AN EARLY SEASON LOOK AT THE IOWA BASEBALL TEAM

I love the game of baseball. I played it longer than any other sport during my lifetime, and every year I tell myself that I'm going to pay more attention to Iowa baseball, and every year I get sidetracked. In 2011, I even went as far as buying a pretty awesome (at least I thought so) Iowa baseball t-shirt to get myself pumped for the season. Unfortunately, I was wearing it when I climbed and fell out of a tree in Bosnia. The shirt was mostly white, and as I rolled down the hill, my mostly white shirt turned mostly green and brown. Needless to say, that shirt stayed in Bosnia and I have not bought another since.

This spring, I'm going to try to at least pay occasional attention to this team. So with a little break before Iowa basketball starts tournament season, I thought I would dive into the early season stats for the Hawkeye baseballers.

As we know, they started off the season red hot. And even though they just recently dropped three straight to Kansas State, they are still 9-4 on the season. So, what have they been doing right so far this season? What have they done wrong? And, more importantly, just how good are they?

Let's see what we can find out.

Iowa vs. The Rest of the Big Ten

Let us start by first looking at each team's stats through Monday, March 10th. First, hitting:

Team	BABIP	BABIP+	Avg.	Avg.+	OBP	OBP+	SLG%	SLG%+	OPS	OPS+	wOBA	wOBA+
Nebraska	0.345	115	0.313	121	0.382	114	0.420	123	0.803	119	0.395	120
Iowa	0.350	117	0.305	118	0.389	116	0.417	123	0.807	119	0.390	119
Illinois	0.327	109	0.267	103	0.354	105	0.358	105	0.712	105	0.352	107
Michigan State	0.280	93	0.242	94	0.322	96	0.338	99	0.660	98	0.326	99
Indiana	0.288	96	0.253	98	0.316	94	0.342	101	0.658	97	0.321	98
Northwestern	0.326	108	0.282	109	0.342	102	0.348	102	0.690	102	0.320	97
Ohio State	0.290	96	0.241	93	0.324	96	0.314	92	0.637	94	0.313	95
Minnesota	0.265	88	0.238	92	0.330	98	0.307	90	0.637	94	0.311	94
Michigan	0.288	96	0.245	95	0.316	94	0.319	94	0.635	94	0.310	94
Penn State	0.290	96	0.241	93	0.334	99	0.295	87	0.629	93	0.303	92
Purdue	0.234	78	0.194	75	0.268	80	0.254	75	0.522	77	0.253	77
Totals	0.301	100	0.258	100	0.336	100	0.340	100	0.676	100	0.329	100

For more information about the listed stats, click on the abbreviation above the column for a link to some nice resources.

Each team is ordered by their weighted on base average (wOBA), which is a stat that properly assigns value to things a hitter does. For instance, a home run is worth 1.95 runs on average, while a single is worth 0.90. Because it properly weights these things, it is superior to batting average, which counts home runs the same as singles, and doesn't take into account walks. Think of it like you do eFG% compared to FG% in basketball. Keep in mind, however, that these weights are for Major League Baseball, so they may not directly apply to college. With that being said, I still think they get the job done.

Anyway, the "+" categories are how good each team is compared to the Big Ten average. For instance, Iowa has a wOBA+ of 119, which means their 0.390 wOBA is 19% better than the Big Ten average of 0.329. As you can see, the Hawkeyes have been well above the Big Ten average in every offensive category so far this year.

Now, let's look at pitching:

Team	H/9	H/9+	K/9	K/9+	BB+HBP/9	BB+HBP/9+	RA/9	RA/9+	ERA	ERA+	FIP	FIP+
Michigan	8.58	112	7.99	126	3.87	119	4.11	125	3.40	121	2.97	123
Minnesota	8.83	109	6.42	101	3.67	124	4.33	121	3.58	117	3.48	110
Iowa	9.16	106	7.17	113	5.18	92	5.65	97	4.54	95	3.56	108
Illinois	9.88	99	6.37	100	3.27	132	4.38	120	3.74	113	3.68	105
Northwestern	11.34	84	7.11	112	5.14	93	7.03	72	5.45	74	3.77	102
Indiana	8.85	109	6.18	97	5.19	92	4.27	122	3.05	129	3.89	99
Ohio State	8.08	117	6.18	97	5.26	91	4.88	111	3.74	113	3.91	99
Penn State	11.10	86	6.12	96	3.58	126	6.99	73	4.63	93	3.92	99
Nebraska	9.47	103	5.87	92	5.63	83	5.56	99	4.38	98	4.11	94
Michigan State	9.96	98	5.98	94	5.68	82	5.31	104	3.69	114	4.51	83
Purdue	13.04	66	3.34	52	6.88	57	9.40	29	8.39	5	5.19	66
Totals	9.74	100	6.36	100	4.81	100	5.51	100	4.31	100	3.86	100

