New ball in the CWS (links)

[snowling]

New ball has been a hit with coaches

POSTED: FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2015 1:00 AM | UPDATED: 11:53 PM, FRI JUN 12, 2015.

By Steven Pivovar / World-Herald staff writer

You don’t have a discussion about the state of college baseball without talking about the ball itself.

The NCAA’s switch to a flat-seam ball received favorable grades from the three panelists who participated Friday in the annual State of Collegiate Baseball press conference at TD Ameritrade Park.

Craig Keilitz, executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association, shared the results of a survey his organization took of coaches’ opinions on the new ball.

“Going into this,” Keilitz said, “I don’t know that coaches felt the flat-seam was going to be the answer.”

But Keilitz said almost 90 percent of the coaches who responded to the survey feel highly favorable or favorable about the ball and that 87 percent said their players like the flat-seam baseball.

The ABCA also asked coaches how their pitchers felt about the new ball. Keilitz said 67 or 68 percent of coaches responded that their pitchers either favored or were highly favorable of the new ball, while 24 percent responded that they didn’t think it made any great difference.

“Overwhelmingly, the pitchers are in favor of the new ball as well,” Keilitz said. “Just talking to the coaches, they feel the breaking ball is working better. While the science doesn’t back this up, both the coaches and pitchers feel like they throw the ball harder.”

Additionally, Keilitz said 90 percent of the coaches responded that they felt the flat-seam ball did what it was intended to do — provide more offense.

“That’s great news to us,” he said.

Dave Heeke, chairman of the Division I baseball committee, and Damani Leech, director of championships and alliances for the NCAA, also spoke favorably of the new ball.

Leech said because the flat-seam ball travels farther than the raised-seam ball previously used, outfielders have to play deeper.

“We all noticed toward the end of the series last year, outfielders were basically playing deep infield,” Leech said. “Having outfielders play a little farther out, more true in terms of their natural position, is going to open up the offense.

“So you may not see as many home runs, but you may see more singles and doubles in critical situations that are still moving people around the bases.”

Heeke said the anecdotal evidence he’s obtained in conversations with coaches and players indicates that the new ball has impacted the game in a positive way.

“It doesn’t seem to have any negative impacts,” Heeke said. “As I said, as we get to Omaha, let’s have the wind blowing out and we’ll have lots of home runs.”

Playing in spacious TD Ameritrade, where 25 homers have been hit since the CWS moved there in 2011, will provide another test of the baseball. There have been three homers in each of the past two College World Series.

What happens, the panel was asked, if the new baseball doesn’t provide a spike in those numbers?

“Let’s see how it plays out so we can make a very sound decision moving forward,” Keilitz said. “The easy thing is let’s move the fences. Do we move them too close? Is it not close enough?

“I think there’s a lot that has to go into that. I think we made a great first step with the ball change. We’ll let it play and see what it does for our championship.”

Heeke’s committee is in charge of selecting at-large teams and seeding the tournament. Four of the eight national seeds — No. 2 LSU, No. 4 Florida, No. 5 Miami and No. 6 TCU — made it to Omaha.

Two of the other qualifiers, Vanderbilt and Cal State Fullerton, were No. 1 regional seeds, while Arkansas was a No. 2 and Virginia a No. 3.

“I think we put together a very good field,” Heeke said. “There’s been some incredible matchups, and once again, it provided some great, great stories.”

Contact the writer:

402-679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com, twitter.com/PivOWH

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[snowling]

More offense? Findings show new baseball gives hope, but may fall short of expectations.

Will the new flat-seam baseball increase scoring at the College World Series? If the new ball really travels 20 feet farther than its old high-seam counterpart, as it’s been billed to do based on previous testing, there is little doubt scoring will pick up inside TD Ameritrade Park. But does the ball actually travel 20 feet farther? Not according to the results of a World-Herald test conducted on Thursday. Click on the link below to see the results, plus read our analysis to find out what's in store for CWS fans.

http://dataomaha.com/media/sports/2015/cws/new-baseball-test/

The pitching machine positioned at home plate spit out 57 baseballs before the 58th rattled the seats behind the right-field bullpen at TD Ameritrade Park.

