No Place Like (Road Trips to Start the Year)
Like a lot of Northeast programs, BC is playing 20 straight games away from home to open 2020.
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At right about the same time as Major League Baseball franchises are embarking to warmer climates for Spring Training, collegiate baseball programs in the Northeast are doing the same. The likes of Florida and Arizona sure are nice this time of the year, especially when you compare the warm weather to snow, rain, and heavy winds.
Boston College, as you would expect, is one of the many teams that spend the first stretch of their seasons on the road. Even with a new ballpark on Brighton Campus that has made life much easier than at the old Shea Field, the Eagles open 2020 with 20 consecutive road games, spending a big chunk of that time in Florida, Arizona, and the Carolinas. BC won’t take the field at the Harrington Athletics Village until March 18 against Siena, which is more than a full month away.
That type of scheduling repeats itself for much of the Eagles’ non-conference opponents that play their home games in New England. BC doesn’t even play the most away games in a row out of that group, either. Just take a look at some of these stretches for teams to start 2020.
Northeastern: 14 road games (features games in Alabama and Florida)
Holy Cross: 14 (features eight in California)
Quinnipiac: 19 (features games in Texas, Mississippi, and Florida)
Fairfield: 22 (features games in Florida and the Carolinas)
Connecticut: 24 (features games in Arizona, Louisiana, Florida)
The reason for that is obvious—swaths of New England still have snow or more to come—so it felt worthwhile to take a look at how BC has fared during these season-opening stretches the last few seasons, as well as what’s in store this year.
The Eagles have had an up-and-down few years with these trips as they get their legs under them. They’ve had the tendency to beat some good teams, but also drop surprising games to lesser opponents (using RPI, or ratings percentage index, as a measure of strength). To get a sense of how they might fare on this 20-game swing, let’s take a look at how they’ve played against varied levels of opponents over the last five trips and 108 total games.
In calculating RPI, the NCAA defines four quadrants: Quadrant 1 (opponents ranked 1-50), Q2 (51-100), Q3 (101-150), and Q4 (151-299). For simplicity sake, let’s use those segments as a way to look at these last five years.
Q1: 7-29 (.194)
Q2: 7-15 (.318)
Q3: 2-4 (.333)
Q4: 35-9 (.795)
As you might expect, the Eagles—a middle of the pack ACC program over the last few years—have struggled against elite opponents but have largely cleaned up against opponents outside of the top 150 by RPI.
So what does this all mean for this coming season? Using each team’s final 2019 RPI as a guide, here’s those same quadrants with the opponents they’re going to face in the first 20 games this season. One caveat: College baseball teams change dramatically from year-to-year, so this is just a starting point to looking at the 20 consecutive games away from home.
Q1: Nine games (three against Arizona State, three against North Carolina State, three against Clemson)
Q2: One game (South Carolina)
Q3: One game (Northeastern)
Q4: Nine games (Holy Cross, two against Fairfield, two against North Carolina A&T, four against Northern Illinois)
As you might expect, six of those nine Q1 games are against preseason top-25 teams. Arizona State slots in at No. 9 in the D1Baseball.com preseason top-25 poll, while North Carolina State comes in at No. 16. The third team, Clemson, was an NCAA Tournament team in 2019.
In Q2, there’s South Carolina, who had an unusual .500 season last year. Don’t expect the same from the Gamecocks in 2020, though, as they’re pegged to return to the NCAA Tournament on the strength of a top-10 recruiting class and a few high-profile transfers. Then, in Q3, there’s Northeastern—a familiar foe for the Eagles. It’s a short trip compared to the others, obviously, and should be a competitive matchup as the Huskies are aiming to rebound in the Colonial Athletic Association after failing to defend their title in 2019.
The fourth and final quadrant features four opponents with varying level of talent. Northern Illinois, who the Eagles play four against in Winter Haven, Fla., has had four straight losing seasons. The Huskies are returning almost their entire starting lineup and rotation, but are still a middle-of-the-pack Mid-American Conference team. Fairfield is one of the better teams in the Metro-Atlantic and should pose a challenge, while North Carolina A&T has had a strong run of seasons in the MEAC. Finally, the Patriot League’s Holy Cross has talent but saw head coach Greg DiCenzo jump to the professional ranks with the Cleveland Indians and will be under new leadership for the first time in over a decade.
While teams change, the average RPI of these 20 in total last year was 118.6, a full 32 points better than the 2019 bunch. BC went just 8-6 in 14 games away from home to start last season, but will be hoping for more momentum in the early going before the first two conference series’ of the year.
I’ll have a post up breaking down the rest of the schedule later, but for now, the Eagles have a pretty balanced first 20 games. They’ve got two preseason top-25 teams, another strong conference opponent, and a wide array of non-conference foes. It’ll be interesting to see how BC fares in this extended run, especially with higher expectations than a season ago.
Image Courtesy of BC Athletics.