College World Series Preview, Bracket 2

GAAAAAAH COLLEGE BASEBALL! No intro. Part 1 of my Men’s College World Series preview is here. Go read it if you haven’t. The second installment is below and delivers a brief overview of the four contestants I didn’t address last time: Their record, how they got here, and a brief précis on a key player, as well as a bit of trivia you can pull out to impress your friends or use as an icebreaker at a bar. LET’S ROCK AND ROLL.

No. 1 Wake Forest
Record: 52-10 (22-7 ACC; Won ACC Atlantic regular season, eliminated in semifinals of conference tournament)
Path to Omaha: No. 1 overall seed, No. 1 seed in Winston-Salem Regional (3-0, def. George Mason 2x, Maryland); Won Winston-Salem Super Regional vs. Alabama 2-0

To call this team a buzzsaw would be an understatement. The Demon Deacons are not only undefeated in the tournament, they won those five games by a combined score of 75-16. And those weren’t cupcakes they smashed; Alabama has been one of the hottest teams in the country since former head coach Brad Bohannon was fired for his involvement in a gambling scandal. Maryland was a monster by Big Ten standards and Wake put 21 runs on the board against them. Wake hasn’t lost a weekend series all year, and swept top-10 national seeds Clemson and Miami in the regular season.

Key Number: 0.73.

Wake Forest’s team ERA, 2.84, is not the key number, and that’s because it’s more impressive in context. Having the lowest ERA in Division I is great, but when Tennessee is no. 2 and Virginia and Oral Roberts are in the top 10, whoop-dee-doo, right? Well, that 2.84 is about three quarters of a run lower than any other team’s ERA. Only six other teams have a team ERA under 4.00. And it’s not like Wake is just about defense; the Demon Deacons are also third in Division I in both runs and OBP, and sixth in slugging percentage.

Better Know a Player: Junior RHP Rhett Lowder

It’s a crowded field. Wake had two different position players post an OBP over .500 and a SLG over .800, and the entire weekend rotation made first team All-ACC. I wanted to get creative and pick someone off the wall, but in the end why not go with the team’s biggest star? Lowder posted a 1.92 ERA and struck out 131 batters in 108 innings this season. He has a plus changeup and plus command and will probably be the second or third college pitcher taken in next month’s draft.

Trivia: The ACC is, what do we think, the second-best baseball conference out there? Well, before Virginia won the natty in 2015, the conference’s only Men’s College World Series title came courtesy of Wake Forest in 1955. That’s despite the ACC putting out numerous powerhouse schools; during that drought, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia, and North Carolina (twice) all played for the title and fell at the final hurdle. (Miami won it all in 1985, but that was before the Hurricanes joined the ACC.) As an alumnus of an SEC school with an ACC archrival, and therefore something of an SEC jingoist, I found that streak riotously entertaining and was very sorry to see it end.

No. 8 Stanford
Record: 44-18 (23-7 Pac-12; Won Pac-12 regular season, eliminated in semifinals of conference tournament)
Path to Omaha: No. 8 overall seed, No. 1 seed in Stanford Regional (4-1, def. San Jose St., Cal State Fullerton, went 2-1 vs. Texas A&M); Won Stanford Super Regional vs. Texas 2-1.

Oh God, don’t make me explain this.

Okay, I’m just going to give you the last half-inning of Game 3 of the super regional. The score is tied 6-6, Stanford has already blown two three-run leads in the game and has been running into outs all evening. The inning before, they had a player run into his own bunted ball in fair territory, then had another runner get doubled off trying to tag up on cannon-armed Longhorns right fielder Dylan Campbell. In fairness, it was quite the throw, on the money, off the wrong foot, all the way across the field. If Bo Jackson is impressed, you know it’s good.

Anyway, with two outs, Pac-12 Player of the Year Alberto Rios came to the plate and lined a ball off the left field wall. Rios ran like hell out of the box, rounded first, and then slowed down when — for reasons unclear to anyone watching — the entire Stanford team poured out of the dugout. Rios, convinced he’d just hit a walk-off home run, tossed his helmet up in the air, slowed down, and almost got thrown out at second.

Stanford's Alberto Rios thought he hit a walk-off homer, only to find out that the ball didn't go over the wall, nearly getting thrown out at second.

