Two weeks ago we gave our inaugural Top 10 Baseball Power Rankings. In order to be a tad more scientific, we broke it down even further to 8 teams for our first crack at projecting who should be getting a national seed for the NCAA tournament. Here's how we broke it down: we took Boyd's World's strength of schedule and RPI numbers, arbitrarily divided the SoS number by 5 and RPI by 2 in order to dilute their impact a tad, then added each team's wins and subtracted the losses for a score. The NCAA uses many factors in determining its national seeds, we used four. These aren't meant to be perfect and are not meant to replicate what we think the NCAA will do, it's just for fun and to stay on top of how the rest of the nation is faring. Anyhow, without further adieu...
| Team | W | SoS | RPI | Subtotal | L | Total | |
| 1 | Arizona St |
31 | 8.6 | 10 | 49.6 | 3 | 46.6 |
| 2 | Arkansas | 31 | 5.2 | 9.5 | 45.7 | 6 | 39.7 |
| 3 | Texas | 30 | 7 | 7 | 44 | 7 | 37 |
| 4 | UCLA | 27 | 7.8 | 6.5 | 41.3 | 5 | 36.3 |
| 5 | Coastal Carolina | 31 | 0 | 7.5 | 38.5 | 5 | 33.5 |
| 6 | Louisville | 29 | 0 | 8.5 | 37.5 | 6 | 31.5 |
| 7 | Florida | 25 | 5 | 10 | 40 | 9 | 31 |
| 8 | Georgia Tech | 31 | 0 | 4.5 | 35.5 | 5 | 30.5 |
A couple of things jump out upon compiling these.
- Two weeks ago we figured UCLA and ASU were neck and neck, but UCLA's slide and Arizona State's continued solid play lands the Sun Devils at #1 by a pretty wide margin. They continue to just win.
- Arkansas has been on fire since losing to LSU. They're 17-1 since the LSU series, an impressive feat against any competition. They haven't been playing the toughest part of their schedule these last few weeks, but the next three are Florida, Ole Miss and Auburn so the national rankings will follow if they stay hot.
- UCLA started 22-0 but are 5-5 in their last 10. Arizona and Arizona State the next two weeks will determine whether they're for real.
- Coastal Carolina's mascot is the Chanticleers. What the hell is a Chanticleer?
- UVA, LSU, TCU and Arizona are the next four out in that order. UVA and LSU are just a point behind. The polls and RPI love UVA, the SoS and record do not.
Your thoughts?