Baseball America's early Top-25 Poll for 2023

All true

I suppose that you start with Oregon's ace Adam Maier suffered a season-ending elbow injury on March 4, 2022.

Despite that fact, Oregon overcame the Maier injury and was a top 10 team until Divine Mercy Sunday.  After dropping the rubber game of the Wazzu series in 10, they beat Cal at home and then were swept in four games by Oregon State.  However, the Ducks rebounded to win 7 of the final 8 heading into the the Pac-12 Tournament and were probably a 2-2 finish or better away from hosting a regional.  They then proceeded to get beat by Arizona and Arizona State to play their way to Louisville.  Logan Mercado gave up that two-run shot in the eighth to send Oregon to the losers' bracket, and Louisville joined and eliminated them.

Oregon was great over the first nine weekends, then lost to Wazzu, beat Cal, got swept by Oregon State, beat Arizona State in Phoenix, swept Arizona, got swept out of the Pac-12 Tournament, and lost two-of-three in Louisville.

In the draft, the Beavers lost their best two starters, their entire outfield, a guy who may have been their ace in 2023, their catcher, and a promising reliever.  I mean arguably, the Beavers lost their best three pitchers.

In the draft, the Ducks lost their first-team All-Pac-12 SS, Josh Kasevich; their RF/DH Anthony Hall; their 1B/DH Brennan Millone; and Adam Maier, who did not pitch after March 4th   Oregon scored two runs in the second inning in the Saturday game against Kmatz.  Hall homered.  Kasvich followed that with an 0-2 single.  Kasevich stole second and then scored on a base hit to center.  Carpenter replaced Kmatz and pitched a great inning.  Mitchy Slick then tried to stretch him to a second inning up 6-3.  Hall got an RBI sac fly, and Kasevich brought in another run on a base hit to center again.  Sebby relieved Carpenter, Verburg relieved Sebby, and Brown came into close in the eighth up 8-5.  In the ninth, Milone hit a two-run shot to cut the lead to one.  Brown proceed to strike out Hall and induce Kasvich to ground out to second before striking out freshman Jacob Walsh for an 8-7 win.  In the five games, Oregon scored 10 runs and Kasevich, Hall, and Millone had a hand in nine of the 10.  Only the solo run scored on Cooper Hjerpe (BB, 1B, and RBI groundball) did not involve at least one of three.

They did lose one free agent, and that was Christian Ciuffetelli.  Ciuffetelli was a de facto long reliever, who occasionally started.  His longest start of the year was the first game of the Pac-12 Tournament, when he went 3.1 innings.  Ciuffetelli started the first midweek game against Oregon State.  He only gave up one unearned run after a passed ball put Wade Meckler in scoring position.  Bazzana hit a bunt single to put runners on the corners.  Melton then plated Meckler on an RBI double-play.  Ciuffetelli also pitched in the seventh in the second midweek game.  After Oregon State went up 1-0, Ciuffetelli came on with Bazzana on second and one out.  He induced f%#*s to flyout to left and then got Dukart to line out to center to end the inning still only down 1-0.  Boyd homered in the eighth to double the lead.

The Beavers also lost their two third basemen with the most experience in the offseason.

As such, the Beavers return their third and fourth best starters and only three position players, all infielders.

The Ducks return their three best starters on the season after Maier went down and six position players.

On top of that, Oregon is getting in two outfielders from the SEC in Owen Diodati from Alabama and Isaiah Thomas from Vandy.  Thomas was Vandy's starting right fielder on their Championship Game run in 2021.  He left Vandy in August, because he did not like something that someone at the school that was not a player did to him somehow related to mental health (that was the extent of his official announcement).

Oregon did not have Oregon State's season, but the Ducks have a lot fewer question marks than the Beavers.

Pfennigs had two really poorly-umpired games that threw off his numbers in that goofy 25-22 UCLA Pac-12 Tournament game and the loss to Auburn with the SEC umpire behind the plate.

Were there two more poorly-umpired games on the schedule?  The strike zone was the size of a mustard seed against UCLA and changed with which team was in the batter's box against Auburn.

His WHIP was 4.50 in those two games.

What is crazy to me is that Pfennigs was hit that often and his ERA is so low.  And the stats only get better if you focus in on conference play.

I would note that the number of extra-base hits that Pfennigs gave up is very low, lowest among the usual starters and lower even then high-leverage pitchers like Brown.   

He had a 20-inning streak between Xavier and Arizona, where he did not give up a single extra-base hit.  

Pfennigs only gave up multiple extra-base hits twice and both were wins.

The thing about Hjerpe, Kmatz, and Hunter is that they were more consistent at keeping the bases clear, but they were also much more likely to get killed, when they missed.

Pfennigs could pound the zone, and no one really hurt him all that badly, when he missed, especially the first time through the order.  The only one who really did was Sonny D in Pfennigs' final start.

Also, I would note that one of your 10 is DJ Carpenter, who, indeed, does have a better WHIP but allowed almost twice as many runs.  Carpenter had some good stuff.  He finished with one more strikeout than Pfennigs and pitched 12 fewer innings.  However, he gave up just as many extra base hits in just as many innings.

Pfennigs' stat line is vaguely reminiscent of Bryce Fehmel's.  With a good umpire, who calls the corners correctly, you wouldn't usually strike out, but you couldn't really hit the guy hard.  With the wrong umpire, you might as well start warming up the bullpen, because he 's not seeing the fourth inning.