Legacies Are Overrated Anyways

And don't call me unoriginal. Murphy used the same pregame fight trick twice.

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.

ASU Athletics Recognized by Phoenix New Times for the right reasons

The Best of Phoenix 2007 hit newsstands today, and some members of the ASU athletic program were recognized:

First Baseman Brett Wallace was named the top male college athlete. Wallace was arguably the best player on the U.S. National team this summer, even though the article by the New Times lists him as a pitcher.

Softball pitcher Katie Burkhart was named top female college athlete, while Pat Murphy was named top collegiate coach. No real surprise that Dennis Erickson didn't take the top spot after the New Times ripped the decision by Arizona State to hire Erickson a few weeks ago.