Wednesday
April 13, 2005
sports. michigandaily. com
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9
Haas leads
'M' offense
to success
By Jack Herman
Daily Sports Writer
What do you get when you combine Michigan junior
Tiffany Haas's great hitting, speed and softball smarts?
The quintessential leadoff hitter.
"She is the best second baseman in the country, and
I really believe that," Michigan coach Carol Hutchins
said. "She doesn't carry that around as a burden. She just
plays. She doesn't always play perfect; she makes mis-
takes, but she doesn't carry things around as a burden. I
think it is a really great quality for a great player."
The No. 1 Michigan softball team entrusts the role
of jumpstarting the offense to Haas. And there's not a
better person for the job.
Haas gives the Wolverines just about everything
they could ask for. Her .400 batting average places
her sixth in the Big Ten this season. She's belted six
home runs, already eclipsing her previous career-
high of five.
Haas's leadoff skills have helped power the Wol-
verines to a Big Ten-leading 258 runs this year - 66
more than their closest competitor, Iowa. Haas leads
the league in runs with 42, and the next four members
of the Michigan batting order follow right behind her,
rounding off a monopoly of the top-five of the Big Ten
leaderboard.
"It's huge (when I get a hit to start the game)," Haas
said. "It tells our team that they can hit the ball, too.
We're all just as great, and it should pump them up. At
least, that's the idea."
But hitting's not all that Haas excels at - she's a threat
on the basepath too. She stole 18 bases on 19 attempts
last year, and started this season 8-for-10. Haas admit-
ted that, although she would like to steal all the time,
she takes a somewhat cautious approach to running.
"Sometimes I can get too rambunctious or too
excited, but you can't do that early on because then it
gives the other team momentum," Haas said. "I'm not
as risky at the beginning of the game."
Even when she doesn't get on base, Haas believes
she has an important duty to her team as the first hitter
of the game. Drawing on her previous experience as a
pitcher, she reports back to her teammates as to what
Home is great, but it
can't compare to A2
MIKE MULSEBUS/L)aily
Junior second baseman Tiffany Haas, center, is sixth in the Big Ten with a .400 batting average this season.
they should expect when they step up to bat.
"I know that I don't get a whole lot of pitches to see,
but I will tell my teammates what I see and if there's
movement or if she's quick or slow to the plate," Haas
said. "How she holds the ball can give away some
pitches. Also, where she steps might be an indication
of where she might pitch. We have our coaches to help,
but sometimes you can see a funky windup when you
are up to bat."
None of this is unexpected play from Haas, who
was named both NCAA Region 6 MVP and a third-
team All-American last year.
Haas hit .533 with six RBI during the regionals. She
also smashed two game-winning home runs to help
lead the Wolverines to the College World Series.
. "It was at the end of the year so there was nothing
that I could do if I looked back," Haas said. "I was just
going to go out and do my best. I stayed hot during the
entire tournament just because I knew that I had to
trust myself and what I've been practicing in games."
Despite her tremendous play during last year's tour-
nament, Haas feels she's even better this year, and
Hutchins agrees.
Haas - who led the team in hitting last year - says
that increased focus as well as adjustments to her bat-
ting has helped her improve this season. The changes
have helped Haas increase her average by .046 this
season. She is also one of 25 finalist for the National
Player of the Year award.
"This year, she's gone to another level," Hutchins
said. "She's better than ever. I think that her defense
has improved. She makes plays up the middle as good
as anyone I've seen, and, with her hitting, you can't ask
for much more."
NOTES: Michigan sophomore Lorilyn Wilson shared
this week's Big Ten Pitcher of the Week award with
Iowa's Lisa Birocci. Wilson finished the week with a
4-1 record and struck out 23 batters while giving up
just one run in 19.1 innings of work. This is the third
time this year she has won the award.
JOSH HOLMAN
Part Icon, Whole Man
SSaturday night, Denver
defeated the University of
North Dakota 4-1 to win its
second straight national championship
in ice hockey.
Since Michigan had been expelled
from the NCAA Tournament three
weeks ago in an excruciating 4-3 loss to
Colorado College, most students here
in Ann Arbor could have cared less.
But not me.
As a North Dakotan myself, I kept
an eye on the score all night. I certainly
didn't watch much of the game since I
can barely call myself a hockey fan. If
there isn't a "Michigan" on one of those
hockey sweaters, I will almost certainly
not care. But I had a lot riding on that
seemingly irrelevant matchup, in terms
of Michigan standards. It was a matter
of pride.