It was a flat-seam ball. Might an old, high-seamer do the same?

No. Not even close. At least not in this instance.

The sound of a ball ricocheting off outfield seats has been noticeably absent since the College World Series moved to TD Ameritrade in 2011. Home run totals have nosedived to record lows with only three each in the past two series.

So this season the NCAA replaced high-seam baseballs with more aerodynamic flat-seam balls.

On Thursday, The World-Herald, under the watchful eye of an engineer associated with the NCAA and aided by a state-of-the-art measuring device operated by officials from internationally known contractor Kiewit Corp., set out to see what effect the flat-seam ball might have come today.

The results: Yes, the new ball flies farther.

But will home run totals go up? It’s likely, but based on our results, a wait-and-see attitude would be prudent.

Not all of the 31 two-ball comparisons that were part of our test were as clear cut as the one that had the flat-seamer bouncing around the outfield bleachers. For the record, the flat-seam ball in that particular comparison went 379.2 feet, compared with only 294.4 feet for its high-seamed counterpart.

But in 15 of the 31 comparisons, the old, high-seam and less-aerodynamic ball defied expectations — and science — and actually flew farther than the new flat-seam ball. Clearly, during the hour-long test conducted between — but not during — episodes of light drizzle, variables had crept in. Perhaps it was the whim of the machine used to launch the balls — a modern, three-wheeled contraption that might be found at any ball park. Perhaps some of the balls became slightly waterlogged. Wind, slight at the time out of the north at 7-9 mph, may have affected some balls and not others.

The World-Herald test went like this: Starting with an aim toward left field and slowly moving across to the right foul pole, flat-seam and high-seam balls were alternately launched from home plate at about 90 mph and at a 20-degree angle. Flat-seam ball landings were marked with orange cones and high-seam landings with yellow cones. The distances were then measured by Kiewit Building Group officials with a Trimble SPS 930 robotic universal total station.

The difference, at least in this test, was less than expected by college baseball observers. Our results showed the flat-seam balls traveled an average of about 7 feet more per launch.

New baseball brings hope for more CWS excitement:
https://social.newsinc.com/media/js...deoPlayer/16x9&widgetId=2&trackingGroup=69017

Lloyd Smith, professor of mechanical engineering at Washington State University, has worked with the NCAA on similar tests and was on site for The World-Herald’s effort.

Smith said he would expect a difference of 20 feet — based on past testings — but he said Thursday’s test was the least controlled environment with his involvement, thus the “wide variety you get, the large scatter.”

“When we’re doing this in a really controlled environment, the flat-seam ball always goes farther and the raised-seam ball just drops,” he said. “And to see that you can actually have them going opposite directions, it’s kind of fun to watch.”

Indeed, The World-Herald test ranged from the expected to the puzzling.

Of the 25 shots that traveled farthest, 15 were flat-seamed — including four of the six longest and the two deepest bombs. Of the bottom 10 balls, six were of the old high-seam variety, including the two that traveled the shortest.

On some of the two-ball comparisons, the difference was as great as 50-plus feet in favor of the flat-seam ball, although the reverse also was true on some occasions.

In addition to variables coming with the damp weather, Smith said a pitching machine’s wheels will affect leather balls as they’re used over and over. In some past tests, including one at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Smith said a pitching machine first “fired” the ball into the wheels, which then only put a slight spin on the ball.

“It was amazing the difference that had,” he said. “When you looked at those balls afterwards, they almost looked brand new still. The only scuffs were from hitting the turf.

“And if you’re worried about drag, that can have a big effect. You’re worried about the raised seam, but when you roughen the ball up that can have a big effect on drag.”

What does it all mean? Some of the research already has played out over recent months in real-game action.

Through NCAA super regionals, teams are averaging 0.56 home runs per game in 2015, compared with 0.39 at this point last year. The 0.39 mark after the 2014 CWS now stands as the NCAA record low.

Also, 135 home runs were hit during 2015 regionals and super regionals, compared with 84 during the same two rounds of NCAA play in 2014.

Since the CWS moved to TD Ameritrade, there have been nine home runs in 2011, 10 in 2012 and three each of the past two seasons — for a total of 25 in 59 games and 3,876 at-bats.

