FSU baseball: Noles fall in advanced metrics rankings

Fortunes for FSU baseball (24-15, 11-10 ACC) changed quickly in a week. The Noles went from getting five wins over ranked opponents to losing two of three games against the Clemson Tigers.

The Noles had a No. 22 ranking a week ago, but that ranking and other advanced metric rankings saw some slippage after two ugly losses where FSU held late leads in games.

Here’s where they were a week ago, according to Massey Rankings:

• Ranking-No. 22
• Offense-No. 88
• Power-No. 23
• Defense-No. 7
• Strength of Schedule-No. 3
• Remaining Strength of Schedule-No. 3
• Remaining Wins Expected-11.33
• Remaining Losses Expected-7.67

Here’s where they stack up after the Clemson series:

• Ranking-No. 26
• Offense-No. 94
• Power-No. 29
• Defense-No. 7
• Strength of Schedule-No. 5
• Remaining Strength of Schedule-No. 6
• Remaining Wins Expected-9.07
• Remaining Losses Expected-5.93

One of the things I was looking forward to was how the offense stacked up against Clemson’s mediocre pitching staff. As you can see, their offensive numbers fell from power and an overall perspective.

That’s not a good sign as the hitters still continue to strike out over nearly 32 percent of their at-bats. I thought the defensive stat would fall since they committed eight errors in three games and looked like the Bad News Bears on Sunday afternoon. However, the pitching staff did their jobs and should have avoided the disaster on the field.

The remaining schedule decreased in difficulty based on the results of the games last week. However, FSU’s expected win total in their remaining games decreased despite the decrease in difficulty. The Noles have an important series coming up against TCU (No. 19 Massey Rankings), who just won two of three games against No. 3 Oklahoma State.

They have some winnable games after that before closing out the regular season against Miami (No. 4 Massey Rankings), Florida (No. 20 Massey Rankings), and North Carolina (No. 45 Massey Rankings). Their hopes of hosting a regional will depend on how these remaining games shake out.