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Coaches' shows are something that is in the discussion/planning stages. With Aaron having the pressure of nearly 19 sports off him this year, we've got the time and people to explore some new and creative ideas. Plan on seeing more video up on the site this year.

There's greater disparity in college baseball than in the bigs. And with respect to the running game, the difference between the worst and best catcher in MLB is much smaller than the difference in the worst and best catcher in CBB. Not many Mike Piazzas still getting full-time work behind the plate. With 296 teams at the college level, you're gonna find a lot of catchers that are easy to run on.

The SABR crowd holds that unless a team has a stolen base success rate of 75%, they're doing themselves a disservice. I think it's a good baseline regardless of the level of play. Last season, Valpo had exactly an 80% success rate. 

I'll touch upon the subject in a few months when the time is more appropriate, but the stats from 2013 speak volumes in a number of areas. Valpo recorded 544 hits in 1976 at-bats. Its opponents recorded exactly 544 hits in 1976 at-bats. That's a crazy statistical coincidence. (Milwaukee, for example, had 519 hits in 1739 AB's compared to an opponents' mark of 408 hits in 1586 AB's.)

What isn't a coincidence is that Valpo had a +31 run differential. There were three reasons for that:

1) Billy Cribbs threw out 43.1% of would-be base stealers.
2) The team drew 63 more walks than their opponents.
3) They executed the sacrifice exceptionally well (36 more sac bunts than opponents).

The SABR stuff can get to be overwhelming, but its core belief remains true at all levels: when on offense, don't make outs. A team on-base percentage of .361 is darned good. Spencer Mahoney's batting average was down from his freshman year, but he still got on at a clip of .381. That's excellent.

Guys will go in slumps, but a disciplined eye at the plate will avoid those.

In case you didn't see it on the site, congrats to Eric Honert on being named HL Men's Tennis Player of the Week this morning.

http://www.valpoathletics.com/mtennis/news/2012-13/12612/honert-nets-horizon-league-player-of-the-week-honors/

The HL release: http://www.horizonleague.org/blog/honert-slizovskaya-win-weekly-tennis-awards.html

I'll have a feature on Eric up later in the week, too.

GameTracker is fixed...for now.  Video stream still up on ND's site, too.

As I noted on the Twitter account, Notre Dame hasn't been able to get GameTracker working for a few days.  However, they are streaming video at und.com.

Chris Zills showed me a picture of "the Hank" just before they left for Chicago. Let's just say it could've passed for Hank Aaron Lake before Hank Aaron Field. 

Emory G. Bauer wasn't much better.  The infield dirt doesn't take water well, and the walk-ups from the dugout to the plate were extremely soft.  Another site was discussed, but Chicago was the only option that worked.  There's a night and day difference between the surfaces of Valpo/Milwaukee and UIC's. 

Good afternoon, ladies and gents.  As for the snafu with GameTracker, that was on me.  GameTracker feeds off StatCrew (computer scoring program), and there was an odd play in the 5th where a PNC runner attempted to steal second, the batter swung at the pitch and was called for interference. It was unknown up in the booth as to what the call was, but I tried scoring it what I thought was simply a caught stealing. It was batter's interference and I simply didn't know what the keyboard shortcut was. 

Aaron Leavitt is the StatCrew guru, but he was over at softball.  Nevertheless, he helped us get caught up but not until after the 6th inning.

As for this past weekend in Chicago, I didn't want to say anything because he's a very nice guy that does (in my opinion) the best work in the Horizon League for baseball, but the Milwaukee SID forgot the activation code for GameTracker back in Wisconsin on Friday.  Then when he did have it for Saturday, the information was going to the link from Friday's game.  It was an cluster, no doubt about it.  I tried my best to keep the Twitter account updated.

Enough with the media geek problems, though.

The offense showed a pulse in the 7th inning yesterday, and it's nice to see some contributions from guys (Schneider, Hanson) that have stepped up.  As I alluded to in the game story, this team has yet to have a practice outdoors on a baseball field.  That's not anyone's fault.  That's not an excuse.  It's just a fact.  (Of course, Milwaukee is in the same boat we are.)

Not to sound like a homer, but there have been a lot of line drives and hard hit balls that are either right at fielders or defenses have made exceptional plays on.  Just like bad calls from umpires, those things tend to even out over the course of an entire season.

10-16 is certainly not where this team was expected to be after 26 games, but there's a lot of baseball still to be had.  It was around this time last season that this club started playing its best ball.

As denoted on the website, it appears we'll be playing ball Monday, Apr. 1st against Purdue North Central as opposed to Holy Cross.  Holy Cross had a league game to make up so the Valpo game got scratched.

There'll be an announcement tomorrow re: the home opener.  If you're from out of town and planning a trip to Valpo Monday for it, you might want to wait til tomorrow.  The weather has been especially unkind to EGB Field.

Correct.

http://www.valpoathletics.com/baseball/news/2012-13/12553/this-weeks-baseball-schedule-rearranged/

Valpo and Milwaukee will play one game Friday, two on Saturday at Les Miller Field in Chicago.

The Crusaders postponed Tuesday's game against Ball State until Wed. April 24th in Muncie.

