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Rice Baseball: Anthony Rendon’s All-Star nomination long overdue

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Former Rice Baseball slugger Anthony Rendon’s All-Star caliber play has finally been rewarded. The honor is long overdue.

The fact that Anthony Rendon received his first All-Star nod during his age 29 season is baffling. Rendon was the No. 6 overall selection by the Washington Nationals in the 2011 MLB Draft. He made his debut in 2013 hitting .265/.329/.725. Since then he’s become even more productive.

Currently in his seventh season, Rendon is in the midst of his third consecutive year with a .300+ batting average. He’s hit 68 home runs over that span and still has half of the 2019 season to play. His OPS+ has been better than 135 in each of those seasons and he’s finished in the Top 11 of MVP voting in each of the last two seasons, ending up as high as sixth in 2017.

More: Redefining the culture Matt Bragga’s biggest win of 2019

By every measure, Rendon is one of the most outstanding players in professional baseball. Since 2014, his first complete season in the big leagues, Rendon has an fWAR (Fangraph’s measure of WAR) of 27.9. That’s seventh best among all position players during that time.

Perhaps he was overshadowed by the super-ego of Bryce Harper or perhaps the Nationals’ postseason failures limited his opportunities to gain more exposure. Whatever the reason, Rendon’s numbers speak for themselves. He is one of the best players in the sport right now and is well deserving of his 2019 All-Star selection.

Rendon’s banner year might have come at just the right time. He’s in the final season of his current contract with the Nationals and will be eligible for free agency following this year. He’s due to make a significant payday one that should put him among the elite third baseman in terms of salary. Maybe that will be enough to put his name at the forefront of public perception, too.

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Rice Football Stat Pack: Unpacking Havoc rate among CUSA squads

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Rice Football prides itself on discipline and structure, but the Owls biggest gap on defense last season was their level of chaos.

At its very core, defense is built on chaos. College football offenses have never been more calculated and sophisticated than they are right now. When the quarterback takes the snap they have a well-defined objective and understanding for how each particular play should develop. The defense wants to throw off that equilibrium by injecting chaos.

The best measure of chaos is havoc rate. That statistic is the measure of havoc plays (forced fumbles, tackles for a loss and sacks, passes defended and interceptions) against the total number of defensive plays run. Defenses which produce the highest percentages of havoc plays throw off their opponent’s plans and give their own teams a better chance to win.

Rice finished last in CUSA in havoc rate last season, averaging roughly one havoc play every eight defensive snaps, a rate of 12.6 percent. That pales in comparison to the near 20 percent havoc rate of UAB.

Rank Team Havoc Plays Havoc Rate Fumbles Forced TFL Passes Defended
1 UAB 174 20.67% 14 111 49
2 Marshall 163 18.89% 12 92 59
3 Louisiana Tech 149 16.80% 10 101 38
4 North Texas 150 18.82% 4 97 49
5 Southern Miss 110 12.14% 9 72 29
6 Middle Tenn. 156 19.14% 10 89 57
7 Charlotte 106 12.30 12 63 31
8 WKU 129 18.43% 8 65 56
9 UTSA 119 12.33% 9 78 32
10 Old Dominion 125 18.60% 6 65 54
11 UTEP 109 11.91% 8 60 41
12 FIU 119 13.52% 8 68 43
13 Florida Atlantic 113 12.38% 5 70 38
14 Rice 106 12.11% 9 57 40

Havoc rate serves as a powerful proxy for overall defensive effectiveness. 10 of the 14 CUSA teams finished with a difference of two ranking spots or less between their total defense rank and their havoc rate rank (e.g. Rice ranked 14th in havoc rate and 13th in total defense, while Old Dominion ranked 10th in havoc rate and 14th in total defense).

A second year in defensive coordinator Brian Smith’s scheme and some intriguing young talent will position Rice to grow in this area in 2019. For a team as dedicated to structure and process as the Owls are, it’s time to introduce a bit of chaos.

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Rice Baseball: Redefining the culture Matt Bragga biggest win in 2019

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The 2019 Rice baseball season saw mixed results and no NCAA Tournament bid, but head coach Matt Bragga is confident about the progress made in Year 1.

Last summer Matt Bragga hopped in the car and made the drive from Austin to Houston. Many Texans know the route, some have taken it fairly often. For Bragga, everything was new. He stopped off at a Men’s Wearhouse, bought a suit and continued on to South Main for an interview. It wasn’t long afterward that he was introduced as Rice baseball’s newest head coach.

At that press conference, Bragga said all the things you’d expect a new head coach to say. He talked about how excited he was to be at Rice, how hard it had been to leave his former school and how he was ready for the task at hand. A year later, Bragga remains resolute the program is going in the right direction, but he’d be lying if he’d said he thought it was going to be easy.

“It’s been 15 years [since being hired at Tennessee Tech]. I forgot how hard taking over a program was.” Bragga says, looking back at the 2019 season, “but that’s the fun of it, that’s the challenge. That’s why you do what you do.”

A year of inconsistency

There were some days when it felt like hard was putting things lightly. Rice lost their opener to Rhode Island in extra innings and five in a row to ranked competition (Texas, Arizona and UC Irvine) early in the non-conference portion of the schedule. There were flickers of hope, including wins over in-state powers Baylor, TCU and Houston.

That’s kind of how the season went. The team bounced from cavernous depths to unbelievable highs as they went from series to series. They’d sweep a quality opponent like Louisiana Tech, then turn around and drop three in a row to Western Kentucky. Sometimes there wasn’t much of a rhyme or reason.

At the end of the season, though, the 26-33 overall record was rather indicative of the season as a whole. Rice wasn’t a bad baseball team in 2019, but they weren’t excellent either. Consistency and the thirst for a true identity and a unified culture were marked areas in need of improvement.