Is the trend line on the cusp of heading north?

“I can’t give you a number of home runs — I’m not that good — but clearly we’re going to see more offense than we did last year,” Smith told The World-Herald as Thursday’s test was wrapping up. “There’s no question about that.”


What's keeping the ball in the park?
There are three chief factors to what has ailed College World Series offenses since the move to TD Ameritrade Park in 2011. How each figures into the downturn in production:

THE WIND
Prevailing winds in Omaha in late spring and early summer are out of the south. Designers threw a natural obstacle at hitters when they orientated the stadium to the southeast.

Baseball fields traditionally have a northeast orientation. That was the case at Rosenblatt Stadium. Now, winds blow into the faces of hitters and help keep fly balls out of the bleachers.

There have been 59 CWS games at the newer venue. According to official box scores, wind blew out of the south 34 times.

Geography also figures into the decline of offense. Rosenblatt sat on a hill. TD Ameritrade Park is located in a valley.

Cooler air will settle in a valley. Cold air is denser, which can put more friction on a ball and decrease distance.

One of the architects who helped design TD Ameritrade Park once said wind patterns were never a factor in determining the orientation of the park. That’s a little like building a house on a beach and not taking into regard tide patterns.

THE BAT
The NCAA tightened standards on metal bats the same year the CWS moved to TD Ameritrade.

Metal was introduced to the college game in 1974. Improvements in technology led to drastic increases in offense, peaking in 1998 when Division I batters set all-time highs for average (.306) and home runs per game (2.12). The score of the CWS title game that year: 21-14.

The NCAA adopted new standards for bats the next year, placing emphasis on the exit speed of balls leaving non-wood bats vs. that of wood bats.

Offense dipped, but not dramatically. Concerned about the balance between offense and defense, the NCAA took more juice out of bats.

College hitters entered into the BBCOR era in 2011, and hitters soon realized that new bats were a lot less lively. The new standard called for non-wood bats to perform similarly to the best wood bats.

In turn, many coaches adjusted philosophies, emphasizing bunting and the hit-and-run rather than power.

Ten homers were hit in Omaha the first year the CWS was played with new bats. The number dropped to nine in 2012 and then to three in each of the past two seasons.

THE PITCHING
Plenty of energy has been expended talking about the impact wind patterns and bats have had at TD Ameritrade Park. What sometimes gets overlooked is that pitching in college baseball has improved a lot in the past 10 years.

Virginia coach Brian O’Connor says the improvement in pitching has as much to do with the offensive decline as anything, and other coaches agree. What’s different? Today, there isn’t much of a drop-off between the No. 1 starters and the rest of the rotation. There are more power arms in the game.

TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said college programs are doing a better job of developing pitchers. He also points to changes in the draft policies of professional teams adding to the quality of arms in the college game.

“With the way bonuses are slotted today, a lot of guys are deciding it’s better to go pitch in college,” Schlossnagle said. “There are just more and more great pitchers going to college.”

World-Herald findings
» 6.9 feet: The average distance the new baseballs traveled farther than the old balls.

» Top 25: Of the 25 baseballs that traveled the farthest, 15 were flat-seamed — including four of the six longest and the two deepest shots.

» Scraping the bottom: Of the 10 that carried the shortest distance, six were the now-retired raised-seam variety, including the two weakest hits.

» New trumps old: The new ball goes farther, biggest difference from old ball: 84.8 feet (balls 57 and 58)

» Old trumps new: Old ball goes farther, biggest difference from new ball: 64.7 feet (balls 59 and 60)

Contact the writer:

402-444-1042, rich.kaipust@owh.com, twitter.com/RKaipustOWH

Go Hoosiers!

 

[snowling]

Will 0.017 inches be huge for College World Series?

POSTED: FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2015 1:00 AM |UPDATED: 12:30 AM, SAT JUN 13, 2015.

By Steven Pivovar / World-Herald

A trip to Omaha last June had Ed Blankmeyer wondering which World Series he was watching.

The memory of what he saw in the four baseball games at TD Ameritrade Park still leaves the longtime St. John’s coach shaking his head.