A near Leon Lett moment. pic.twitter.com/Z0U3XtxM9t

— The Comeback (@thecomeback) June 13, 2023

I’ve never been to Sunken Diamond, but just based on what I saw on TV, it looked pretty dark there. Maybe Stanford got swindled out of its lighting budget by Elizabeth Holmes. That no doubt played a role in confusing Rios and his teammates (as did the mostly white Pac-12 logo), and definitely came into play two batters later. Drew Bowser popped up the third pitch he saw, and it stayed in the air forever. Long enough that any one of four Texas defenders, including Campbell, could have run it down. If any of them could see it.

WALK-OFF??
WALK-OFF??
WALK-OFF??
WALK-OFF??#MCWS x ? ESPN / @StanfordBSB pic.twitter.com/jiG32MVeBT

— NCAA Baseball (@NCAABaseball) June 13, 2023

Because that ball spent about six minutes in the air, and because there were two outs, Rios was pretty much at home plate by the time the ball landed. Stanford went to Omaha, and Texas went back to an offseason of nightmares. Someone in the comments of Part 1 said this was the first college baseball game they ever went to. I cannot imagine.

Key Number: 156.

That, in case you’ve been under a rock over the past week, is the number of pitches thrown by Stanford left-hander Quinn Mathews in his 16-strikeout complete game against Texas in Game 2 of the super regional. As you’d expect, there’s been Discourse on this subject, and here’s my take on the matter.

From the start of college baseball up until 10 or 15 years ago, coaches didn’t give a crap about their pitchers’ long-term health. Complete games of 140 or more pitches were commonplace, as were short rest relief appearances. Kirk Saarloos, now TCU’s head coach, would close on Fridays and start on Sundays when he was at Cal State Fullerton, like a Gen-X Ellis Kinder. My favorite college baseball game of all time, the South Carolina-Virginia national semifinal in 2011, featured some absolutely appalling pitcher usage by both coaches.

But it’s gotten better. Certain schools and coaches got a reputation for blowing prospects’ elbows and shoulders out. They got called out in the media, and had that reputation used against them by other coaches in recruiting. And eventually, many of the worst offenders retired. It was still a real problem as recently as 2018, when Oregon State freshman Kevin Abel won the College World Series by throwing a 129-pitch shutout on zero days’ rest in the decisive game against Arkansas.

I used to be a pitch count hardliner, but my views have evolved over the years for a few reasons. First, pitcher health is an inexact science. We don’t know if pitch no. 118 or 119 will be the one that leads to a torn UCL, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise. Second, many of these pitchers will go pro in something other than sports. If a potential first-round pick starts on two days’ rest, that’s a decision that could cost the kid millions of dollars. If that pitcher is a senior at a no. 4 seed out of the MAAC who’s going to go to go to pharmacy school in the fall, who cares? Third, these games are themselves inherently meaningful. Most of the players involved — even the majority of the ones who do go pro — will never participate in a bigger game after leaving college. In order to win these games, limited additional risk is sometimes appropriate. This last point can either be lost on or irrelevant to many observers who focus solely on professional scouting and development, and are frequently the biggest pitch count scolds.

Would I let Paul Skenes, the best pitcher in college baseball, throw 124 pitches in a five-run game against Tulane? Absolutely not. But it’s not the end of the world, and it’s a lot better than how LSU coach Jay Johnson managed his staff on his last trip to Omaha, with Arizona in 2016. I wasn’t wild about Texas using Big 12 Pitcher of the Year Lucas Gordon out of the ‘pen against Stanford two days after he’d thrown 110 pitches. But for a short relief outing, with the season on the line… just don’t make a habit out of it.

This isn’t Wayne Graham and Augie Garrido’s college baseball, in short, and in many borderline cases I can at least see the coach’s logic.

But 156 pitches? In 2023, by a guy who’s going to be a Day 2 pick? It’s indefensible, no matter how heroically Mathews performed under those conditions.

Better Know a Player: Junior OF Alberto Rios

The guy who almost synthesized DeSean Jackson and Fred Merkle was absolutely the player Stanford wanted at the plate with the season on the line. In 61 games this year, Rios hit .387/.491/.715 with 18 home runs and 23 doubles. He’s also not afraid to grind; he was hit by 11 pitches this season, second on the team. Having a 1.200 OPS is all the more impressive when you consider that this is Rios’ third season at Stanford, and heading into 2023 he’d never even gotten a hit. In his first two years with the team, he’d played in just eight total games, going 0-for-7 with a walk.

