2017 Division II National Finals Preview

Our favorite day of the year is here! Saturday marks the beginning of the 2017 NCAA Division II Baseball National Finals, this year in Grand Prairie, Texas, at Texas AirHogs Stadium. Here, we'll preview some numbers for the eight teams who are making their way to the finals, and point out some things to watch.
2017 NCAA Division II Baseball Finals Live Updates

The link above is to the NCAA.com page for live updates from throughout the tournament.

Let's begin with something easy, a simplistic look at what I think are some important indicators for success over the length of a season for a baseball team.

Region	Team	Record	SOS	SOS Rank	AVG	OBP	SLG	ERA	K/BB
Atlantic	West Chester	40-11	.565	23rd	.324	.396	.499	3.49	2.52
Central	Lindenwood	39-18	.541	59th	.312	.396	.431	4.61	2.93
East	St. Thomas Aquinas	42-15	.532	79th	.295	.392	.458	3.08	2.34
Midwest	Quincy	37-21	.552	37th	.297	.388	.480	5.12	1.75
South	Delta State	44-11	.576	10th	.320	.409	.484	4.43	2.47
Southeast	North Georgia	46-10	.521	99th	.327	.430	.528	3.26	1.87
South Central	Colorado Mesa	48-10	.542	55th	.340	.412	.534	3.26	3.45
West	UC San Diego	40-17	.502	140th	.309	.403	.460	3.69	2.10

Strength of schedule wise, the 2017 field had a much tougher time getting to the finals than last year's field. Last year, the highest strength of schedule of anyone in the field was 31st in the country, for Nova Southeastern, eventual champions. This year, it is 10th, again with the South representative, Delta State. On average, the strength of schedule itself last year for the field was .532. This year it is .541. Average rank last year was about 80th, and this season it is about 63rd. While the numbers here do not represent overall strength of the field, it does represent how tough the roads were to get to this point.

In my opinion, we have a clear divide here between a top four and a bottom four. It is up to you to decide who is who.

Delta State, without a doubt, faced the best competition this season of anyone in the field. That shouldn't be a surprise, however. That is the case almost every year, no matter who comes out of the South region.

Colorado Mesa and North Georgia have had the top offenses in the field, and it isn't very close. They both rank in the top 10 of nearly every offensive category in Division II, while St. Thomas Aquinas and Quincy trail behind the rest of the field, although in STA's case, that is to be expected in the East region.

Pitching-wise, STA is the outlier, again as the East region usually is due to a lot of wood bat play. Outside of that, Colorado Mesa has the best numbers, but opposition has to be considered. The RMAC is not a particularly tough conference, and CMU has been rolling conference foes for years now. While they are a talented group, I have to think that had they been in a tougher conference, their numbers would be close to UC San Diego's.

Speaking of UCSD, it is surprising every year what the strength of schedule numbers look like from the West. When you think the West region, you think of good baseball, obviously, but the SOS numbers never seem to match up.

West Chester, Lindenwood and Quincy all fall pretty much right in the middle of all the numbers presented. They're all solid teams without eye-popping numbers, but individually each team has guys who can win them games by themselves. These well-rounded teams usually tend to have success because there aren't glaring weak spots, so we'll see if that holds true this season.