Top 25 Chat

Teddy Cahill: Welcome to this week’s Top 25 chat. It was a turbulent weekend and the rankings look a bit different this week. Let’s get right to your questions.

Landon (Mississippi): How did y'all order Florida, Texas A&M, and Mississippi State? With Florida sweeping A&M, Mississippi State beating Florida in a series and A&M sweeping State?
Teddy Cahill: We’ll start at the top. Miami’s loss left a hole at the top of the rankings. We ultimately ordered it 1. Florida, 2. Texas A&M, 3. Mississippi State, 4. Miami. The three SEC teams have all played each other, as you detailed, leaving an interesting puzzle. For me, Florida gets the edge thanks to its series win at Miami, as well as the strength of its overall resume. Neither A&M nor Florida have been swept at home, while Mississippi State has been. Mississippi State also has a couple non-winning weekends mixed in and more losses than UF and A&M. So we put them third. And Florida sweeping Texas A&M made the Gators the choice at No. 1. Bottom line, all three of those teams, as well as Miami, are really good.

Josh (Olive Branch,MS): How good do you think Southern Miss? Do you think they could host a regional? Do they have the potential of making the World Series?
Teddy Cahill: Southern Mississippi had an impressive weekend, taking a series from Rice and moving into sole possession of first place in Conference USA in the process. The Golden Eagles could definitely host a regional. CUSA is No. 4 in RPI right now and it seems likely that its champion will host. Potentially two of Southern Miss, Rice and Florida Atlantic could host, but we’ll see how everything shakes out. As for making the CWS, its certainly possible. Southern Miss pitched very well this weekend and has a solid lineup. Its depth on the mound may be tested in the tournament — it’s 4-7 in midweek games for a reason — but there are encouraging pieces there for this team.

Bob (Longs, SC): What did Southern Miss do to jump Coastal Carolina? They went 2-2 while CCU beat a decent UNC team on the road, a struggling CofC team and, so far, split 2 games with Top 60 RPI High Point.
Teddy Cahill: Largely because beating Rice in a weekend series is the most impressive thing either team did this week, and probably all season. For weeks I said Southern Miss was missing a signature win to hang its hat on. Well, it has one now. Coastal, meanwhile, had a good week and has a chance to have another really good one this week, if it can finish off the High Point series with a win today and then go on the road and play well against Georgia Tech.

Chauncey (Conway, SC): What does CCU need to do this weekend against GTech in order to host a regional?
Teddy Cahill: Following up on the last answer, winning three games this week would go a long way to helping Coastal’s hosting chances. If it can solidify its first-place standing in the Big South with a series win today against second-place High Point and then go win a series at Georgia Tech, that would be big. It would still need to make sure it didn’t slip up in Big South play, but it would be in good shape with three wins this week.

Bill (Atlanta): Would a series win over Coastal Carolina get the Yellow Jackets ranked?
Teddy Cahill: Conversely…maybe? I’m really not sure. It would certainly put Georgia Tech in the discussion. But this is the start of a really big stretch for the Yellow Jackets. Georgia Tech hosts Coastal this week, followed by Miami. It then goes to Virginia before finishing the regular season against Boston College. Those are some tough weekends coming up. I’ll be very interested to see how the Jackets handle it.

Frank (Fayetteville): Did any team in America have a more important weekend than the Hogs? What does DVH's squad need to do to make it to the postseason?
Teddy Cahill: It was certainly up there, but I don’t know that I’d say it was the most important. Tennessee had a huge weekend against Vanderbilt, Arizona had a big weekend, Oregon State got a much needed series win, as did Indiana. But – to your main question, Arkansas needs more weekends like that one. The starting pitching showed up big at Kentucky and the Razorbacks need Taccolini and Jackson to keep doing that. Arkansas’ remaining schedule is tough (Texas A&M, LSU, Alabama, Mississippi State), but that means that the opportunities are there to boost its resume. Its RPI is at 93, which is untenable for an at-large bid. But with a couple of series wins, that number will improve.

Tom (Austin, Texas): Did the Aggie offense just have an off weekend (relatively speaking) after having been on fire for several weeks, or is 'Bama's pitching staff that good?
Teddy Cahill: A little bit of both. Alabama’s strength is its pitching, but it also would have been unrealistic to think Texas A&M would keep scoring 10 runs a game against SEC teams. The Aggies offense is very good, but that would take a historically good offense.

Jake (Ft. Lauderdale): Should Miami be concerned by last weeks performance or is this the minor slump most teams will experience at some point in the season?
Teddy Cahill: I wouldn’t be overly concerned. Teams lose series (especially in conference play) and teams lose midweek games. I don’t think there’s anything that showed up last week that was a new longterm concern for the Hurricanes. They just got beat by a pretty good Virginia team that, for whatever reason, has had a lot of success against them for the last seven years.

Jack (TN): Considering Trey York is in same conference as Kyle Lewis and similar numbers, how come he doesn't attract much attention?
Teddy Cahill: Trey York, while a very good college player, is not the kind of pro prospect that Kyle Lewis is. Lewis is really getting the attention he gets because he’s a potential first round pick, not because he’s putting up big numbers in the Southern Conference. I don’t want to diminish the years either of those guys are having, because they’re both rather impressive, but you’re hearing more about Lewis now because you’re going to hear his name called pretty early on the first day of the draft in June.

Jonathan (Syracuse, NY): Florida is doing great, but as a relatively casual observer I can't help but wonder what's happened to JJ Schwarz's power this year, and if maybe there's an obvious answer that I just don't know about. Any insight would be appreciated!
Teddy Cahill: J.J. Schwarz’s incredible NCAA Tournament largely obscured the fact that he was not very good in SEC play last year. He homered just four times in 30 SEC games last year (four homers in 35 SEC games if you throw in the conference tournament). Now, he hasn’t homered at all through 18 SEC games this season and only has four overall this year. But my larger point is that this is not unprecedented. I also think he’s being pitched pretty carefully this year. The raw power is still there and, eventually, I’m pretty confident he’ll start getting to it again. Florida would certainly welcome another barrage of homers from Schwarz.

Chris (San Clemente): Stanford's vaunted bullpen has come crashing down to Earth, blowing several late leads as the team has gone 1-6, including a sweep by a very ordinary ASU. Is the Cardinal done, or is there any hope for a postseason?
Teddy Cahill: At 19-15 and 86 in the RPI, Stanford has a lot of work to do. The good news is that it still has to play most of the Pac-12 leaders – Oregon State, Cal, Utah, and Washington. So it can make up ground in the conference and in RPI. But the bad news is that the Cardinal will have to really make hay in those series. There’s not a lot of margin for error left. Its not done, but it does need to get things turned around in a hurry.

Jeff (Raleigh, NC): What does NC State need to do over the last 4 weeks single game vs ECU and series vs Duke, Clemson, Louisville, and UNC to host a regional/ be a national seed?
Teddy Cahill: To be a national seed, NC State is going to have to get in front of Louisville in the ACC standings, I think. So that series at Louisville is going to be big. The Wolfpack is probably in good shape to host right now, as long as it takes care of business. That probably means winning at least two of those series, not getting swept, etc. But with Virginia looking ready to make another late charge and Georgia Tech hanging not too far back, it would probably behoove NC State to win three of those series to clearly establish itself as a top-four team in the ACC.

Teddy Cahill: That’s it for today. Thanks to everyone for your questions. As always, if I didn’t get to yours, feel free to leave it in the comments, and I’ll cycle back to get it there.