Trivia: The West Coast used to be the nexus of college baseball, but historical powerhouses like Southern Cal, Cal State Fullerton, and Arizona State have fallen on hard times as the money and talent has flowed toward the SEC. Nevertheless, Stanford is making its third straight trip to Omaha, and is the only returning team from last year’s Men’s College World Series.

No. 5 LSU
Record: 48-15 (19-10 SEC; Finished 2nd in SEC West, eliminated in third round of the SEC Tournament)
Path to Omaha: No. 5 overall seed, No. 1 seed in Baton Rouge Regional (3-0, def. Tulane, Oregon St. 2x); Won Baton Rouge Super Regional 2-0 vs. Kentucky

LSU was the no. 1-ranked team in the country from the preseason until early May, on the strength of having presumptive first overall pick Dylan Crews in the outfield, as well as the clear top two incoming transfers: Skenes and third baseman Tommy White. This in addition to a strong freshman class and a group of returning veterans — including Crews and first baseman Tre’ Morgan — who were coming off a season that would’ve been strong by most programs’ standards. That included 40 wins, a 17-13 conference record, and a trip to a regional final.

But LSU is not most programs; it is one of the most storied, best-resourced teams in the country, perhaps the best-resourced team in the country. And second-year head coach Jay Johnson, to his credit, built a roster commensurate with those expectations.

It’s not without flaws. The pitching staff after Skenes is vulnerable, particularly in the bullpen. And LSU lost two of its last three regular-season series. This is not the best team in the country, not the kind of unwavering, merciless killing machine Wake Forest built. What LSU is, however, is the most talented team in the country, a top-five offense, with the best pitcher in the field. It’s been tested by the kind of outrageously tough schedule every SEC team has to go through; of those 15 losses, 12 came against teams that made the NCAA Tournament. That includes all three of LSU’s regular-season nonconference losses.

Key Number: 188.

That’s how many batters right-hander Skenes struck out in just 107 innings this year. Of course, if you’ve been keeping up with your college baseball coverage here at FanGraphs Dot Com, you already know about Skenes, whom I interviewed before the season.

Triple-digit fastball, slider that stops just before the plate to ask for directions, good change-up. Skenes is listed at 6-foot-6, 247 pounds and looks four inches taller and 40 pounds heavier on the mound. And yet he’s shockingly athletic for a guy that big; he was a catcher until recently, and told me he missed being on the other side of the battery. In terms of talent as a college pitcher, people have compared him to Stephen Strasburg, which I think is a little ambitious. But I agree, there is not a pitching prospect this good in most draft classes.

Better Know a Player: Sophomore 3B Tommy White

I’d argue that the Tigers don’t just have the biggest star in college baseball, they have the three biggest stars: Skenes and outfielder Dylan Crews, the two top college prospects in the draft, and White. Skenes gets plenty of attention because of his extremely GIFable repertoire, while Crews shot to the top of everyone’s draft board because he had a .570 OBP this year and can probably play center field in the pros.

But don’t sleep on White, who had a monster freshman season at N.C. State last year before transferring to LSU in the offseason. He hit .377/.439/.750 with 22 home runs and 22 doubles, both tops on one of the best offensive teams in the country, and did so while transitioning to third base full-time after splitting time among the corners and DH as a freshman.

Trivia: Dani Wexelman tweeted this fun fact yesterday and I don’t think I can beat it: When LSU’s current juniors were freshmen, the Tigers opened the season against Air Force. There, Crews hit his first collegiate home run… off of Paul Skenes.

Tennessee
Record: 43-20 (16-14 SEC, Finished fourth in SEC East, eliminated in first round of conference tournament)
Path to Omaha: No. 2 seed in Clemson Regional (3-0, def. Charlotte 2x, Clemson); Won Hattiesburg Super Regional 2-1 vs. Southern Mississippi

The Vols got their spot in Omaha the hard way; they beat no. 4 national seed Clemson in the best baseball game that’s going to be played anywhere in 2023, I’m sure of it. Tennessee rallied from two runs down with two outs and the bases empty in the top of the ninth inning, when Zane Denton hit a three-run homer to take the lead after being down 0-2 in the count. Then Clemson came back in the bottom of the ninth to tie; the two teams were down to their last strike in that inning three times between them and both survived. Both teams escaped a bases-loaded, no-out jam in extra innings before Tennessee finally broke through in the 14th inning, tying the program record for longest game.

