Ole Miss baseball is getting an excellent ROI from their No. 1 recruiting class

“I’m a lady in the streets, but a freak in the spreadsheets.” - Claire Dunphy, Modern Family

”Think about it, you’re dealing with numbers all day long. Decimal points, high frequencies, bang bang bang. Ee-ee-ee-ee-ee. Fucking digits kick, kick, kick, all very acidic above the shoulders mustard shit.” -Mark Hanna on some blow, Wolf of Wall Street

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Whether we want to admit it or not, work and the numbers are always hanging around us - on the clock or not. It’s why we hate them and love them. Because they either lift us up on a hot trend or crush our spirit under seemingly impossible odds.

Baseball is a numbers game. It’s all percentages, averages, splits, odds - analytics essentially was born out of baseball to start with and has seemingly ingrained itself into more and more sports.

With that in mind, Ole Miss baseball recruited the number one recruiting class in the entire United States of America in 2016 and that class now sits in its sophomore year for the Rebels.

So yaboi OMTB started thinking what’s the ROI (return on investment business dum dums) for this #1 class - and by investment I mean only NCAA approved forms of investment *wink*.

I’m not going to parse through every single player we signed year over year, because yaboi has approximately two or three times your weekly paycheck booked on college basketball games this afternoon. I’ve got nails to chew on and remote controls to smash on the floor, frankly, that deserve my attention.

Also, yeah I get it, I’m comparing an entire season to 1/3 of a season. It’s just trends, so take it with a grain of salt or maybe just get excited for once in your life without worrying about being disappointed later.

NUMBERS FUN

Thomas Dillard - 2017 (2018 in parentheses)

BA: .206 (.350)

HR: 4 (4)

RBI: 12 (15)

Slug: .348 (.650)

OBP: .329 (.487)

Grae Kessinger - 2017

BA: .175 (.338)

HR: 2 (1)

RBI: 16 (12)

Slug: .247 (.465)

OBP: .287 (.434)

Chase Cockrell - 2017

BA: .239 (.486)

HR: 2 (3)

RBI: 6 (11)

Slug: .373 (.886)

OBP: .292 (.513)

Cooper Johnson - 2017

BA: .213 (.257)

HR: 0 (2)

RBI: 8 (6)

Slug: .269 (.429)

OBP: .301 (.350)

Cole Zabowski - 2017

BA: .239 (.310)

HR: 1 (3)

RBI: 11 (13)

Slug: .283 (.571)

OBP: .311 (.383)

Will Ethridge - 2017

ERA: 2.41 (2.31)

BAA: .213 (.146)

K/IP: 1.22 (0.98)

Ryan Rolison - 2017

ERA: 3.06 (2.28)

BAA: .242 (.205)

K/IP: 1.05 (1.38)

Houston Roth - 2017

ERA: 1.57 (4.98)

BAA: .231 (.282)

K/IP: 1.45 (1.37)

As you can see on the dingers and runs batted in, guys are ahead of schedule and trending positively and the Rebels hurtle into SEC play tomorrow against Tennessee.

The competition hasn’t been junk by any stretch of the imagination, but the grind of SEC play will take its toll on these numbers.

The numbers that matter most, however, is the wins and losses or loss rather as this year’s Rebels sit at 17-1 with 38 games to play. Breaking even over those final games would put Ole Miss over 35 wins and back in the NCAA tourney under most circumstances.

This hot start and talented class has only begun to blossom with more to come, and with the Rebels missing Florida and Kentucky this year in conference play, they are positioned for potentially one of the more successful seasons of the Bianco era.