“I didn’t see a ball get hit to the warning track,” Blankmeyer said. “Even though the outfielders were squeezing the field, I didn’t see one ball get over an outfielder’s head. It was like watching a bunch of Little Leaguers play.’’

That was what the College World Series had become at TD Ameritrade. Not only were home runs in danger of becoming extinct at the spacious yard on the north edge of downtown Omaha, but other basic baseball plays — like scoring from second on a hit to the outfield — were becoming more difficult to execute because outfielders were playing so close.

Scoring was down. Late-game rallies were a thing of the past.

“The game was becoming boring,” said Kyle Peterson, a former Stanford pitcher and now the lead analyst for ESPN.

Now, said Virginia coach Brian O’Connor, college baseball is “more exciting than it has been in a long time.”

The biggest reason, he and others say, is a flat-seam baseball introduced to the college game this year. The ball is similar to the one used in minor league baseball, although its core is less lively to compensate for the use of metal bats.

Offensive numbers are generally up this season, especially home runs. The balls also have been popular with pitchers.

The new balls are about to receive their ultimate test with the CWS beginning its two-week run in Omaha. Naturally, a lot of the focus will be on the home run count.

In the 204 games at the stadium since it opened in mid-2011, there have been 80 home runs. Twenty-five have come in the 59 CWS games.

CWS hitters have homered once every 155 at-bats, which is slightly better than the average of one homer for every 167 at-bats for all games at the stadium.

Many coaches who have brought teams to TD Ameritrade believe there will be more home runs this year than the three that left the park in both the 2013 and 2014 Series.

“There are some awfully good hitters with power here,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “There are definitely going to be more home runs. I think you’ll see more toward 10 home runs.”

Texas Christian coach Jim Schlossnagle said he thinks that number could push 15. Virginia’s O’Connor isn’t quite as optimistic.

“I think it’s going to have a little bit of an impact, but it’s not going to be a huge uptick,” O’Connor said. “If we played with that ball last year, you might have seen six or seven home runs.”

Schlossnagle’s frustration with the state of CWS games boiled over last year after his team lost a 3-2, 15-inning game to Virginia.

“It’s just a travesty what we’ve done to college baseball,” he said in a postgame press conference.

He recalled those frustrations in a recent interview.

“We had Riley Ferrell throwing 96 to 100 mph, and they had Nick Howard, a first-round pick, and you had the wind blowing in and you had a bad bat with a bad ball in a huge park,” Schlossnagle said. “It became a game of who’s going to screw something up.”

Frustrations weren’t limited to what was happening in Omaha. Metal-bat restrictions, introduced in the late 1990s in an attempt to curb the explosion of offense that had tipped the balance of the game heavily in favor of hitters, had offensive numbers trending downward across the country.

The lack of offense became frighteningly clear at the 2013 CWS. UCLA put a stranglehold on the national championship by relying on stellar pitching and defense. The eight teams combined to score 86 runs in 14 games, the lowest total since the eight-team format was adopted in 1950.

UCLA’s style worked perfectly in Too Deep Ameritrade — the park will always conspire against hitters because of its design. Many college baseball officials left Omaha in 2013 knowing something had to be done to put some zip back into the game’s grandest showcase.

That fall, the NCAA announced it would switch from a raised-seam baseball to a flat-seam ball for its national tournament starting in 2015.

Extensive testing of the flat-seam ball demonstrated that balls hit at 95 mph would travel about 20 feet farther than the raised-seam ball.

In other words, balls that previously would have ended up dying on the warning track in most parks would wind up in the stands.

Teams used the new ball throughout this season. Batting averages have climbed from .270 in 2014 to .274, and scoring has increased from 10.08 runs per game to 10.88.

The most dramatic jump came in home runs, which increased 43.6 percent from 0.78 per game in 2014 to 1.12 in 2015. In NCAA tournament games, they’ve increased 65 percent in frequency from 0.68 per game to 1.12.

We’re very pleased with the performance of the ball,” said Dave Heeke, chairman of the Division I baseball committee. “The ball seems to be carrying a little bit more. Our home run production is up slightly. At the same time, our strikeouts are up.

