Dirtbags Baseball - Long Beach State 49ers

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Wednesday, December 22, 2004

That's Why They Play The Games

It's an old cliche. But baseball...especially college baseball...is played on the field, not on paper. Polls and other prognostications are a lot of fun for fans, but in the end they are nothing but opinion. They don't decide the outcome of games, or seasons. Just for grins, I've compared Collegiate Baseball's 2004 preseason poll with the final poll after the end of the College World Series. Here's the results:


Preseason	School		        Final

Poll					Poll



1.		Rice			10

		Miami, Fla.		5

3. 		Louisiana St.		8

4. 		Georgia Tech.		11

5. 		Texas			2

6. 		Stanford		9

7.		Arizona St.		23

8. 		Cal. St. Fullerton	1

9. 		Wichita St.		28

10. 		Notre Dame		19

11. 		Baylor			NR

12. 		Long Beach St.	        12

13. 		Tulane		        15

14. 		South Carolina	        3

15. 		Florida		        18

16. 		Southern California	NR

17. 		Clemson		        26

18. 		Auburn		        NR

19. 		Florida Atlantic	30

20. 		Nebraska		NR

21. 		North Carolina	        27

22. 		Arizona		        6

23. 		Washington		21

24. 		Florida St.		14

25. 		Minnesota		NR

26. 		Nevada-Las Vegas	NR

27. 		Mississippi		24

28. 		Winthrop		NR

29. 		North Carolina St.	NR

30. 		Mississippi St.	        NR

The Long Beach State Dirtbags have the distinction of being the only school to have the same rank in both the preseason and final polls. This result is certainly an anomoly.

I was curious just how well Collegiate Baseball did with its preseason poll predictions. I've calculated the average difference between the preseason poll position, and the final poll position. I've assigned all teams which were not ranked in the final poll (NR above) to 31st place (since the final poll doesn't rank beyond 30th place). The average ordinal difference, whether higher or lower, comes out to 7.7.

The biggest moves down were Baylor (from 11th preseason to not ranked), Wichita State (from 9th to 28th) and Arizona State (from 7th to 23rd). The largest move up was by Arizona, from 22nd preseason to 6th in the final poll. Interestingly, each of these teams has a Dirtbag connection. Baylor and Wichita State were on the 49ers schedule last season, and are again in 2005. Long Beach State helped to drop each in the rankings, sweeping three games against Baylor and two against Wichita State. Arizona's surge in the poll was, of course, also aided by the Dirtbags as the Wildcats took two of three in the Long Beach Super Regional. And finally, the Dirtbags open the 2005 season on the road against Arizona State.

Baseball is played between the lines.

posted on 12/22/2004 by Jeff Agnew

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