would be 13-17...If UT only wins 1 game (12-18) versus UF, we would be behind both and all eyes would turn to the Plains, where Auburn plays LSU.

Auburn would need to win two games to crawl into a tie with us. If Auburn ended up with a (12-18) record, The Vols would be watching the SEC Tourney on TV, because we lost the series with Auburn.

THE BOTTOM RUNG

UK, UT, UGA and AU...Because there is a scenario, far fetched as it may be, where UT could end up ahead of UK, UK is here too...These are all teams fighting for Hoover and slim chances of making the NCAA.

There are a lot of scenarios and here's a decent article on them...

SEC baseball tournament bracket update: What are the Vols' scenarios for this weekend? | Evan's Eleven

* UT sweeps Florida, 3-0. The Vols (14-16) are in.

* UT wins two of three from Florida. The Vols (13-17) are in.

* UT wins one of three. The Vols (12-18) are in unless both Auburn and Georgia win at least two games. (Except if they both go 3-0. Then Kentucky would be left out.)

* UT is swept by Florida. The Vols (11-19) are in if Georgia is swept OR Auburn is swept OR if both Kentucky and Auburn are swept.

GBO!!!


Scout coming up shortly...

 

[vol66]

Welp...here we are...again. Down to the last series of the regular season. This year we have a slightly better opportunity to control our own destiny.

I said early on that we needed to get to double digit SEC wins, that I thought 11 wins would get us to Hoover and here we are...at 11 wins. If UK sweeps UGA and LSU sweeps Auburn, even if we don't get one win versus UF, we would make Hoover.

That's some big if's. But there are some bigger IF's out there like:

IF... we sweep UF, not only would we make Hoover but we'd also make the NCAA. Aaron Fitt believes a series win versus UF would be enough to play in a regional for the first time in almost 10 years.

Of course UF has the best record in the league at 19-8 and are the highest nationally ranked SEC team as well sitting at #10.

Seems like a rather large mountain for us to climb...or is it?

UF: 35-18, (19-8), RPI 2, SOS 1, Away 10-7
UT: 30-20, (11-16), RPI 44, SOS 35, Home 21-8

RUNS/GAME

UF OFFENSE: 4.7
UT OFFENSE: 5.8

UF DEFENSE: 3.8
UT DEFENSE: 4.4

UF MARGIN: +0.9
UT MARGIN: +1.4


THE STATS

When one looks at UF's record, leading the SEC, one would expect the stats to be of similar league leading caliber as well. It's not the case, in fact, it's a little surprising how close UT and UF are regarding the stats...so much so that I chose to take a look at SEC only stats. It's not that much different there either, though UT's BA drops as does the fielding %...

UF has been hitting better in SEC games, other than that, we are not that far apart.

UF ERA: 3.34
UT ERA: 3.41

UF BA: .268
UT BA: .276

UF Fielding %: .975
UT Fielding %: .972

I could go on for a while, but all the info is just a click away:
The Automated ScoreBook - Team Statistics

UF has some impressive wins, a sweep of LSU at home and a road series win versus SC as well as a sweep of BAMA.

They also had some head scratchers, they lost a series to UK and to TAMU, both on the road. They most recently lost a home series to Vandy, they only scored 3 runs on the weekend.

UF is where they are, in large part, due to the fact that they have taken care of business against some lesser foes, getting sweeps rather than 2-1 wins...they swept UGA, and Missou for instance...and avoided getting swept themselves at all this season.

The fact that UF had trouble with UK's offense, and couldn't get anything going offensively against Vandy gives this baseball fan some hope for this weekend.

Line-ups and Pitching later this evening...

 

[vol66]

THE LINE-UP

1. (2B) Casey Turgeon - .249 BA

2. (SS) Richie Martin - .291 BA * leads team in R's, OB% and SB's 16/18 also most E's w/ 20 of the teams 54

3. (CF) Harrison Bader - .305 * 10/13 SB's

4. (C) Taylor Gushue - .317 * Leads team in 2B, HR and RBI

5. (RF) Zack Powers - .253

6. (1B) Peter Alonso - .279

7. (DH) A.J. Puk - .241

8. (LF) Buddy Reed - .241

9. (3B) John Sternagel - .245

* This was the line-up versus Vandy on Friday and Saturday last week. The only change on Sunday was that Powers was at 1B for Alonso and Braden Mattson (.275) went to RF for Powers.