“We need to continue to study this, to take all the results into consideration. But right now, the trend has been that it has performed well.’’

The man who has coached more games in the park agrees that offense should pick up at this year’s CWS. Ed Servais, whose Creighton team has played 116 regular-season games at TD Ameritrade, said the impact goes beyond home runs.

For Servais, the biggest value of the flat-seam ball is that it’s opened up the game. Outfielders no longer can cheat toward the infield, unafraid that a hitter will drive the ball over their heads.

“The new ball has created a little more offense,” Servais said. “Outfielders have to play deeper, so you’re able to score a few more traditional runs. You can score a man from second on a hit to the outfield.

“The last couple of years, it was 50-50 whether that guy is scoring. There probably aren’t going to be a lot more home runs in TD Ameritrade, but I think there will be more doubles and triples. You’ll see more runs scored because the outfielders have to play deeper.’’

The guys on the mound still will have a big impact on how things play out in Omaha. Most coaches agree that pitchers have adapted well to the new ball — the flatter seams are easier on their hands.

“We’re not having the blister problems like we’ve had in the past,” Arkansas’ Van Horn said. “Our pitchers used to get blisters from those seams and have to miss a game or come out of a game.

“Velocities are up a little, and I think you can make the ball move a little bit, more like a professional baseball. The good thing is that when you hit the ball, it jumps off the bat and travels farther.”

Whether that plays out in Omaha will be a matter of much scrutiny. The NCAA intends to evaluate this season’s results, but Damani Leech, the NCAA’s director of championships and alliances, said no rash judgments will be made.

“When we got into this, we agreed to wait at least two years to see how the ball performs before considering any other options,” Leech said. “I don’t see us making any drastic changes right away based on how the ball performs this year.”

Leech said he’s pleased with the comments he’s received from coaches about the performance of the new ball this season. The coaches say they are equally excited by the response they’ve seen in the stands.

“They used to say in the ’90s that chicks dig the long ball,” Miami coach Jim Morris said. “All fans dig the long ball. It adds some excitement to the game.’’

Said Van Horn: “I know the new ball has really picked up our fans. They enjoy the game now, and I think an infusion of offense would be good here, too.”

Creighton’s Servais said fans hungry for more offense at the CWS should come away satisfied.

“The home run totals are not like you’ve seen at the regional and super regional,” he said. “But I think you might see double-digit homers at TD this year.

“And if nothing else, the threat of the two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth is going to be there. That was probably not a legitimate threat there in the past.”

What's next?
No rush to judgment.

Damani Leech, the NCAA’s director of championships and alliances, said there will be a “measured approach” in determining whether the flat-seamed baseball produces the desired results at the College World Series.

“When we got into this, we agreed to wait at least two years to see how the ball performs before considering any other options,” Leech said. “I don’t see us making any drastic changes right away based on how the ball performs this year.”

In other words, they aren’t going to be moving the fences in at TD Ameritrade Park any time soon. Revamping the configuration of the playing field has been — and still is — considered the final option in trying to pump some life into the College World Series.

“Certainly, the dimensions of the ballpark are one thing people like to talk about,” Leech said.

The outfield walls at TD Ameritrade are 335 feet from home plate down both lines and 408 feet to center field. It is 375 feet to the power alleys in left and right field.

Obviously, cost would be a big factor in a decision to shorten the field.

“We’ve looked into it and studied it and it’s not an easy solution,” Leech said. “You could possibly do something down the lines with bringing the fences in, but when you start working your way into the power alleys and to center field, it becomes a lot more difficult.

“You’re talking about making changes in terms of the grade of the seating angles. There would be a lot of cost involved with that.’’

Almost gone
An extra 20 feet would have made Sam Travis a College World Series legend.

Playing in the 2013 CWS, the Indiana first baseman came within a couple of feet of becoming the first player to hit a ball out of center field at TD Ameritrade Park. Had his hit cleared the fence, Travis also might have changed the direction of how the series that year ultimately unfolded.

The NCAA is using a flat-seamed baseball for the 2015 CWS. Tests have shown that the flat-seamed ball flies about 20 feet farther than the raised-seam baseball that was used the first four years the CWS was played at TD Ameritrade.

