When I worked in major league operations and analytics, I don’t think I watched more than one or two college games from start to finish. When the NCAA regionals rolled around this year, though, I realized what I’d been missing out on. College baseball can be really fun to watch! It’s got energy, and it’s wacky (see: team offensive timeouts, mid-at-bat pitching changes, bunt plays turned into hit-and-run plays).
In this College World Series in particular, it was also full of talent. The top matchups (those involving Florida, LSU, and Wake Forest) had moments where I saw a professional quality of play. In today’s post, I want to break down the contrasting offensive approaches on display in the Florida-LSU final and some takeaways about the importance of the basics.
LSU’s hitters came in with a plan
Both sides of the Florida-LSU Game 1 pitching matchup came in packed full of “stuff.” Florida threw Brandon Sproat, who’s got a 93-96 mph sinker, a major league-quality changeup, and a sweeping breaking ball. LSU tabbed Ty Floyd, who pumps a 94-97 mph riding fastball and a tight slider.
But only one group of hitters executed a sound offensive plan. We know LSU came with a plan for Sprout because LSU coach Jay Johnson confirmed as much during an in-game interview. However, when it came to specifics, he said, “I’m not gonna tell you that.” That’s fair. This was a game in progress.
Here’s a guess at what LSU’s offensive plan was.
A hitter’s ideal approach to handling Sproat involves removing the bottom half of the zone from consideration - you’d “zone him up.” To take anything that starts just below your belt would free you up against Sproat’s changeup, which looks like a strike but often isn’t. Sure, you’d take a few called strikes on fastballs thrown down in the zone and breaking balls that finish there. But his most hittable pitches (flat fastballs and hung breaking balls) will start at or above your belt.
Here’s a pretty good example of what the “zone up” approach looks like against Sproat (Gavin Dugas here). This is an 11-pitch at-bat, but pay particular attention to the first pitch and the 1-2 pitch:
LSU hitters did a pretty good job of sticking to this approach, and they found themselves in a lot of good hitting counts as a result. They also ran up Sproat’s pitch count to drive him out of the game after four innings, which forced Florida to push its two top relievers to fill the rest of an 11-inning game.
Florida hitters didn’t
Even if you didn’t watch Game 1, you could just take a look at the box score and know which group of hitters picked an approach and stuck with it. LSU’s stubborn commitment to the “zone up” plan resulted in Sproat striking out 7 and walking 5. LSU’s Ty Floyd, on the other hand, struck out 17 Gators and walked 1.
Against Floyd, the ideal approach for a hitter is the opposite of the “zone up” plan. He’ll try to beat you with a fastball that starts at your belt and jumps toward your shoulders. A Floyd fastball that initially appears to start at your knees will enter the hitting zone. To avoid chasing his elevated fastball and find the hittable one, you’d ideally “zone down.”
Florida hitters proved that they either weren’t zoning Floyd down, or were trying to but couldn’t. 12 of those 17 strikeouts came on fastballs above the zone. Here’s the full strikeout reel if you’re interested:
What’s remarkable about Floyd’s performance is that there wasn’t any mystery to it. Some Florida hitters got to face him four times, and Floyd’s approach remained the same each time. If anything, he just started climbing higher on the ladder.
Here’s leadoff hitter Cade Kurland punching out in his fourth at-bat against Floyd. This was strikeout number 16. It isn’t a pitch a hitter that is “zoning down” would chase:
It’s all about execution
With final scores of 24-4 and 18-4, Games 2 and 3 revealed just how hard baseball is and how thin the line is between good execution and major league execution. The starting pitching matchups in these games were full of the same plus velocity and stuff that we saw in Game 1, but the implementation wasn’t there. Game 3 in particular revealed how quickly things can turn when the fundamentals are missed. Here’s Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan:
"I thought our team was in a really good place. I thought BP was good. They were loose. Put two on the board the bottom half of the first. I thought the dugout was electric. And then all of a sudden we had four walks and I think two hit by pitches ... and then we had to go to the 'pen earlier than we wanted to.”
Walks and hit batters - these are the products of pitches that missed their targets. BP “looseness” only counts for so much; lapses in pitch execution and lapses in hitter approach kicked off a sequence that snowballed into a rout.
Game 3 matched up two starting pitchers that were (understandably) a little too amped up. Florida’s Jac Caglianone, a two-way star who earned comps to Shohei Ohtani, hit LSU’s leadoff hitter in the back with his first pitch (a 96 mph heater). LSU’s Thatcher Hurd showed his excitement by ripping a few two-strike breaking balls into the other batter’s box. He then overcorrected and hung one over the plate that resulted in a 2-run home run.
Hurd bounced back and started to hit his catcher’s glove; he stuck to Floyd’s Game 1 plan and threw Caglianone (the hitter) three straight elevated fastballs. Caglianone chased every one of them. It was the same tape shown in Game 1: LSU playing with purpose, and Florida reacting.
You can’t improve what you don’t measure
While both teams were full of talent, and LSU brought a plan, a team is only able to game plan as far as their ability to consistently carry it out. All three games were a reminder that at the college level, the ability to execute can vary from player to player and pitch to pitch.
When people ask me what place “analytics” can have at the college level, I give the same answer I’d give at the major league level: the data that’s available today, when packaged effectively, can aid players in further developing the skills that matter most. What skills matter? Pitchers hitting sensible catcher targets, hitters sticking to one area of the hitting zone, and position players making good decisions on defense. This series was won through intention and execution of the fundamentals.
A spreadsheet full of pitch tracking data can’t directly enable a player to do any of these fundamentals better; raw data can’t make a pitcher throw more strikes and it can’t cause a hitter to chase fewer breaking balls. But when players have access to tools that communicate data in a more timely and digestible way, they can hone in on the specific skills that win games and track their own development of these skills on a night-to-night basis. These tools can also unearth previously overlooked strengths and give players the confidence to leverage them.
It’s one thing to say you want to work on hitting elevated fastball targets in your bullpen sessions. It’s another to dedicate 10 pitches a week to it and to count the number you hit each time. You may or may not agree with the saying “you can’t improve what you don’t measure,”1 but I think there’s something to it. I’ve seen it work.
I may have another item or two on the College World Series to share, but that’s all for now. Have a great week!
Affiliated with a college baseball program and interested in chatting? Send me an email! I’ve had some interesting conversations recently with college staff and would love to have more.
Not the exact Peter Drucker quote, but close enough.