I know some of you embrace numbers/metrics, others would rather just focus on the field and let the numbers take care of themselves. I’m somewhere in the middle.
Being as objective as I can be, I’d say we win 55-60% of the games we’d play against A&M on a neutral field. Of course, we’re not playing on a neutral field - we’re at Bluebell. So, I’d say our chances of winning are about 45% in a given game.
Looking at MSU vs. S. Carolina, I’d give MSU about a 70% chance at a game played at home, where they will be playing.
Obviously, those numbers are not precise - just general estimates. However, if you plug those estimates in, you come up with Arkansas having somewhere between a 75 and 80% chance of ending up the top seed in the West - so, call it 7 out of 9 (77.8%).
Bottom line - if we win ONE game in College Station, we force MSU to sweep (to win the SEC West outright): if we win two, they can only tie us IF they sweep.
I would say we have about 70% of winning 2 b/c we are a far better hitting team than they are.all the pitching matchups are about even,I simply think we will hit them better than they will hit us.
Have to agree here. It seems every time we have worried about an SEC opponents outstanding pitching, we knock m around really hard. I’m talking about a few ace staffs we have faced.
Ours guys adjust well by the 2nd - 3rd inning facing a good pitcher with a couple exceptions like the last LSU relief pitcher they faced on Saturday.
We win 1 for sure and most probably 2 games at aTm.
In the LSU game we out hit! Our hogs had every chance in the world to add on runs and blow that game wide open! Hitting the first pitch and not looking for a pitch to drive cost the hogs with the bases loaded.
I sure hope at some point we see a bunt to secure a run in crunch time! It was just bad luck to have balls hit right at infielders in all of those chances to get caught in a run down between home and 3rd base or double up 5-2-3. That’s just don’t happen that often.
For the Texas A&M series I think the hogs can win the series and maybe sweep! But they better take advantage of the chances to score.
If you are right, then we have about a 64% chance of winning a given game against the Aggies on their home field. I’d say that’s a bit high; to put it another way, a reasonable possibility, but not a probability.
If there is one mistake our fans consistently make, it’s OVER-estimating the chances of Arkansas winning games, particularly road games. This is across all sports, across all seasons. It’s something I’ve tracked for at least 15 years now (since boards like this became popular).
Having said the above, I do think we have a decent chance to win the series - but it won’t be easy and I won’t be surprised at all if we only come away with 1 win. Remember, the Aggies are playing to possibly host in the first round, and we are “big prey”.
I don’t know how “recent series” would affect the metrics. But, based on our 4 SEC road series this season, we are 7-4. We played 2 teams who would be considered better teams “when we played” them than what A&M is now. Vandy was ranked #6 and Auburn was ranked #15, while A&M’s ave ranking now is #17.5. The other 2 teams Bama and KY would be considered worse teams than A&M. We went 2-1 in 3 series and 1-2 against Vandy.
Based on this year’s history, it would seem that our “each game winning percentage” might be somewhere between the 45% you used and the 64% attributed to Youdaman’s 70% thinking on a 2-1 series.
At this point in time, the Hogs are better than last year’s team (we couldn’t win a series on the road last year)… I didn’t say we will win a NC (which would obviously BE a better team than last year at the end) but they are simply playing better ball. This team is very confident and has the tools to go a long way and it’s so nice to enjoy a Hog sport again.
Win or lose I enjoy our hogs. This years team may be better and able to win on the road but they have a lot of work to do.
They should have won game 3 at Kentucky and game 3 at home over LSU. A common theme in both of those games was failing to score with the bases loaded and no outs! That’s what concerns me!
Those things are always concerning, especially when they’re happening, happened recently, or happen to be in a game that determines a championship, etc. However, that’s not something that concerns me about this team. Every team has games where they leave the bases loaded, fail to get a key hit, or hit into a double play, etc. I hated the way we lost to UK & LSU, but I don’t think for one minute those losses have any affect on how we play this weekend or how we’ll play in the post season. (Unless they have some positive or negative psychological impact–which I doubt.) The losses affected our chances of winning the SEC, but they did that no more than our losses to anyone else did. If we were 22-6 right now, we’d probably win the SEC, but it’s not because we have a knack of leaving bases loaded. It’s because that’s how we happened to lose a couple of our games. We lost others because of errors, pitching mistakes, having 2 7-inning games, facing good pitchers & hitters on the other team, and all the other numerous ways a team can lose a baseball game.