Ranking the best hitters and pitchers in the AAC

While the American Athletic Conference is known for its baseball prowess and success, seldom do the individual players get recognized on a national level.

Below, every AAC hitter and pitcher has been weighed and measured and ranked for your viewing pleasure. Currently third in the AAC standings, Connecticut claims the top players on both lists. Surprisingly, however, first-place Cincinnati has only one player listed among both of the rankings.

Top 5 AAC Hitters (by RC and OPS*)

For the second time in three weeks, Joe DeRoche-Duffin is the @American_BSB POW

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— UConn Baseball (@UConnBSB) May 2, 2016

• UConn clean-up hitter Joe Deroche-Duffin leads the AAC in home runs (12, ranked No. 21 nationally). He also leads the league in runs created (RC) (35.67) and RBI (40). Joe also owns a slugging percentage of .549. Joe is good.

• Houston first baseman Joe Davis falls within the top 10 percent of AAC hitters in batting average (.327) and slugging percentage (.545). He is also third in RC (34.76).

• Tulane’s Hunter Hope lays claim to the second highest league OPS* (1.37). He also owns the highest slugging percentage in conference-only games. Hope ranks second amongst AAC players in homers (11) and in runs (36).

• Houston center fielder and lead-off batter Connor Wong ranks second in OBP (.422) within the league and is fifth best in the league at creating runs (34.28) and bats a highly respectable .313.

• Meanwhile at the hot corner, Cincinnati third baseman Conor McVey ranks fourth in RBI in conference-only games and is tied for first in the AAC in stolen bases. McVey owns the second highest RC (35.11).

Honorable Mention

• Bobby Melley is second in the AAC with 38 RBI; also second in runs with 36.

• Jake Little is in the top 10% of AAC players in both batting average and OBP.

• Luke Maglich is tied for the AAC lead with 23 stolen bases.

• Dwanya Williams-Sutton is in the top 10 percent of AAC players in batting average, slugging percentage and OBP. DWS also has the highest OPS* in the league and the highest batting average. Perhaps if DWS were getting more ABs closer to the top of the lineup, instead of batting fifth or worse, he would be more productive in runs and RBI.

• Jack Sundberg leads the league in runs with 37 but his sub-.400 OBP keeps him far from the top five.

Top 5 AAC Pitchers (by FIP and WHIP)

#UConn LHP Tim Cate (6.0 IP, 11 K, 3 H, 0 R vs. Columbia) has been named to the @American_BSB Honor Roll #BleedBlue pic.twitter.com/4UHfIsHWeH

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• Freshman Tim Cate ranks first among AAC pitchers with a score of 1.5. He has the lowest FIP (fielding independent pitching) among conference pitchers and is second in the AAC with 9.68 strikeouts per conference game. In AAC competition, batters are hitting .151 off him and the rest of the schedule has not fared any better, hitting only .169. Cate has allowed only one home run in 53 innings this year.

• Andrew Lantrip ranks second among conference pitchers thanks mostly to his astronomical 15:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The next best AAC pitcher has a K-to-BB ratio of less than 5:1 (JT Perez at 4.89:1). Though Lantrip’s 5-5 record is middling at best, the FIP component removes fielding from the equation. This likely factors in heavily to his overall record as his Houston Cougars are second to worst in the league with 58 errors this year and are tied for the worst fielding percentage in the AAC. As another testament to Lantrip’s success this year is his 1.00 WHIP. To get a picture of what that means, Lantrip is allowing a combined walk, hit or hit batter exactly once per inning pitched.

• Seth Romero leads the conference in strikeouts with 11.32 per game–which is roughly better than one strikeout per inning. Though Romero has one of the highest ERA on the top five list (or the honorable mention list, for that matter) he is second best in FIP (-0.89) and fifth best in the AAC in WHIP (1.05)—only slightly worse than Lantrip. Romero took a loss this past weekend after striking out 8 and outdueling Tulane’s Ross Massey (mentioned below) who gave up 10 hits and four earned runs—Houston committed four errors that game, losing 10-4.

• Emerson Gibbs has one complete game shutout and is ranked eighth in the AAC in opponent batting average (.230). He has a 4-2 record and records 4.4 strikeouts for every walk issued which ranks fourth in the AAC in K-to-BB ratio.

• Evan Kruczynski lost his first game of the year against Cincinnati last Friday when the pitcher allowed one earned run and three walks in 6 and 1/3 innings. That has more to do with the resurgence of Andrew Zellner (mentioned below) who went seven shutout innings en route to a 3-0 Bearcat victory. As for the K-man, he ranks fourth in the league with 8.59 strikeouts per conference game, has pitched the fifth most innings in conference play and is ranked first AAC-wide in ERA (1.51 ERA, 15^th nationally). Oh yea, and he has only allowed one home run in 77.2 innings.

Honorable Mention

• Ross Massey is kept out of the top five listing for only two reasons: 1) his strikeout-to-innings pitched ratio is third lowest amongst qualifying pitchers in the AAC with .55 per inning; and 2) he holds a high relatively high 1.2 WHIP. Other than the play, Mrs. Lincoln, Ross has the best conference win-loss record at 7-2; wields a 1.83 ERA which ranks 38^th nationally; and has two complete games in conference play including one shutout.

• Anthony Kay (3-0, AAC games) has not been able to produce stirkeouts as efficiently as the other pitchers listed—K-to-BB ratio of 2.9 which is 14^th among AAC pitchers.

• Mitch Ullom has one complete game shutout; has only allowed one double and one triple in 51 innings.

• Robby Howell (7-2, 1.67 ERA) ranks 23^rd nationally in ERA; is tied with Massey for best AAC win-loss record; and has allowed only one homer in 75.2 innings.

• Andrew Zellner (6-2, 1.64 ERA) ranks 21^st nationally in ERA; has three complete games including one shutout; but has an FIP not nearly as impressive as top five pitchers. Does hold a 1.04 WHIP–good for third best in conference.

*All stats courtesy of TheAmerican.org and stats.ncaa.org