Travis is not the only hitter over the years who would have benefited from a little extra distance. Countless drives, some potentially game-changing or even series-changing, have wound up in a defender’s glove on the warning track instead of in some fan’s hands in the bleachers.

Here’s a look at a handful of sluggers who would have loved an extra 20 feet of juice on the balls they hit in Omaha:

SAM TRAVIS, INDIANA: His team had just fallen behind 5-3 after Mississippi State scored three runs in the bottom of the eighth in a second-round winners game of the 2013 CWS. Will Nolden opened the Indiana ninth with a single and, one out later, Travis put a charge into the crowd when he mashed a drive to center field. The ball banged off the top of the wall, a few inches short of being a game-tying homer. Indiana coach Tracy Smith said he didn’t initially think that Travis’ hit had enough carry. “But then I saw on the replay that it hit about two feet below the yellow (line). That’s when I wanted to throw up.” Travis’ double did score a run, but the Hoosiers ended up stranding him at second. Instead of possibly having a chance to win in extra innings, Indiana took a 5-4 loss and, two days later, were eliminated. Instead of possibly dropping into the losers bracket, Mississippi State advanced to the bracket championship round, got a couple of days of rest and defeated Oregon State to reach the CWS final.

KEVIN CRON, TEXAS CHRISTIAN: Locked in an extra-innings battle with Virginia in the 2014 CWS, the Horned Frogs thought they had the go-ahead run in the 13th inning when Cron, their 6-foot-5, 245-pound first baseman, rocketed a pitch to left field in the 13th field. Fans jumped out of the seats in excitement, then quickly sat back down as Cron’s drive was caught just short of the warning track. Someone tweeted: “That ball Cron just hit would have been out of Yellowstone Park.” Instead, Virginia went on to pull out a 3-2 win in the 15th that put it in the bracket championship game. TCU? The Horned Frogs were beaten two nights later and left town wondering what might have been had Cron’s ball left the park.

DANNY HARRIS, OREGON STATE: Maybe there was something in the air in 2013, but Mississippi State also dodged potential disaster in its opening-round win against the Beavers. The Bulldogs took a 5-3 lead into the ninth inning, but Oregon State put two runners on base. With two outs, Harris smashed a pitch from Mississippi State closer Jonathan Holder that appeared to have the makings of a game-winning homer. “Honestly, I didn’t think it was that hard hit off the bat,” Holder said. “It kind of sounded like it was off the end of the bat. I looked up. It was flying pretty good. The wind just knocked it down.” Mississippi State right fielder Hunter Renfroe was about a foot from the wall when he caught Harris’ drive. Holder’s teammates admitted they weren’t as confident as he was when Harris made contact. Said first baseman Wes Rea, “My stomach just dropped” when he saw the ball flying toward the wall.

MATT REYNOLDS, ARKANSAS: Playing South Carolina in a 2012 game that sent the winner to the championship final, Arkansas already led 1-0 and had a big inning brewing in the third with runners on second and third. Reynolds, the Razorbacks’ No. 3 hitter who had driven in Arkansas’ first run, launched a ball into the gap in right-center field. South Carolina’s Adam Matthews managed to track it down, turning a possible game-changing, extra-base hit into a sacrifice fly. The Gamecocks eventually rallied to win 3-2 that gave them a chance to win their third straight national title. An extra 20 feet, and Dave Van Horn’s team might have been playing for all the marbles.

WES REA, MISSISSIPPI STATE: Playing Oregon State for a second time in the CWS, Rea hit a ball just about as well as any 270-pound former offensive lineman could. Rea’s blast had souvenir written all over it, but Beavers left fielder Michael Conforto had a different idea. He managed to track down Rea’s hit and made a leaping, acrobatic catch just before banging into the wall. While Rea’s near-homer wouldn’t have changed the outcome, an extra 20 feet on that drive would have denied the 2013 CWS one of its iconic defensive plays. Later in the game, Conforto threw out Rea as he attempted to score from third on a fly ball. “That dude is an unbelievable player,” Rea said.