Pride for Michigan.
It was tough to root against North
Dakota, but watching it take home a
national championship would have
been hard to swallow for this Great
Plains transplant. Some of you might
ask why I have suddenly turned on my
home state, but stay with me.
The only thing that North Dakota
has is hockey. Any conversation I have
with compatriots back home almost
always turns to hockey, and very
rarely do I ever have the upperhand.
The Fighting Sioux have been to two
NCAA title games in my four years
here, while Michigan made it as far
as the Frozen Four twice, way back in
my freshman and sophomore years.
The Sioux are part of the all-power-
ful WCHA, while Michigan anchors a
very weak CCHA.
A North Dakotan's hockey is
Michigander's football, and I've never
been very successful at turning the
conversation. So I can't help but think,
would I have had a more enjoyable
athletic experience in four years at
North Dakota than at Michigan? Heck,
the Sioux won the Division II National
Championship in football in 2001 and
lost to Grand Valley State in the title
game in 2003. It's no BCS, but it's as
far as they can go.
I've struggled with this issue con-
tinuously as athletic success seemed
to continually grace my home state
while, loyal to Wolverines, I seemed
to encounter some form of heartbreak
year after year.
Then I realized that I was crazy.
I can't lie. Part of my college deci-
sion relied on the fact that I'd be going
to a big school with big athletics, and
North Dakota was never part of the
equation.
Maybe Michigan hasn't made it to
the top of its hill in recent years, but at
least our hill is roughly 14 times taller
than North Dakota's. In fact, I've lived
in eastern North Dakota for 18 years,
and I can tell you that there aren't any
hills to be king of.
My drum major, Matt Cavanaugh,
gave a rousing speech two years ago.
(That's right, I've been in the Michigan
Marching Band for the past four years.
Deal with it.) A wise man in his own
right, Cavanaugh offered the theory that
Michigan fans have raised their expecta-
tions sky high in the past decade, prob-
ably in response to the amazing 1998
year when both the football and hockey
teams won the national championship
and the men's basketball team won the
inaugural Big Ten Tournament. But not
every year is going to be 1998.
The man has got a point. Instead of
sitting back and enjoying the athletic
Mecca that surrounds us on this cam-
pus, too many fans carry a sense of
entitlement, like Michigan owes them
a national championship or two every
year. While the true enthusiasm of
a Michigan fan is a different subject
altogether, I have to admit that I fell
into that great expectations trap, at
least a little bit. I mean, honestly, North
Dakota versus Michigan? Was I high or
something?
When the Fighting Sioux won their
2001 National Championship in foot-
ball, they did it in Florence, Ala. I'm
not even sure where that is. It evokes a
reaction that most people give me when
I tell them I am from Fargo. "Does that
place even exist?"
The past two years, I've stood mid-
field at the Rose Bowl while stealth
bombers flew over my head at the
end of the national anthem. I realize
it wasn't a national title game, but I'll
take Pasadena, thank you very much.
I once waited outside Bill Martin's
office for an interview while he finished
a phone conversation with former Presi-
dent Gerald Ford. Ralph Engelstad, the
alum who North Dakota named its state
of the art hockey arena after, is best
remembered outside of the state as a
Nazi sympathizer. Point Michigan.
And even after the basketball team
made a less-than-stylish exit from the
Big Ten Tournament in Chicago this
year, I held the rest of my basketball
writers hostage for an extra day to get
some mileage out of a press pass and
a free hotel room at the Sheraton that I
will never have again. I had the oppor-
tunity to watch some Big Ten basket-
ball, and I loved every minute of it.
There is no kind of basketball envi-
ronment in North Dakota. The situation
and weather is so bleak that one of the
questions basketball coaches usually
have to field in the recruiting process
goes something like "Isn't it cold
there?" The North Central Conference
just doesn't have the same draw.
Indeed, I was crazy. No matter what
my hockey-crazed fans back home tell
me, I will leave this campus in a mere
month with some of the richest experi-
ences they can only dream about. And I
hope you do, too. I won't hang my head
wallowing over what Michigan athlet-
ics couldn't accomplish. I'm already
warm and fuzzy enough from what
they have given me.
Josh Holman wants to apologize to
the basketball writers (his favorite) for
his hostage situation in Chicago and
sends a shout out to the MMB. He can
be reached at holmanj@umich.edu.