Willing to go the distance

Bragga builds cultures. The reason he drove from Austin to Houston in the summer of 2018 was because he’d taken a Tennessee Tech program with no historical success to the cusp of the College World Series.

Despite losing to Texas in a decisive winner-take-all game, Bragga had already proven he had what it takes to reach the sports’ highest levels. What got him a seat at the table was no surprise to Bragga. It wasn’t a five-step plan to get to Omaha. It was dependent on creating an atmosphere and a system which enabled his team to get there.

“You as a coach build those expectations… At the end of the day, I got hired because I’m a good baseball coach and I’ve built good cultures where I’ve been. That’s what my focus is on. If my focus is on [getting to the College World Series] I’m hosed.”

Culture has been on his mind a lot lately. “I don’t think we’re tough enough and that is on me,” he remarked in the weeks following the end of the Owls’ 2019 season. That toughness, both mental and physical, has been one of the things Bragga has leaned into this year. By and large, the attitude is changing. “I could not have asked for a better first year in terms of our guys buying into what is we’re doing, he said.” But as Bragga knows as well as anyone else, it’s going to take time.

It took more than a decade for Bragga to take Tennessee Tech from a glorified high school field and a shoestring budget to being one game away from college baseball’s greatest achievement. The resources and commitment at Rice outweigh the support he was able to garner at his previous stop, allowing for an expedited ramp up. That’s a reality that hastens Bragga’s confidence.

Transitioning from rebuild to reload

Rice will lose two Top 5 MLB Draft selections following the 2019 season: Matt Canterino (Twins) and Evan Kravetz (Reds). They’ll solidify some of their roster deficiencies with important JUCO additions. The lineup will look different, but that might be because guys who were hitting at the top third of the lineup are pushed back to seventh or eighth in 2020.

The new look Owls will have more power at the plate. They’ll be more disciplined in the field, a facet of the game which they improved on significantly during the 2019 season. Rice began the season with an eight-error game in non-conference play against Arizona. They finished as the best fielding club in the conference tournament. Change is coming, one step at a time.

Bragga is under no illusions that gradual shifts will be enough for a program with the rich tradition of Rice baseball. But he’s confident that his abilities combined with the talent and resources available to him at South Main will produce a winning formula, sooner rather than later.

“I’ve dreamed since I started coaching baseball 23 years ago to coach at a premier baseball program in the country… That’s what Rice is. This is a goal that’s been on my mind for 23 years,” Bragga declared, “This program is going in the right direction. We’re going to get this program to the pinnacle of college baseball. I believe that with all my heart.”

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Rice Football Stat Pack: Mobile quarterbacks a must for Owls

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Moving the ball on the ground is crucial to the success of the Rice football offense. That goes for the quarterbacks, too.

Five different quarterbacks saw action for Rice football in 2019. No matter who was under center, it was clear this offense valued a quarterback who was able to move in the pocket and make plays with his feet. Versatility and options are extremely important. Keeping the defense honest and forcing them to account for all 11 players on the field gives the offense an added advantage.

Bloomgren confirmed the need for that advantage on offense throughout the season, saying more than once he was counting on his passers to steal two or three first downs on the ground each game. That expectation proved true. As a unit, the Rice quarterback position accounted for 300 yards rushing (before sacks), an average of 3.66 yards per carry.

Evan Marshman is the most mobile and, unsurprisingly, led the Owls quarterbacks with a 5.39 yards per carry average. Although Shawn Stankavage and Wiley Green aren’t generally viewed as running threats, both averaged more than three yards per carry. Rice doesn’t need track stars in shotgun, but having statuesque figures isn’t conducive to how this offense wants to operate.

Green and Marshman had two rushing scores apiece. Those four quarterback rushing touchdowns tied Austin Walter for the team lead. When the quarterback position is challenging the most productive running back in rushing production their importance in the offense can’t be dismissed.

Neither Green or grad transfer Tom Stewart are dual-threat guys — at least not on the same plane as incoming freshman quarterback Jovoni Johnson. Still, whoever wins the starting job will add a rushing component to the offense. That’s what the job requires.

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Rice Football Recruiting: 2020 Corner Sean Fresch commits to Owls

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The 2020 Rice football recruiting class includes a lock-down secondary, bolstered by the Owls’ new commitment, corner Sean Fresch from Austin, Tx.

A rousing run through June landed Rice yet another commitment. The Owls kicked off the month with the Adidas 3 Stripe camp, hosting hundreds of athletes on campus. One of those players was Austin cornerback Sean Fresch who has committed to play his college football at Rice.

Rice was interested in Fresch from the moment he stepped foot on campus at camp. He ran sub 4.4 40-yard dashes and came back and replicated the feet at the Owls’ Junior Day. Watching him work against some of their top targets in person was the litmus test the Owls needed. His blazing speed, complimented with impressive work in one-on-ones made extending an offer an easy decision for the Rice staff.
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Fresch turned down offers from Army, UTSA, UTEP and Sam Houston in favor of the Owls. Rice is carving out a talent pool of top-flight Texas talent. Fresch marks the eighth in-state addition in the 2020 class. Rice is sure to add more to that total before they wrap things up on signing day.

With Fresch in the fold, the Owls’ secondary class is as robust as any in recent memory. Safety Plae Wyatt, corner Devin Gunter, corner Jordan Dubar and Fresch are going to be mainstays at the back of the defense for years to come.

It’s hard to not get excited when you turn the film for Fresch. His ability to read the quarterback and make plays on the ball in the air are hallmarks of a successful player in defensive coordinator Brian Smith’s scheme. That innate ability combined with the jets to take a tipped ball to the house in the blink of an eye makes him an exciting addition to the 2020 class.

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