The chart above shows pitching stats for each Big Ten team ranked by fielding independent pitching (FIP). Again, think of FIP as the eFG% to ERA's FG%. However, I'm not sure how directly FIP translates from MLB to the college ranks but, again, I think it works well enough for our purposes.

Interestingly enough, Iowa's FIP is 8% above the Big Ten average, while their ERA is 5% below the Big Ten average. That's because Iowa has been good at limiting home runs and has been even better at striking opposing batters out. Where they have struggled, though, has been with walks and hit batters. FIP takes into account only those three categories, because those seem to be what a pitcher has the most control out of. Once a ball is hit, it is basically up to the defense to convert it into an out. With an FIP lower than their ERA, you could make the argument that Iowa's pitching staff has been better than what they've looked based on runs allowed so far. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean regression to the mean for the Hawkeye pitchers, because the schedule will most likely get tougher as the season goes on, which brings me to my next point.

Division I college baseball has 264 teams, all with various different talent levels. This makes it difficult to compare teams. And, in this case, it makes it even more difficult to compare within a conference like the Big Ten when none of the teams have played each other yet this season. In other words, just looking at raw, unadjusted stats is extremely misleading. To get a better idea of each team's actual talent, I like to use Boyd's World's Iterative Strength Ratings (ISR). For more information on ISR click here. Also, I recommend browsing the site, as there is a vast wealth of knowledge to behold, including past years' strength of schedule ratings, park factors, etc.

Now, let's look at what Boyd's World says about the Big Ten, again through Monday, March 10th only:

Team	W%	BW Rating	BW Rank	SOS Rank
Ohio State	0.615	117.7	30	11
Indiana	0.538	111.9	46	15
Nebraska	0.615	107.3	81	132
Iowa	0.692	105	101	220
Michigan	0.500	104.8	103	52
Illinois	0.462	102.2	119	76
Minnesota	0.583	99.6	134	208
Michigan State	0.357	95.7	165	68
Northwestern	0.231	94.6	173	17
Penn State	0.333	93.5	189	82
Purdue	0.091	93.2	192	2
Average	0.456	102.3	121	112

The ISR ratings work similar to mine in college basketball, where 100 is average, and anything above 100 is above average. Right now, ISR has Iowa at #101 in the country with a rating of 105. Perhaps the most important thing to consider this early in the season is that Iowa's schedule rates out as the 220th most difficult schedule out of 264 teams and the least difficult in the Big Ten. That's not very good. Essentially, Iowa has played a bunch of cupcakes so far, and has beaten them up pretty badly. Well, except for when they were swept in a three game series vs. #112 Kansas State this past weekend. So, aside from Kansas State, Iowa has handled their business against a very weak schedule thus far.

Okay, so we've got numbers, but you're more of a visual person. Here are some charts:

Plotting each team by their winning percentage and their strength of schedule, what we see is that Iowa currently has the best win percentage in the Big Ten. They also have the weakest schedule, too. By a lot. Ohio State, Indiana, Michigan, and Nebraska look pretty good in comparison, as they all have pretty good win percentages against much more difficult schedules. Meanwhile, Purdue... They've had the second most difficult schedule this year, and have gone 1-11.

Next, let's look at each team's runs scored vs. runs allowed margin per nine innings compared to their schedule:

Again, Iowa has outscored their opponents by over 2 runs per nine innings, but have done so against a slate of cream puffs. Despite having a slightly below 0.500 win percentage, Illinois is really the only other team to have a positive runs per nine margin against a tougher than average schedule. And, really, they are the only team in the conference with those bragging rights right now. Also, Purdue... again.