Stats whiz uses numbers to help 'M' Nine
By Pete Sneider
Daily Sports Writer
A new generation of baseball gurus
is out to render those tobacco-chewing
scouts all but useless.
Sabermetrics, developed in the
1970s, relies on objective statistical evi-
dence as opposed to the human eye for
player evaluation and team assessment.
Today, more and more general mangers
in Major League Baseball are using the
stat sheet as their No. 1 source.
Sports management student Shawn
Hoffman, a Sabermetrics buff, has
developed an entire database devoted
to these statistics, and in January Hoff-
man contacted Michigan baseball coach
Rich Maloney to offer his services.
"I had put together a whole database
on everything that had to do with the
Big Ten last year," Hoffman said. "I
basically tried to look for angles that he
wouldn't already know."
Hoffman went to Maloney thinking
he would get the proverbial "thanks,
but no thanks" response, but the coach's.
reaction was quite the contrary.
"I expected him to be a coach who
was set in his own ways," Hoffman said.
"The fact that he was receptive to it is a
complete credit to him."
Hoffman now sends Maloney an e-
mail every week that uses Sabermetrics
to monitor various aspects of the team.
The basic premise of Sabermetrics
system seems simple - more runs cre-
ate more wins. But how runs are created
is the tricky part.
Sabermetric formulas such as on-
base plus slugging percentage (OPS)
and walks plus hits per innings pitched
(WHIP) are frequently found on stat
sheets today. But Sabermetrics offers
other, far more complicated equations.
"When you see how much stuff
goes into these stats, your head spins,"
Hoffman said.
For example, Equivalent Average
(EqA) aims to express the production of
a hitter in a context independent of out-
sures each collegiate baseball park's
susceptibility to scoring. If a stadium
received a score of 100 - approxi-
mately the score of Ray Fisher Stadium
- then it's neutral.
Illinois, Michigan's opponent next
weekend, plays in the Big Ten's best
hitting venue - a "Park Factor" of
126. Such information is valuable to
Maloney, who might want to reconsid-
er his "small ball" approach to manu-
facture runs.
"The other area that we looked at was
scoring more runs," Maloney said. "So
we looked at the number of sacrifice
bunts. If we do use a sacrifice bunt, you
only get one run, if that. But you really
want the big inning."
Hoffman looked at the 2004 season
and calculated the run production in
an inning that a bunt was executed. Of
the 40 innings that Michigan bunted
in, only once did it end up producing
more than three runs. That's critical
for a team that was 23-11 in games in
which three or more runs were scored
in a single inning.
"One thing that has changed is that
earlier in the game, I might have bunt-
ed," Maloney said. "But I don't do that
anymore until later in the game because
I really want to get the big inning."
One thing that can't be viewed in
Hoffman's database is the luck factor.
"People think that the good teams are
those who win close games," Hoffman
said. "That's wrong. It's the teams that
win blowouts. Close games are just a
matter of luck."
Maloney is all too familiar with that
notion - the Wolverines lost three
games to Iowa this weekend by a com-
bined margin of four runs.
"You can't account for luck, which
ended up being against us this weekend
against Iowa," Maloney said. "When
you get 10 straight hits, there's a margin
of luck."
MIKE HULSEBUS/Daily
Michigan coach Rich Maloney receives a weeldy email from Shawn Hoffman about the team.
WE OWE YOU AN APOLOGY FOR
YESTERDAY'S GRAY BOX:H ERE IT IS.
YESTERDAY, WE REPORTED THAT
MITCH ALBOM WAS AT THE DAILY.
WHEN WE TALKED TO HIM ON
SUNDAY THESE WERE HIS PLANS.
OUR BAD. DAILY SPORTS
side effects, such as league or ballpark.
The equation makes the quadratic for-
mula look like third grade arithmetic:
(H + TB + 1.5 (BB + HBP) + SB +
SH + SF)/(AB + BB + HBP + SH + SF
+ CS + SB/3).
"It's pretty amazing," Hoffman said.
"You can put one player in one park
and then put him in another park, do
the adjustments, and his stats are pretty
much the same."
The stadium factor is one that
intrigued Maloney.
"One of the things (Shawn) got me
thinking about is the park we play in,
since it's not a home run park," Malo-
ney said. "But Shawn analyzed our park
and thought it was more neutral than
defensive. I don't entirely agree with that
statistic because I believe this is one of
the greatest pitching parks in America
because the wind is usually blowing in."
The stadium feature on Hoffman's
database contains an equation that mea-
I
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