Old NCAA baseball
0.048 inch-high seams: In 59 CWS games over four years at TD Ameritrade Park, only 25 home runs were hit (one homer every 155 at-bats). Scoring was down, and a 2013 survey conducted by the American Baseball Coaches Association showed 87 percent of the respondents wanted to switch to the flat-seamed baseball.

2015 NCAA baseball
0.031 inch-high seams: Research by the Washington State Sport Science Laboratory showed the flat-seamed baseballs traveled about 20 feet farther. A World-Herald research project conducted Thursday at TD Ameritrade Park showed the new baseballs traveled an average of 6.9 feet farther.

Home runs per game
2014 NCAA tournament: 0.68
2015 NCAA tournament: 1.12
2014 at TD Ameritrade Park: 0.34
2015 at TD Ameritrade Park: 0.36

Contact the writer:

402-679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com, twitter.com/PivOWH

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[snowling]

It’s a new ball game in Omaha, and seams like seems are a hit so far

POSTED: SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2015 1:00 AM| UPDATED: 11:41 PM, SAT JUN 20, 2015.
By Dirk Chatelain / World-Herald

The scene was straight out of Rosenblatt.

Fans were still settling into their seats at TD Ameritrade Park on Wednesday night when — on the fourth pitch of the game — Florida leadoff hitter Harrison Bader attacked a 1-2 slider.

He didn’t miss.

The ball sprung off the bat and climbed over the Miami defense, carrying and carrying until it landed where no College World Series slugger ever hit a ball: the bleachers in center field.

“I was lucky,” said Bader, whose Gator teammates followed with three more home runs in a 10-2 win. “It kind of jumped for me.”

If you had to pinpoint a moment when the stewards of the CWS knew they’d left the dead-ball era behind, Bader’s blast was it. TD Ameritrade will never be a launching pad like Rosenblatt Stadium, but it’s clear that the new flat-seam ball has reinvigorated college baseball’s marquee event.

“I’m actually a little surprised,” said Creighton coach Ed Servais, who plays home games at TD Ameritrade. “I knew there would be an uptick in home runs, but I didn’t think we’d see four in one game. And I didn’t think we’d see those two that were hit to as close to straightaway center as you can get. I couldn’t be more happy. I think they got it right.”

Through 13 CWS games this season, there were 14 home runs. In 2013 and ’14 combined, there were six. The past two years, the average CWS team scored 3.1 runs per game. This year, it’s 4.6.

That’s welcome news to Damani Leech, the NCAA manager of championships and alliances. Leech listened to the groans the past few years as hard-hit balls landed in outfielders’ gloves. He was frustrated, too.

In 2013, UCLA won the CWS with a slugging percentage of .260. The Bruins had five extra-base hits in 150 at-bats.

How did they win? They gave up four runs in five games.

In 2014, the offenses were even worse. The CWS batting average dropped to .219.

TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle, after a 15-inning loss last year to Virginia, ripped the combination of the ballpark and BBCOR bats (mandated in 2011), saying “it’s a travesty what we’ve done to college baseball.”

When Texas’ C.J. Hinojosa hit the first home run at last year’s CWS, it broke a homerless streak of 923 batters, 3,436 pitches and 620 outs. Longhorns coach Augie Garrido joked that four teammates fainted.

“I had a mild heart attack,” Garrido said. “I put a long-distance call in to get Cinco de Mayo recognized as a national day in honor of him.”

The flat-seam baseball was supposed to eliminate the punch lines by adding as much as 20 feet to long fly balls. Leech knew the science. He also knew the statistics. Through the 2015 super regionals, the ball had done its job:

Runs per game
2014: 5.08
2015: 5.44

Home runs per game
2014: 0.39
2015: 0.56

Sacrifice bunts
2014: 0.76
2015: 0.68

ERA
2014: 4.22
2015: 4.58

But would scoring translate to Omaha?

“Going into it, I was cautiously optimistic,” Leech said. “I was trusting the research we did and trusting the data we saw in the regular season. But still, you never know until you get there. There was a part of me that thought, ‘Hey, what if we don’t see the kind of performance we want?’ ”

On Monday morning, Vanderbilt rallied from a 3-1 ninth-inning deficit. Jeren Kendall’s walk-off home run was a throwback to the Rosenblatt era. Two nights later, the Gators hit four bombs against Miami.