Finally, let's look at the ISR rankings against each team's strength of schedule:

Again, we see Iowa with an above average ranking, but a below average schedule to date. Meanwhile, it looks as if Ohio State, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois are the tougher teams in the conference.

So there's a brief overview of Iowa's season compared to the rest of the Big Ten to date. But what about the micro, since we just covered the macro?

Iowa Players

Batters

Batter	PA	BABIP	BABIP+	Avg.	Avg.+	OBP	OBP+	SLG	SLG+	OPS	OPS+	wOBA	wOBA+
Taylor Zeutenhorst	64	0.364	121	0.269	104	0.406	121	0.481	141	0.887	131	0.477	145
Tyler Peyton	29	0.500	166	0.440	170	0.517	154	0.560	165	1.077	159	0.476	145
Jake Yacinich	60	0.476	158	0.417	161	0.500	149	0.479	141	0.979	145	0.469	142
Blake Hickman	45	0.179	59	0.211	82	0.311	93	0.500	147	0.811	120	0.462	140
Jake Mangler	62	0.360	120	0.365	141	0.435	130	0.481	141	0.916	135	0.432	131
Dan Potempa	42	0.414	138	0.387	150	0.476	142	0.452	133	0.928	137	0.412	125
Taylor Kaufman	10	0.400	133	0.286	111	0.500	149	0.286	84	0.786	116	0.396	120
Eric Toole	69	0.333	111	0.322	125	0.362	108	0.424	125	0.786	116	0.366	111
Nick Day	49	0.405	135	0.357	138	0.408	121	0.381	112	0.789	117	0.358	109
Kris Goodman	59	0.325	108	0.286	111	0.339	101	0.388	114	0.727	107	0.347	105
Trevor Kenyon	28	0.357	119	0.227	88	0.393	117	0.318	94	0.711	105	0.339	103
Jimmy Frankos	3	0.000	0	0.000	0	0.333	99	0.000	0	0.333	49	0.240	73
Nick Roscetti	13	0.125	42	0.091	35	0.231	69	0.182	53	0.413	61	0.206	63
Jake Riffice	11	0.143	47	0.125	48	0.182	54	0.250	73	0.432	64	0.178	54
Bryan Niedbalski	24	0.176	59	0.125	48	0.125	37	0.167	49	0.292	43	0.127	38
John Barrett	2	0.000	0	0.000	0	0.000	0	0.000	0	0.000	0	0.000	0
Total	570	0.350	117	0.305	118	0.389	116	0.417	123	0.807	119	0.390	119

Batter	PA	K%	K%+	BB+HBP%	BB+HBP%+	HR/PA	HR/PA+	FLD%	FLD%+	wOBA	wOBA+
Taylor Zeutenhorst	64	26.56%	37	18.75%	163	3.13%	543	0.947	98	0.477	145
Tyler Peyton	29	10.34%	137	13.79%	120	0.00%	0	0.984	102	0.476	145
Jake Yacinich	60	13.33%	118	16.67%	145	0.00%	0	0.932	97	0.469	142
Blake Hickman	45	17.78%	91	13.33%	116	6.67%	1158	1.000	104	0.462	140
Jake Mangler	62	4.84%	170	12.90%	112	1.61%	280	0.983	102	0.432	131
Dan Potempa	42	11.90%	127	19.05%	165	0.00%	0	1.000	104	0.412	125
Taylor Kaufman	10	20.00%	78	30.00%	261	0.00%	0	0.000	0	0.396	120
Eric Toole	69	8.70%	147	8.70%	76	0.00%	0	0.941	98	0.366	111
Nick Day	49	14.29%	113	10.20%	89	0.00%	0	0.882	91	0.358	109
Kris Goodman	59	20.34%	75	10.17%	88	1.69%	294	0.958	99	0.347	105
Trevor Kenyon	28	28.57%	25	21.43%	186	0.00%	0	1.000	104	0.339	103
Jimmy Frankos	3	33.33%	-4	33.33%	289	0.00%	0	1.000	104	0.240	73
Nick Roscetti	13	23.08%	59	15.38%	134	0.00%	0	1.000	104	0.206	63
Jake Riffice	11	27.27%	33	9.09%	79	0.00%	0	1.000	104	0.178	54
Bryan Niedbalski	24	29.17%	21	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.977	101	0.127	38
John Barrett	2	50.00%	-106	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.000	0	0.000	0
Total	570	16.49%	99	13.68%	119	1.23%	213	0.965	100	0.390	119

