No. 15 Florida State
Washington star Danielle Lawrie is not the nation's returning leader in at least one significant pitching statistic. On at least that one count, the reigning Player of the Year looks up at Florida State's Sarah Hamilton. Developed by baseball sabermetrician Tom Tango, fielding independent pitching is one means for examining only that over which a pitcher has complete control. Wins and ERA may share a general correlation with successful pitching, but the story they tell also depends in varying degrees on what a pitcher's teammates do with their bats and gloves. Fielding independent pitching (FIP) takes into account only home runs, walks, hit batters and strikeouts. And while Lawrie was better than just about every other pitcher out there in FIP last season. she trailed Hamilton, whose more traditional numbers included a 20-7 record and 0.83 ERA last season. The ACC Pitcher of the Year, Hamilton did everything well in her sophomore season. She allowed just six home runs in 201.2 innings, struck out 311 and walked just 43 batters. As a point of comparison, the last number worked out to the third-best walk rate among the top 10 strikeout pitchers last season.No. 16 LSU
Anyone who has spent much time at one of the bigger early-season tournaments can attest to the blur four days can become watching games from mid-morning until midnight without much of a break in the action (all right, maybe a short break for a tri-tip sandwich in Cathedral City). It's a softball fan's dream, and something all but unmatched in college team sports given the quantity of ranked teams that can descend on one locale. But also like dreams, it's not always easy to pull the pieces back from the mist the next morning, let alone in subsequent years. Which is all sort of a roundabout way of getting to the image of Kirsten Shortridge gliding to first. It may have been two years ago, and she was wearing a Baylor uniform at the time, but that image sticks in my mind as clearly, if more pleasantly, as the desert dust still sticks to my laptop. Some people move easily, some people are fast. Few do both better at the same time than almost anyone else. Only seven returning players in the SEC posted better on-base percentages last season than Shortridge, and it's heady company to keep: Georgia's Alisa Goler and Taylor Schlopy, Mississippi State's Chelsea Bramlett, Tennessee's Tiffany Huff, Alabama's Charlotte Morgan, Kentucky's Molly Johnson and Florida's Aja Paculba. In her first season with LSU after the transfer from Baylor, she not only led the Tigers in on-base percentage, batting average and stolen bases, befitting a standout leadoff hitter -- she also led the team in slugging percentage. LSU will be best-served this season if Shortridge matches that .537 slugging percentage but doesn't lead the team in the category, perhaps passed by a resurgent Rachel Mitchell or breakout seasons from Anissa Young and Ashley Langoni. But with the addition of freshman pitcher Rachele Fico to potentially anchor a pitching staff that Shortridge herself will also be a part of, having someone like the senior at the top of the batting order just became that much more valuable.Graham Hays covers softball for ESPN.com. E-mail him at Graham.Hays@espn3.com.
