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Reply to "2020 College Baseball Season"

JCG posted:
MidAtlanticDad posted:
anotherparent posted:

Sure, I understand all that about pitching and weekend conference games, and playing the other pitchers in the weekday games.  Looks like most teams are playing 6-7 pitchers in those games, also that they are playing their regular lineups.  But then, some are losing those games by a lot.  Maybe they would lose anyway?  I thought the point was to win games (and yes, I get that winning conference games matters more), sounds more that teams use these games as some kind of scrimmage.

Speculation: RPI plays a role in the weekday games. I'm pretty sure that RPI is still used in college baseball for seeding and selection. At least two characteristics of RPI impact how some of these games play out. First, RPI doesn't look at game scores (just W/L), so even good teams don't care as much about losing big. Also, RPI uses "opponent's opponent" in the calculation, so some mid or lower conferences may ask all of their members to schedule weekday games against much better teams. That way the top teams in the conference do a little better with RPI from their conference games.

Wouldn't  the calculus be different for a lower conference team?  For example, when a Patriot or Ivy team goes against an ACC team, they're not going to win many of those games, and they're also not going to get an at-large bid. So if they have a freshman pitcher they want to get some innings in so he can develop, there's much downside to putting him out there in a midweek game, even if they think he doesn't give them their best chance of winning.

Patriot and Ivy aren't great examples since most aren't close enough to P5 schools to play weekday games, but I agree, a lower conference will never get an at-large bid, so RPI probably doesn't mean much to them. An early season weekend series (e.g. Army at Duke) is probably yet another calculus. I'm guessing part of that is just for the fun of playing against a big-time program.

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