Sorted by wOBA, Taylor Zeutenhorst has been Iowa's best hitter at this point in the year. Zeus (that's easier to type than Zeutenhorst, and I like it as a nickname, so that's what I'm calling him) has 2 of Iowa's 7 home runs on the year, 1 of their 3 triples, and 3 of their 26 triples. In addition, his added ability to draw walks (and get hit by pitches) on the year, has helped offset his tendency to strike out.

I'll let you dig further into the tables (keep in mind that these numbers ARE NOT adjusted for strength of opponent, so grain of salt please), but just about all of their offensive players have been above average this year in terms of wOBA. So that's good.

Let's wrap up the hitters with some charts:

The chart above breaks down each player's trips to the plate this year based on the outcome of that plate appearance. You can see that Tyler Peyton (in only 29 plate appearances) has turned the highest percentage of his plate appearances into hits. Here we can also see Zeus' propensity for walks and strikeouts.

Our last hitter chart breaks down each player's hits on the year:

Enter Blake Hickman. His 3 home runs out of 8 hits on the season stands out on this chart. Add in his 2 doubles on the year, and it's pretty clear that his ability to drive the ball for some power gives him the fourth highest wOBA on the team this year. And despite having an awesome power-hitting name, Jake Mangler has been basically all singles so far this year. Again, there is plenty of data for you to look over on your own here, so let's move on to the pitchers.

Pitchers

Pitcher	IP	H/9	H/9+	K/9	K/9+	BB+HBP/9	BB+HBP/9+	RA/9	RA/9+	ERA	ERA+	FIP	FIP+
Tyler Peyton*	25	6.84	130	5.76	91	5.40	88	4.68	115	4.32	100	3.72	104
Calvin Mathews*	22	7.36	124	7.36	116	4.09	115	4.09	126	2.86	134	2.93	124
Andrew Hedrick*	20.1	9.85	99	5.82	92	5.37	88	3.58	135	3.58	117	4.34	88
Sasha Kuebel*	12.2	16.97	26	9.59	151	5.90	77	13.28	-41	9.59	-23	4.10	94
Tyler Radtke	9.1	7.91	119	7.91	124	3.96	118	6.92	74	5.93	62	2.76	129
Nick Hibling	8	9.00	108	10.13	159	6.75	60	9.00	37	6.75	43	3.20	117
Brandon Shulista	7	9.00	108	3.86	61	5.14	93	3.86	130	3.86	110	4.06	95
Blake Hickman	3.1	11.61	81	11.61	183	8.71	19	0.00	200	0.00	200	3.52	109
Matt Allen	2.2	12.27	74	8.18	129	12.27	-55	4.09	126	0.00	200	5.47	58
Ryan Rumpf	2.2	12.27	74	16.36	257	0.00	200	12.27	-23	8.18	10	-0.44	211
Total	113	9.16	106	7.17	113	5.18	92	5.65	97	4.54	95	3.56	108

Pitcher	IP	BABIP vs.	BABIP vs.+	Avg. vs.	Avg. vs.+	OBP vs.	OBP vs.+	SLG vs.	SLG vs.+	OPS vs.	OPS vs. +	FIP	FIP+
Tyler Peyton*	25	0.250	122	0.207	126	0.318	111	0.261	129	0.579	120	3.72	104
Calvin Mathews*	22	0.286	111	0.222	121	0.308	114	0.272	126	0.579	120	2.93	124
Andrew Hedrick*	20.1	0.323	99	0.289	97	0.374	95	0.408	89	0.782	92	4.34	88
Sasha Kuebel*	12.2	0.458	57	0.383	63	0.443	76	0.533	55	0.976	65	4.10	94
Tyler Radtke	9.1	0.286	111	0.229	118	0.300	116	0.257	130	0.557	123	2.76	129
Nick Hibling	8	0.333	96	0.242	114	0.359	99	0.333	110	0.692	104	3.20	117
Brandon Shulista	7	0.292	109	0.280	100	0.355	100	0.480	70	0.835	85	4.06	95
Blake Hickman	3.1	0.364	87	0.286	98	0.389	91	0.357	103	0.746	97	3.52	109
Matt Allen	2.2	0.375	83	0.300	93	0.462	70	0.300	119	0.762	95	5.47	58
Ryan Rumpf	2.2	0.429	66	0.300	93	0.273	123	0.700	10	0.973	66	-0.44	211
Total	113	0.319	101	0.264	106	0.352	101	0.358	103	0.710	102	3.56	108