*UF doesn't steal a lot ,47/66 (compared to 87/114 for us) and the two main threats are Martin and Bader.

* UF leads the SEC in sac bunts and sac flies(they've only allowed 8 sac flies), they also lead the league in hitting into double plays.


PITCHING

As of about 8 PM, UF has only announced their Thursday starter and UT has not announced their Saturday starter yet.

We know Logan Shore will start on Thursday and I'll have to guess at the rest.

Thursday

Logan Shore (Fr. RHP) 1.47 ERA, 7-2 w/l, 79.2 IP, 62 H, 17 R, 13 ER, 15 BB, 52 SO, .214 b/avg

* those are some pretty impressive numbers for a freshman to put up in this league.

* He is the best pitcher on a solid but not spectacular staff.

*

Freshman RHP Logan Shore earned the SEC Freshman of the Week honors for the first time on Monday after tossing 7.1 scoreless innings in the opener with Vanderbilt in which he set a career best with eight strikeouts and permitted two singles.

* In the UK series, he was the Saturday guy, he went 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R (leaving UF with a 8 or 9 run lead) then UF had to hold off a furious comeback from UK, as UK rocked every pitcher UF put out there. UF won 11-10

The moral to this story is we are going to have to get Shore off the mound to have some hope on Thursday, he doesn't throw many wild pitches and has 5 HBP, which for that many IP, isn't bad.

Tough Sledding.

The rest is a bit of a guess due in part to the way UF uses a lot of pitchers and in part because the book is out on our hitters, in terms of lefty/righty match ups, I wish I could find stats on that...


Friday

Danny Young (So. LHP) 2.16 ERA, 5-0 w/l, 41.2 IP, 45 H, 12 R, 10 ER, 16 BB, 33 SO, .273 b/avg.


Saturday

Karsten Whitson (RJr. RHP) 4.75 ERA, 1-1, 30.1 IP, 31 H, 18 R, 16 ER, 19 BB, 19 SO, .267 b/avg.


On Young and Whitson...these two got the starts last week versus Vandy. I feel better about Young because he's a lefty and I think we'll probably see a fair dose of lefties. Whitson has 8 starts and Young has 7, 2nd and 3rd most on the team. I'm also guessing Whitson is making his last start for UF in a regular season game...however, there are a couple other guys that could start as well.

Puk (3.45) has 5 starts, he's a Fr. LHP...he's the kind of guy that gives us trouble, but he's a freshman...

Poyner (3.83) is another Lefty, if we got Shore out of the game on Thursday, I expect he might be the first on in relief...If they don't have to use him on Thursday, he could be a potential starter.

Aaron Rhodes (So. RHP, 2.48 ERA) is another guy, but I'm still leaning on them going with a Lefty starter if possible.

They have 9 guys with over 30 IP, compared to our 6, we are going to see a lot of pitching changes.


SUMMARY

Another highly ranked SEC team comes to Knoxville, so what's new?

UF is obviously a good team. It would seem they take care of the details and do the little things correctly. Other than Shore, they aren't going to over power us with pitching, they aren't going to out power us at the plate, there's nothing particularly scary about them compared to Vandy, LSU or SC, so there's no reason for UT to feel intimidated, we've seen it all at this point.

I think it's going to come down to which team executes the best with runners on and which defense makes the fewest mistakes.

From a mental stand point, we should have the edge, we're playing for our tournament lives at home.

I think it's going to be a great series because of the way the two teams match up.

I'm sure 99 will correct any mistake I've made here, and I'm looking forward to the input...


This is the last regular season scout...I hope I get to do at least one more.


GBO!!!

