Life in the Valley

Batting Race Features .016 Gap Between Top 5 Contenders

Another Valley weekend is upon us! And while this weekend is short on matchups between top-half teams in the conference, there is plenty to watch for among the stat leaders in the Valley as teams swing past the halfway point in the regular season (already!). All the leaders are below, but notable to me are a couple of categories:

Batting title: Nathan Bandy of Southern Illinois leads the race at .397, but his advantage isn’t a comfortable one by any stretch. Carson Garner (Murray State) and Mark Shallenberger (Evansville) are both just 9 points back at .388. Dominic Listi of Indiana State is right there, as well, sitting 4th at .386. And we can’t forget Zane Zielinski, who’s having a marvelous season for UIC and is hitting .382. That’s right, just 15 points separate the top 5. This will be worth watching throughout the rest of the conference season.

OPS: There are arguments to be had both ways about how valuable a stat OPS really is. And someone at the NCAA must not think it too important because you can’t actually find national OPS leaders. Last season, OPS was a regular part of team stat reports. Not so in ’24. All that said, I still think it’s a cool statistic if for nothing else there are some gaudy numbers to be had, especially in college baseball when compared to MLB.

And Garner is the runaway leader right now at 1.334, combining a league-leading .796 slugging percentage with an on-base percentage of .538, which is 3rd in the conference. Garner has 115-point lead on Shallenberger, who sits 2nd at 1.219. Zielinski (1.167), SIU’s Hesston Gray (1.141), and Missouri State’s Zack Stewart (1.081) round out a seriously impressive top 5.

Here are this week’s leaders! Remember to follow me on Twitter (X) at @MVConfBaseball, where I’ll post some more categories such as team hitting and pitching, and whatever else looks interesting. And always check the Twitter feed for schedule updates since it seems like it’s going to rain for the rest of time.