UPDATE:  Friday's game at Wright State has been moved up an hour. First pitch will be at 5:30 pm ET/4:30 pm CT.

Made the edit up top, but in case you didn't see it: all games at EGB postponed this week.  Baseball will go to Dayton for a single game Friday, and a DH on Saturday. 

Wright State to Valpo April 26th-28th for a three-game set.

As expected, Wednesday's baseball game against Roosevelt has been postponed.  The make-up date will be Wednesday, April 17th at 3:00 pm. 

We're still on for Friday-Sunday when Wright State comes to town.

EDIT: http://www.valpoathletics.com/baseball/news/2012-13/12538/crusaders-swap-weekends-with-wright-state/

Valpo to Wright State this weekend; WSU here April 26th-28th.

As mentioned, Emory G. Bauer Field nowhere near ready to play baseball Wednesday.  The turf field at Nischwitz Stadium is much more accommodating to the weather expected this weekend.

   Outstanding. 

The baseball team was watching in the hotel lobby in Tampa on cell phones.  The place erupted.  And keep in mind we're an hour ahead so it was around 10:35 pm.  The manager was none too pleased as his efforts to quiet the guys were futile.   

Frustrating loss for the local nine today.  It was a shame to see another great Webb start go for naught.  He's gotta be the best pitcher in the country with a 1-2 record. 

Valpo will see another lefty tomorrow against Georgetown.  It'll be the sixth in ten games I believe.  Don't be surprised to see a new bat in the lineup tomorrow.

On the bright side, Vavra looks like Vavra again, as does Bain.  EMart is coming around.  No errors today. And outside of the 7-2 loss at Long Beach, the team has been in every ball game.   

I'll try and dig through the stats to find out the team avg w/RISP.  It can't be pleasant.  Cribbs has been a life saver with guys on.   

Wish I could give you guys live stats, but there is no internet connection out at the fields.  To worsen that situation, I'm the official scorer for most, if not all, of the games at Port Charlotte & Winter Haven (which takes up 98% of my time).  I wish I could do more for you guys, especially while in Florida.

"Can there be voluntary protection of matters like this to help a writers' own job security or conscience? It can happen. Will the team/department staff work to keep these things off the record and out of the way? It can happen, too. I don't have the full answer. I just think you can't just blame one writer with so many school ties for this. Speaking from my own media experience, I know these things aren't always black-and-white. It can be a tricky area..."

Yep.  Sorry guys, but that's how it works.  Some stuff stays off the record to protect a team from a competitive disadvantage, because of medical confidentiality. or to protect a team's image. 

Paul, by his own admission, knows he's in a lose-lose situation.  The school he covers also signs his checks.  But he makes an honest effort to remain objective.  If the answer was relevant and on the record, he'd report it.

Some quick points on tonight's opener:

- Chase Brookshire was outstanding.  The lefty was hitting the gun at 86-88, decent movement, a great knucklecurve, and a fabulous changeup.  Belmont did the Crusaders a favor by pulling him after 5.

- Not to take anything away from Brookshire, but it was evident that tonight was the first time Valpo hitters had seen live pitching outside.

- As expected, the wind was a factor all night.  The Bruins' first run scored via a triple on a ball that must be caught.  Hara got turned around in center and just lost it.  Neither of the doubles hit by Morman and Belmont's Neil Hickman carried as far as I thought they would.  Both balls were ripped.

- Wormington looked pretty good.  I thought he threw a little better than what his line indicated.  He just ran out of gas in the 7th. 

Valpo will be getting Ohio on their second game of a doubleheader as they play Belmont before the Crusaders tomorrow.  I'll be on the Twitter account again tomorrow.  There were some first-game-of-the-year technical issues up in the press box so I was a little behind at times, but I hope/assume there weren't any issues with the Live Stats.   

I won't have the blog up today, but I will be live-tweeting/taking any questions from @Valpobaseball1 (there we go w/the social media  )

Though I'm unsure what you're alluding to, Tx, I will say that anything that comes out of the baseball account will be baseball-related.  I have no shame in saying that I'll be keeping a close eye on the men's hoops game Saturday while baseball is in the latter innings.  It's one of the few nights that should be good theater for both baseball and basketball.  In my opinion, this is the best time of the sports year: March Madness and the beginning of college baseball.

I appreciate the kind words.  As far as the blog, I wish I had an answer.  But I don't as of tonight.  To be honest, I've got to become more familiar with StatCrew software and there's no better place to do that than on the road.  If I'm unavailable during the game, I'd be happy to come back on here and answer any questions afterwards.

I wasn't here two years ago, Tx, so I'm not able to give you an answer on his pre-TJ velocity.  From what I hear he was a hard thrower then. 

But you're right, the procedure has become so commonplace now that guys often return as strong, if not stronger. 

Looking at the 10-day forecast for Nashville: 

next Friday 55/31 sunny
next Saturday 50/29 partly cloudy
next Sunday not available

This Saturday looks nice for softball: high of 54.  Sunday, not so good: 53 with a 70% chance of rain.

I don't think this has been posted either, but here's a quick Q & A Tracy did with Sean Ryan, founder of College Baseball Insider.

http://www.collegebaseballinsider.com/13Preseason/Hor_Woodson.html