As it turns out, in addition to being a pretty good hitter (albeit in only 29 plate appearances), Tyler Peyton has been a decent starting pitcher this year. Of course, a 4% above average FIP against a weak schedule isn't exactly the equivalent of setting college baseball on fire. Calvin Mathews' 24% above average FIP, on the other hand (weak schedule be somewhat damned) looks pretty impressive. I mean, at least this looks like Mathews (a sophomore!) could be a pretty good pitcher come Big Ten play. That being said, we should also keep in mind that 22 innings pitched isn't much of a sample size. So let's not jump the gun just yet.

As for the charts, let's compare the starters:

Looking at Matthews' numbers, we see that part of his FIP is probably being driven by the fact that he has yet to give up a home run in his 22 innings. That being said, his strikeouts per nine innings is second best out of Iowa's starters, while his walks and hit batters per nine is the best by quite a bit. Tyler Peyton, though, definitely looks like his FIP is being driven by keeping the ball in the ball park. College baseball doesn't have batted ball data, so I don't know if he's a ground ball pitcher, as opposed to a fly ball pitcher, but even if he was, once he starts facing better hitters, his FIP+ is most likely going to drop below 100 quite a bit. Andrew Hedrick is basically Tyler Peyton, only he has already dropped below that 100+ FIP mark. Meanwhile, Sasha Kuebel has been hit more times than a Georgia Tech quarterback by Adrian Clayborn in the Orange Bowl. That seems to be a whole lot of bad luck, though, as his opponent's BABIP is at 0.458 (!!!), and in only 12 innings. His strikeouts seem to imply that he has great stuff, but his walks seem to imply that he doesn't always command that stuff very well.

Overall, 75% of this starting rotation seems to have a bit of a walk problem. That could be an issue come Big Ten play.

Finally, let's end this long piece with a look at the relievers:

(Note: I didn't include HR/9 on this chart because Iowa's relievers have yet to surrender one.)

Ryan Rumpf and Blake Hickman have posted high strikeout numbers, but have only pitched 2 and 3 innings, respectively. Radtke, Hibling and Shulista, though, have pitched 9, 8, and 7 innings apiece. Radtke has been better than average in strikeouts and walks, but has been responsible for more runs than expected. Shulista has been the exact opposite (Small sample sizes, y'all!). Hibbing, finally, has been kind of in the middle, but with more runs. These are all tiny samples, so let's wait until later in the year to pass any judgements.

Okay, so, there you go. There's your overview of Iowa's baseball team 13 games into the season. They started off the season extremely hot, but we should keep in mind that they have played a very easy schedule. Despite the lineup of cupcakes to begin the season, the bats look like they might be pretty good this year, seeing how the Hawkeyes' offensive numbers have been so far above the Big Ten average to date. It's the pitching, though, that seems a bit worrying. Calvin Mathews looks good so far, but the rest of the starters seem to have some control issues and I would be very surprised if any of the remaining three could finish the season with a FIP+ greater than 100. And I'll wait to pass judgement on the relievers.

Overall, this looks like it could be a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten team this season. ISR has them at #4 in the conference right now, but I'm not sure they are better than Michigan or Illinois. It should be interesting to follow them as the season continues. I will probably check in on their stats every so often for the remainder of the year. Next up, they face a Georgetown team that ISR has ranked #238. In reality, it doesn't look like Iowa will be challenged again until they play 81st ranked Nebraska on March 21st. Until then, let's hope Iowa keeps piling it on their below average foes. That's really all we can hope for with a schedule rated so low.