ASU Clobbers U of A, wins Pac-10 Championship

Considering I am nowhere near Tucson right now, thank god, here's the Devils Digest recap of the game. This team is on fire going into the tournament, especially Josh Satow who now has had three straight solid performances after struggling all season. The pitching still isn't where it has to be, but with Brett Wallace and Ike Davis having the two best single seasons in recent ASU history, it may not even matter.

Ranking Brett Wallace, Sabermetrically

Scott Bordow of the East Valley Tribune had a comprehensive piece on Brett Wallace's career in today's paper, chronicling his early success, failure last year in Omaha, and what he learned from that experience to to make him one of the best ASU has ever seen. Wallace has had a monster year, but I wanted to see where this season ranks statistically along side former Sun Devils over the last decade. Since the statistics on the official site of the Sun Devils only go back to 1997, I compared him against players since that season. I used Bill James' basic Runs Created Formula [(H+BB)*TB]/(AB+BB), and divided that by games played to find Runs Created Per Game:

Ike Davis '08 - 1.53
Brett Wallace '08 - 1.49
Mitch Jones '00 - 1.47
Don McKinley '97 - 1.46
Casey Myers '00 - 1.41
Brett Wallace '07 - 1.38
Andrew Binebrink '99 - 1.36
Willie Bloomquist '99 - 1.35
Dustin Pedroia '04 - 1.22

So, according to theory, Ike Davis and Brett Wallace are having the two best single season performances in recent Sun Devil history. How do they compare to some of the top names in college baseball this season in terms of runs created per game?

Buster Posey (Florida State) - 1.85
Jeremie Tice (College of Charleston) - 1.69
Gordon Beckham (Georgia) 1.56
Ike Davis - 1.53
Brett Wallace - 1.49
Yonder Alonso (Miami) - 1.44
Justin Smoak (South Carolina) - 1.43

You can't argue much with Bordow's claim of Wallace being one of the best ASU has ever seen. You could say the same though about Ike Davis, who has been just as productive over the past three seasons as Wallace. Either way, its obvious this team has the offensive production to make a statement in Omaha this year, as long as the pitching staff can be solid. Runs created and other sabermetric stats are used more and more by teams to evaluate talent. Both Davis and Wallace are slated to be taken in the first round of the MLB draft in a couple weeks, and Brett has even been blogging about the road leading up to the draft on MLB.com.

May 20: where does coach Murphy's team stand?

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The pre-season high ranking of this years baseball team created a lot of room for doubters to notice some early hick ups in PAC 10 play early this year. But, it looks as though our Devils may come through with at least a share of the PAC10 title depending on what happens this weekend.

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"These kids have done a really nice job,"

 ASU coach Pat Murphy said. 

"They deserve the credit. We've had a ton of unsung heroes."

"When Arizona State was 7-5 after the first half of the Pac-10 baseball season, repeating as conference champion was anything but a given." [AZcentral] But a recent sweep of the Huskies after two great trips to CAL and UCLA brings our conference record to 15-6.

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Kiel Rolling was named PAC10 player of the week today as well. This is his second pac10 POW award this year, and 5th overall for ASU. [pac10.org] 

going 9-13 with a .692 BA 

He knocked in eight runs, slugged 1.385 and scored five runs helping Arizona State beat LMU on Monday and sweep Washington. He also played solid defense at first base, a spot he was playing due to the injury to Ike Davis.

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Many Devils are still in the running for national and conference awards.

you can find the list of all pac10 players up for awards here [awards]

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MAY 22         MAY23       MAY24

@ UA             @UA            @UA

7:00 PM        6:00 PM      12:00 PM

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BRING ON REGIONALS!

Regardless of what you may have have heard...

...I'm not dead.

Which is a good thing. But having a full time job really takes away from having time to blog and stuff. Maybe I should just make this my full time job.

Anyway, hope you've been enjoying what has been a tremendous baseball season in Tempe. It's obviously not over, so keep cheering on our Devils.

I'm back here, though, because we're only 102 days away from ASU's opening night of football, and it's never too early to start talking pigskin.

I'll be starting my 2008 season preview soon. First will come previews of all of ASU's 2008 opponents including podcast interviews with people who cover each team. Over the summer, we'll have our 2nd year of in-depth position-by-position previews of this years Sun Devils.

Thanks for making PFN your source of ASU news and analysis!

-Justin

The Roundup: U of A Schadenfreude Edition

Emmanuel Negedu on wanting out of his commitment to U of A: "There have been so many changes that I feel they've lied to me all along about the situation," Negedu said. "Everything has changed a lot since I've signed down there. I can't take it no more." (Tucson Citizen)

The Wildcats top defensive end has been indicted on sexual assault charges. (Arizona Republic)

Sammie Stroughter is back for Oregon State this year. (Sports Illustrated)

Get your season tickets now, or else it will be a sea of red on September 20th (Atlanta Journal Constitution)

It looks like Georgia has the hardest schedule in the nation in terms of 2007 opponents win percentage. (Phil Steele)

Which Pac-10 players look to be sure fire 2009 draft picks? (Mercury News)

Is Mike Leake being overexposed? (Blogging With The Devils)

Look for Dustin Pedroia to receive a contract extension soon (Boston Herald)

For the latest on the ASU Wrestling situation. (Save ASU Wrestling)

Men's swimming doesn't look to go down without a fight either. (College Swimming)

Do they teach students to use condoms at U of A?

Because if they do, Lance Briggs obviously missed that class. According to The Chicago Sun-Times, the 27-year old Bears linebacker and former Wildcat reportedly has three kids with three different women, although he is denying that he even knows one of the mothers. This is the same guy who reported his lamborgini stolen after crashing it and leaving the scene, after all:

Tribbett's attorney, Enrico Mirabelli, argued that in a sworn deposition, Briggs denied knowing Yesenaya Toledo, a 20-year-old Chicago woman due to deliver a baby this summer.

But, Mirabelli charged, Briggs is providing Toledo with cash, and Mirabelli said he wants perjury charges to be considered against Briggs for denying he knows Toledo. Mirabelli said he mispronounced Toledo's first name during the deposition, leading Briggs to say he didn't know that person.

The new blog Athletes Making Babies took more issues with the baby mommas than with Lance Briggs:

There is so much bullshit coming from both sides, it's ridiculous ... but I have more a beef with the baby mothers ...

Where's the self-respect? Where's the self-worth? Where's the idea of protecting yourself? So what if you don't produce a baby... you could possibly produce the clap. This ain't the 50s people. Pregnancy is not the only casualty of the raw. There are too many sexually transmitted infections out here for anyone to be dropping their seed in people like this.

3 AM on Thursday Links

Mary Tillman will be conducting a discussion/book signing in Tempe on Friday. (Changing Hands Bookstore)

Years of pandering to Barry Bonds is probably going to cost Giants managing partner Peter Magowan his job. (Mercury News)

Tranell Morant is an Oakland Raider. He's a good guy, hopefully he can stay healthy. (SF Gate)

Kaitlin Cochran wins her second straight Pac-10 Softball MVP award, rest of team's stars take home hardware as well. (Pac-10)

Zach Catanese is weighing his options. (Redding.com)

Sunday Morning Quarterback previews the 2008 Georgia Bulldogs (SMQ)

Demar DeRozan could opt out of his USC commitment if the program is punished (LA Times)

Terrell Suggs is getting paid (Washington Post)

Brett Wallace could be drafted by the White Sox at the 8th overall pick. (MLB)

Petey Paramore is a Johnny Bench award semifinalist (CSTV)