Baseball Notes Pt. 1

BASEBALL IS BACK (in an official capacity)

Creighton starts its baseball campaign today with a game against Lipscomb in Nashville, the first of a four game opening weekend that starts and ends with Lipscomb, with a double-header against Belmont tossed in to spice things up.

The forecast calls for a shitload of rain so who the fuck knows if any baseball will be played, but because I have a duty to bring you words that tickle that special part of your brain that spurs excitement and lust for bat and ball, I will deliver.

This past Wednesday I was able to talk to head coach Ed Servais about a wide-ranging set of topics mostly involving his team. What you’ll read below are excerpts from that conversation, dealing mostly with the strangest offseason college baseball has endured, how new technology has helped him keep his team engaged, and the acquisitions of players from programs that decided to abandon baseball altogether.

Welcome to 2021.

How to deal with a sudden off-season

Ed: “Well, it was hard, because I thought about the players and the upper classmen who were nearing the end of their career. Once we got over that it took about a week or so to realize it wasn’t going to continue, the season was indeed going to be over, and we started to look at, “How do we fill some holes?” There were some areas that we needed to get better at in preparation for this year. So we worked hard on recruiting. We thought about how we can pick up a transfer and get a player that we can plug-in. It was to hear that the NCAA was letting seniors get their year of eligibility back. We got good news from five of our seven seniors that they were going to return. So we knew, OK, we can work around those guys a little bit. Then we put a heavy emphasis on the recruiting component even though we couldn’t go out and watch games. I also thought, “What can we do to elevate the program?”

“We really thought that we’re lacking a little bit in the mental part. So we wanted to devote a little bit to the mental performance and we tried to implement that in the last month we’ve been together. I think at times - and this isn’t just our players… baseball is a challenging game, it’s a hard game, and everybody understands the adversity involved with it - how do the players get through that? How do they eliminate when something bad happens and making sure it doesn’t snowball?”

“So, I read a few books, I talked to a couple of people. [I talked to] Brian Cain, who’s an expert at this and the mental performance component, we were able to connect with him. Just to get comfortable with it and pass some of that onto the players.”

RAPSODO! ANALYTICS!

To preface this: Creighton has an analytics department! Did you know that? Give them a follow on the twitters at https://twitter.com/CreightonBAT

About four years ago I asked Ed about advanced stats and analytics and he told me that it has the tendency to cause paralysis by analysis. Too much between the ears. To see him come around on it and embrace it was a pleasant surprise.

I’ve always believed the more you can gameify the mundane the more engaging it’ll be. The addition of Rapsodo and the competitions Creighton has run in this offseason - who can get the highest batted ball & swing speed, who can get the most spin on a breaker, who can get the most velo on a heater - and utilizing it as the tool that it is will bring a greater edge.

Here’s Ed on all of that:

“First of all, these are Creighton students who are part of this analytics team. That was all organized by Eric Wordekemper. I think there’s a lot of good to it… If we realize [the pitcher] has a good breaking ball with a good spin rate then we can use him in a certain role. I’m all in favor of anything that improves the players. It helps us as coaches know more about the players so we can improve them and put them in positions to be more successful. So I think the analytical information helps us out with that. I will never base all of our decisions on it and I still think there’s a human element that we need to have. I trust my instincts and my eyes when watching players [perform]. But I do want to know that information especially when we’re rehabbing players. It helps us try to get them back to their original self and get them into roles where they can be successful, and I’m all in favor of that.”

“I think it’s good. I know the players enjoy it. I think they like seeing those numbers because they want to know if they’re getting better or not, especially when you’re stuck inside like we’ve been for the last month, making that information even more valuable. Once we start to play games they’ll figure it out - the competition part - but when we’re going through our workouts that information is very valuable.”

“Any way you can create more competition [within the team] is always a positive. It breaks up the monotony of workouts. The workouts won’t be so monotonous when we get into the game aspect, but when you have a solid 3-4 weeks of workouts with no games to be played, those are good ways to keep the guys going, and it gives good information as to whether or not they’re getting better. It’s one thing when they go into the weight room and they know that if they bench press 250lbs and then a month later they’re up to 265, they know they’re getting stronger. Sometimes in baseball it’s hard to measure that. That’s where these tools come into play.”

“This generation of players are very in-tune with those metrics, whether it’s spin-rate or velocity, or exit velocity or bat speed, those are numbers that they’re very aware of. I’m all in favor of anything that gives the players an opportunity to develop… so we have to look at those things and be open-minded to them.”

The Landscape Of College Baseball

Ed: “Initially, you’re seeing that there’s some 23 to 25 year old guys playing college baseball. We’ve never seen this before, coupled with 17 and 18 year olds playing college baseball. We’ve never seen this age gap. You’re going to see some crazy things early on and a lot of it also has to do with day-to-day rosters. There are things schools are keeping close to the vest when it comes a player testing positive for the virus. They’re not really broadcasting that for the privacy of the player and the university. You’re going to see some of these things and you’re thinking, “Did they have a full roster? Are they missing key components?””

“I think another thing is, there was a tremendous amount of transferring last off-season, and I think a lot of kids who go to the bigger schools - kids who are talented - realized that they need to play [to get better]. I think a lot of [teams] picked up some great players. I really like to think we did. [There were] a lot of players from some good programs that left because those programs just had a surplus of players. I think those talented players spread out a little bit more [this year.]”

“There’s no doubt that a midwestern player is very determined early to set their mark. Whenever we have a chance to play a SEC, ACC, Big 12, or Big 10 school - whatever it may be - we look at that as a great opportunity for our program and for our league to present themselves as being valuable. I’m happy for Xavier and UConn - they took a game from Virginia, even though Virginia is coached by an alum and former player from Creighton. I think you’re seeing that the transfer situation is going to be very interesting in the next couple of years because there’s going to be a blanket waiver for them. We’re going to see how crazy this thing gets in the summer.”

Adding players from dissolved programs

Ed: “I think it’s been really hard. I know they would not say that to me, they haven’t come to me at all to say, “Coach, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” I can only imagine how challenging that they leave programs that were dropped, but they didn’t go across the street, you know? They went from South Carolina to Omaha, and Boise to Omaha, so it’s a transition not only in schools but in cultures, environment, weather, schooling - everything’s so much different for them. The good thing for Dax Roper and Dave Webel is that they went to the same school so they were fortunate that they had eachother, to hang out, and develop relationships with the other players on the team together.”

“Matt [Farman] was a different deal. He was coming by himself, and you could tell it took him a little bit longer to get comfortable. He’s much more comfortable and he’s practicing better now. He got off to a really slow start and I attribute a lot of that to the newness of everything. I don’t care if you’re a freshman or a four year transfer, new is new. It had to be incredibly hard. I give our players - and one of the things we pride ourselves on in our program is our culture and we’re open to all new players. We treat everybody with respect, we treat everybody that they’re important, and hopefully they sense that. I know it had to be hard, no doubt.”