4/18/2011 Baseball Check-Up

The 2011 season is approaching the final month of play and some people may be starting to sweat the fact that Georgia State is not currently in the CAA Tournament. I'm here to tell you it's OK and I'll explain why. First let's have a look at the standings.

The top 4 teams are currently UNC-Wilmington, James Madison, Delaware and Old Dominion.

Full current standings here.

Georgia State is currently sitting at the 5th spot in the standings. Unfortunately the 5th spot is the first team who misses the CAA Tournament. Fortunately we've played just 15 of 30 CAA games and the division is tight this season so the order of the top seven teams can look completely different after this coming weekend. Putting too much thought into the conference tournament right now is like worrying about your favorite MLB team (Braves) and their status in the playoff race at the MLB All-Star break. As anyone who understands baseball will say, baseball is a marathon, not a sprint.

Before reading further, look at the current team vs. team grid here.

Let's focus on the top four tournament teams for now as they're the ones we need to either A) beat or B) receive help from other CAA teams. Of the current four tournament teams, GSU has played three of them leaving with a 4-5 record in the nine games. The remaining top four opponent is UNC-Wilmington which we will play at Wilmington the first weekend in May. UNC-W has played just one of the other three current tournament teams, Delaware, and won just 1-of-3. They're 5-1 against the worst two teams in the CAA which GSU has yet to play.

UNC-W, JMU, DEL and ODU all have 2 CAA series remaining against each other. UNC-W has five remaining in total and the other three have four remaining. For this fact alone there is going to be movement within the top four. Teams will get better and teams will get worse.

Here are the CAA winning percentages of each team's remaining opponents. Notice Georgia State has the easiest remaining road. The top three teams remaining CAA opponents have a winning percentage over .500.

GSU 0.436 (5th Place)
TOW 0.436 (7th Place)
ODU 0.472 (4th Place)
W&M 0.475 (6th Place)
NE 0.484 (10th Place)
GM 0.511 (11th Place)
DEL 0.522 (3rd Place)
UNC-W 0.533 (1st Place)
JMU 0.544 (2nd Place)
VCU 0.544 (8th Place)
HOF 0.569 (9th Place)

Luckily we have the opportunity to play nine of our last 15 games against the bottom three teams, Hofstra, Northeastern and George Mason. Hofstra and only won series against Towson (we swept them) and George Mason who has three total CAA wins in 18 games. Northeastern won against VCU (we lost 2-of-3) and Hoftra. George Mason has yet to win a CAA series and has been swept in three of their six CAA series. This should make you feel better. Only ODU gets to play even two series against these teams and UNC-W, JMU and DEL get only one.

So what do I think will happen? I think GSU goes 11-4 in the remaining CAA games. This leaves us at a 19-11 CAA record. We need just one of the top four teams to lose at least four games and we're in. It's likely that this happens to more than one team and we move up a couple spaces. We probably finish 2nd or 3rd thanks to head-to-head tie breaker. Keep in mind first place is not out of the question by any means. The schedule is in our favor right now.