 

[99gator]

i was waiting for you to post before adding to it. basically, this florida gator baseball team is similar to this past year's florida basketball team (but not as good). the record is better than the roster would lead you to believe.

if you break them down statistically, it will be hard to figure out how they have a lead in the conference standings.

they do have one starting pitcher who has been outstanding and i would not be surprised if he was sec pitcher of the year (if there is such an award).....logan shore.

other than that, they seem like a pretty ordinary team on paper. taylor gushue is the team's best hitter, but no one in that lineup scares the hell out of you.

they do have outstanding depth. you will see 10-12 pitchers this weekend. they have that many arms that they trust and they use them. in late innings, they will do the lefty-righty thing to death. so, get used to seeing o'sullivan head to the mound a lot and that has nothing to do with whether they are giving up runs or not. particularly on day 3. he will yank guys in a heartbeat.

they also have about 12 position players that they will play.

they have deceptive speed throughout the roster.

they do a lot of little things well that help a team win that don't show up on a stat sheet.

however, it's not an official florida gator baseball weekend this season unless someone gets picked off and the shortstop makes an error.

 

[99gator]

i would expect rhodes to start friday.

 

[vol66]

i would expect rhodes to start friday.

I hope you are right on that one...must be nice to have options.

 

[vol66]

i was waiting for you to post before adding to it. basically, this florida gator baseball team is similar to this past year's florida basketball team (but not as good). the record is better than the roster would lead you to believe.

if you break them down statistically, it will be hard to figure out how they have a lead in the conference standings.

they do have one starting pitcher who has been outstanding and i would not be surprised if he was sec pitcher of the year (if there is such an award).....logan shore.

other than that, they seem like a pretty ordinary team on paper. taylor gushue is the team's best hitter, but no one in that lineup scares the hell out of you.

they do have outstanding depth. you will see 10-12 pitchers this weekend. they have that many arms that they trust and they use them. in late innings, they will do the lefty-righty thing to death. so, get used to seeing o'sullivan head to the mound a lot and that has nothing to do with whether they are giving up runs or not. particularly on day 3. he will yank guys in a heartbeat.

they also have about 12 position players that they will play.

they have deceptive speed throughout the roster.

they do a lot of little things well that help a team win that don't show up on a stat sheet.

however, it's not an official florida gator baseball weekend this season unless someone gets picked off and the shortstop makes an error.

Thanks for the input, it's always nice when there is somebody that knows the team. I've only seen 3 or 4 UF games this year.

 

[99gator]

I hope you are right on that one...must be nice to have options.

they do.

they basically have gotten used to using 2 guys in the first game. usually shore and poyner. that's it. shore goes that deep and poyner finishes it off.

then, they get 5 to 6 innings from rhodes or the game 2 guy.

at that point, they have 9-10 guys to pitch the remaining 12 or so innings of the weekend.

the game 3 starter usually goes around 3 innings. they literally use 5 or 6 guys to work the final game.

 

[ukvols]

The SEC Tournament format is stupid.

http://www.secdigitalnetwork.com/Portals/3/SEC%20Website/Baseball/2014SECBaseballBracket.pdf

12 teams in, bottom eight play a round to eliminate four teams, and then it's double elimination for the teams that reach the quarterfinals. Fine.

Then, it gets nutty. The Losers of Games 5 and 6 play at 9:30am on Thursday. The WINNERS of Games 5 and 6 play at 4:30pm on Thursday. Then, the Loser of the 4:30pm game plays the Winner of the 9:30am game at 3:00pm on Friday. Good grief - if you don't win out, the sooner you take your loss, the better.

It's crazy that the team that lost earlier gets the longer break, and it's also possible for, say, Team A to beat Team B, then lose to another undefeated team, and then lose to Team B and be eliminated. So, A and B would have split with each other, but B would be 2-1 in that stretch with a win over the team that lost its prior game, while A would be 1-2 with a loss to an undefeated team. B would also have longer rest than A before the rematch.

Basically, if you win your quarterfinal game and then lose your next game, you end up with a harder road to the final than the teams that lost in the quarterfinals.

 

[ukvols]

End of rant. GBO! I hope we qualify for this thing.