Happy Valley Hardball with a sabermetrics twist

Baseball – Penn State University Official Athletic Site via kwout

UncleLar Take:

Important series for the Lions this weekend.

Barring any unforeseen collapses, the Big Ten Tournament looks to have started to sort itself out.

Six teams qualify for the tournament, two get first round byes.

Purdue and Michigan have separated themselves from the pack (there’s a five game gap between 2nd and 3rd) and have a stranglehold on the byes. But they are still battling for first and the right to host the tournament. The Wolverines lead the Boilermakers by one game.

One game separates the four teams, Ohio State, Illinois, Penn State, and Northwestern, that are fighting it out for 3rd-6th seeding. There’s a 2 1/2 game break between this pack and MSU who is in 7th with the other three all tied for last another 2 1/2 back.

The good news for PSU is that each of the other three teams with whom they are fighting for seeding have one or two series with other contenders while PSU’s remaining three series are with teams, MSU, Iowa, and Minn, that are all non-contenders in the race. That should give them a big edge toward claiming third place.

What the Nits need to do this weekend is to go out and take three from the Spartans. What they cannot afford to do is drop three because that would put MSU just a half game from knocking PSU out of the Big Ten Tournament.