It was a tense affair, with both sides exchanging words throughout; Clemson outfielder Cam Cannarella was tossed in the 13th inning for running afoul of the NCAA’s absurd rules about taunting. (John Calvin took a look at what college umpires are supposed to call and said, “You need to loosen up a little bit there, bro.”) But it was nice to see the two orangest teams in baseball come to a compromise when they went head-to-head: Tennessee wore black jerseys, Clemson purple.

The Vols then had to come back to win back-to-back elimination games after dropping the super regional opener to Southern Miss. But they’ve played with their backs to the wall all year.

Key Number: 23-14 (5-10).

On April 18, Tennessee lost by seven runs at home to a Tennessee Tech team that ended up finishing 13 games below .500. The Vols had just been swept by Arkansas the previous weekend, and their conference record sat at 5-10. After that loss to Tennessee Tech in April, the Vols won their next nine games by a combined score of 108-33, including sweeps of Vanderbilt and Mississippi State that brought their conference record back over .500. They’ve won 20 of their past 26.

The slow start followed by a rapid turnaround stands in sharp contrast to 2022, when the Vols started 31-1 (their second loss was, again, a midweek defeat to Tennessee Tech) and ended up as the no. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. But things slowly deteriorated, culminating in a disastrous super regional against Notre Dame. Star outfielder Drew Gilbert was ejected for arguing balls and strikes in Game 1, and because player ejections carry an automatic one-game suspension, Gilbert missed the rubber match and the Vols lost.

And I guess this is as good a place as any to mention the one thing you need to know about Tennessee: They’re the most hated team in college baseball.

In the SEC, it’s easy for teams to have boom-and-bust cycles. LSU is always good. Vandy, Florida, and Arkansas have always been good under their current head coaches, and basically everyone else has ups and downs. Because this is the SEC and two thirds of the conference gets into a regional every year, “down” is a relative term, but still.

Tennessee was like that until Tony Vitello became head coach in 2018. The Vols have won 40 or more games their past four full seasons, went to Omaha in 2021, and had the aforementioned historic regular season last year. Vitello coaches an aggressive, hard-hitting, hard-throwing brand of baseball. Angels flamethrower Ben Joyce played for Vitello at UT, where they called him the “Volunteer Fireman,” even though he had a teammate who also threw 100-plus named Chase Burns.

Vitello’s team plays with a lot of energy. They celebrate, they needle their opponents, they talk back to umpires (in 2021, Vitello got tossed from a College World Series game). ESPN color commentator Kyle Peterson said during the Clemson game that the Vols aren’t afraid to “wear the black hat.” Which is both a lovely euphemism and an excellent distillation of what makes Tennessee unique. In every other sport, there are teams that are comfortable playing the bad guy. They go right up to the edge and sometimes over it, and if their opponents or other fans get angry, too bad. No one likes us, and we don’t care.

Baseball teams, by and large, don’t do that. And I have no idea why. Ironically, the Astros were getting close to mastering the kayfabe villain role right up until the moment they got caught stealing signs, at which point they folded instead of doubling down. I think Tennessee is an exciting, engaging, provocative team. This is a minority opinion. College baseball fans, generally speaking, come in two cultural flavors: frothing, blinkered partisans and buttoned-down decorum fetishists. These two disparate strands have two things in common: They’re incredibly touchy, and they think the Volunteers are a bunch of jackasses.

So yeah, maybe Tennessee is evil. But sometimes a little evil is just what the game needs.

Better Know a Player: Sophomore 2B Christian Moore

Moore and his double play partner, Maui Ahuna, have been everywhere this postseason. Moore was the MVP of the Clemson Regional, where he hit four of his 17 home runs this season.

T4 | GIVE ME CHRISTIAN MOORE

The Vols break through with a solo shot from No. 1!!

? https://t.co/wdMVEjqcCo#GBO // #OTH // #BeatClemson pic.twitter.com/fsP478lSBh

— Tennessee Baseball (@Vol_Baseball) June 3, 2023

In total, Moore is 9-for-21 this tournament, with those four home runs and three multi-hit games. Over the full season, Moore hit .313/.458/.627, and led the Vols in OBP and stolen bases. If Tennessee is able to score along with LSU in their first-round matchup, Moore and Ahuna will have to drive the offense.

Trivia: More on Vitello and the boom-and-bust nature of Tennessee baseball. Vitello’s first regional appearance in 2019 broke a 13-year tournament drought for the Vols. He’s now made the tournament four years running. One more will tie the program record of five straight, set between 1993 and 1997 by teams that featured, among others, Todd Helton and R.A. Dickey.

The Men’s College World Series starts at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, with TCU-Oral Roberts.