“After the first few days, we were in exhale mode,” Leech said. “That’s really evolved to just excitement now. To see the ball play the way we hoped it would.”

For decades, college baseball fought the metal-bat stereotype. Purists shook their heads at all the home runs, especially in Omaha. But after moving to TD Ameritrade, experts say the pendulum swung too far.

Even when hitters crushed a ball, outfielders ran it down. Even when trailing by multiple runs, coaches were calling for bunts. Outfielders were playing “deep infield,” Leech said. Runners couldn’t score from second base on singles.

All of that has changed. And it’s hard to find a critic.

“I love it,” ESPN analyst Aaron Boone said. “It just feels more like a real baseball. Between the bats being dead and the ball being dead, you basically didn’t have the threat of the long ball.”

Baseball doesn’t necessarily need home runs to entertain. But the threat is critical.

“That adds to the plot, the drama,” Boone said. “It wasn’t there, especially in this ballpark.”

Nobody knows TD Ameritrade Park better than Servais. The Bluejay coach is thrilled by the home runs, but the increase isn’t quite as simple as flatter seams, he said.

Unlike the past few years, strong south winds — blowing in toward home plate — haven’t been knocking potential homers out of the sky.

A bigger factor: The flat seams enabled power teams to get to Omaha in the first place. The past few years, coaches wrestled with how to build their programs. They saw the success of small-ball programs like Arizona and UCLA, who won the CWS in 2012 and ’13.

If a power team couldn’t succeed in Omaha, then what’s the point of building a power team?

This year, programs like Florida and Miami regained an advantage over small-ball teams.

“I think they got back to the style they were accustomed to playing,” Servais said. “Most of those teams probably did not like the bunt game at all. But they felt like they had to incorporate it because the runs were few and far between. Now you see a lot fewer bunts and everybody is playing the style that they prefer.”

The flat-seam ball enhanced the CWS field, Boone said. The past few years, ordinary teams could make an NCAA tournament run.

“If you pitched halfway decent, maybe you win a 2-1 game against a team that’s probably much more talented,” Boone said. “That’s baseball. But I think it’s way more inclined to happen with the old ball. That’s been eliminated and, as a result, I think you see powerhouse teams here.”

According to the American Baseball Coaches Association, feedback from coaches and players has been overwhelmingly positive:

» 90 percent of Division I coaches had a favorable opinion of the new ball.

» 87 percent of hitters have a favorable view.

» 68 percent of pitchers have a favorable view (the flat seam helps them throw fastballs).

» 90 percent of coaches think it has improved the game.

Even Schlossnagle is a fan. He’d like to see the NCAA take one more step and play with the minor league ball, which is harder and flies even farther. But the new ball is progress.

“This has certainly been an awesome step,” Schlossnagle said.

During Florida’s home run barrage Wednesday, Big 12 Deputy Commissioner Tim Weiser sat in the first row behind home plate. Weiser once led the NCAA baseball committee, searching for the right balance between offense and pitching.

When Bader blasted the fourth pitch into the seats, Weiser realized that the College World Series was going to be fine.

“We may have hit the sweet spot,” he said.

CWS stats

CWS home run totals
2015: 11 (through 12 games)
2014: 3
2013: 3

CWS runs per team totals
2015: 4.6
2014: 3.1
2013: 3.1

More Information
By the numbers, the flat-seam baseball has brought the offense back to Omaha. The 14 homers through 13 games at the CWS are eight more than the past two years combined.

Of the 14 homers hit in the first 13 games of the College World Series this year, three have gone to center field — including this one by Florida’s Peter Alonso against Miami. In the four previous years at TD Ameritrade Park, there hadn’t been any home runs to center.
Contact the writer:

402-649-1461, dirk.chatelain@owh.com, twitter.com/dirkchatelain

Go Hoosiers!

http://www.omaha.com/sports/cws/it-...cle_80c1f758-115c-5aaf-a932-7ef94237e9f5.html

 

[Rangeline Fan]

Man.....a few years too late