Kentucky Baseball Monday April 18 Update

I certainly not going to spend much time on this post, but I thought it might be fun to take a look after each weekend and see where we are.

I had two simple goals this year for Kentucky baseball: 1) make the SEC Tournament (that only requires not being one of the two worst teams in the Southeastern Conference), and 2) make the NCAA Tournament. Just a quick look at both of those objectives:

1. We are at the midway point of the Conference season, having played 15 of the 30 scheduled conference games. After losing the series in Missouri, Kentucky stands at 5-10, tied for last place in the Southeastern Conference. There is a world of games remaining, and there is a complete logjam at the bottom, with Kentucky, Missouri and Ole Miss all at 5-10, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Florida all at 6-9, and LSU and Vanderbilt at 7-8 all below the 500 mark. No way of telling whether we will make the SEC Tournament at this point, but we have a good chance of making it, and a good chance of not making it.

2. I am much more confident in the second prediction, we will not make the NCAA Tournament. An automatic bid would be earned by winning the SEC Tournament, and we simply don't have the depth of pitching to make it to Sunday's game to even have a shot at that. Accordingly, we would have to receive an at-large invitation. My rudimentary, very simple litmus test for receiving and at-large invitation are as follows:

A) be in the top half of the Southeastern Conference.
B) have an RPI in the top 35.

Neither of those is definitive, and there are plenty of times when a team would fall outside those parameters and either make it or not make it, but it's a pretty decent rule of thumb.

Where is Kentucky today?

Well, currently the #8 team in the Southeastern Conference has a record of 8-7 (Auburn, Texas A&M, and Alabama). We have a long way to go to catch up to that and I don't see a realistic path for Kentucky to get there, based upon their play this season.

Let's look at the second part.

Warren Nolan.com has a nice Baseball Nitty Gritty Report that makes it easy to follow, and fun especially if you are on the bubble or inside the bubble looking for a possible seed. Here's the link for future reference.

https://www.warrennolan.com/baseball/2022/rpi-nitty

Kentucky stands at 70 in the RPI, nowhere close to the top 35. If RPI isn't your thing (and it is used in baseball), Kentucky's ELO Ranking is 72. For reference, Kentucky is 13th in RPI and 14th in ELO in the SEC.