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MidloHokie
Joined: 07/01/1999
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Can you name the three pitchers that were selected?

Osterman, Finch, Abbott. Most would include those three on a list of the best five ever (I would also include AT). At that point I would have taken AT over Finch who had graduated in '02 but Mike Candrea was the coach so . . . . It was 2008. At that point the debate was really just getting started about west coast versus everywhere else superiority. Sure the bias was there but the game had evolved in the west. The first East Coast team win the ASA national championship did not occur until 2005 when the NOVA based Shamrocks won it all, ironically, the year after AT played for them.
Posted: 05/11/2026 at 03:46 PM ET
(In response to this post by TomA)

Thread Replies (17)

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Professional statistician and occasional poster here.
HokieEngineer22 05/11/26 11:09 AM ET
As a metric person, I would probably just say the RPI has shortcomings
nkhooch 05/11/26 03:28 PM ET
The statistical term re: the RPI would be “extremely underparameterized”
HokieEngineer22 05/11/26 04:15 PM ET
Come on now. The win/loss record "sounds" useful?
nkhooch 05/11/26 04:57 PM ET
That’s not quite how building robust rating systems work.
HokieEngineer22 05/11/26 05:56 PM ET
Best post I have seen on the subject. There is absolutely no logical
Hokie_Forester 05/11/26 02:04 PM ET
Well, how wast Angela Tincher not on the USA Olympic team, yet…
TomA 05/11/26 12:37 PM ET
Can you name the three pitchers that were selected?
MidloHokie 05/11/26 03:46 PM ET
As Ronald Coase said “If You Torture the Data Long Enough, It Will Confess”
Va AandM 05/11/26 12:32 PM ET
Yep, pick the teams you want and then select and weight the stats to
BEST2VT 05/11/26 12:58 PM ET
Ah, Finagle’s Rule: draw curve then plot your points. Works every time **
Va AandM 05/11/26 01:06 PM ET
It feels the same every time this happens. The committees
baumerj 05/11/26 11:35 AM ET
Only comeback is to win. Go Hokies. **
skautdog 05/11/26 11:18 AM ET
You're "RPI is a joke" line, although probably true, was the death ....
hokietony 05/11/26 11:14 AM ET
Then they have contradicted themselves because they didn’t follow RPI…
HokieEngineer22 05/11/26 11:20 AM ET
Committee contradicts self. Story at 11! 😉**
HokieNL 05/11/26 04:27 PM ET
In general they did, only 1 non-top 16 RPI team is a host.**
hokietony 05/11/26 11:22 AM ET
That exception is sort of what I am trying to point out.
HokieEngineer22 05/11/26 11:32 AM ET