July 21,
2009
Proposal for Changes in
Computing RPI - Part 4
 Greg
Van Zant, the head coach at West Virginia University, recently
sent the following recommendation to the NCAA Division I
Baseball Committee to change the formula for calculating the
Ratings Percentage Index (RPI).
The Four Exempted Contests Against
Non-Division I Opponents
Currently a team can play up to 4 games a year
against non-Division I opponents that do not count in the RPI.
The problem with this is many times a team would be better off
playing a non-Division I team than playing a lower ranked
Division I team.
For example, if you play a Division II game,
there is no penalty to your RPI ranking. If you play a lower
ranked Division I team, it pulls down your RPI. This does not
make sense that we have a ranking system that encourages schools
to play non-Division I schools rather than playing a lower
ranked Division I team in a non-conference game. Our system
should always encourage Division I competition.
My recommendation is that we mathematically
assign the non-Division I team played, the RPI of our bottom
Division I team, such as Team #302 this past year and count this
game in the RPI. In other words, each time a team plays a
non-Division I game, it would be just as if that team had played
the #302 ranked, or last place RPI team. A second option would
be to exempt the bottom 4 RPI games or non-Division I games for
each team. But right now, it is an advantage to play a
non-Division I game in many situations. Teams that try to play
an all Division I schedule are getting penalized unfairly in
some situations.
The Bonus and Penalty System
The bonus and penalty points system can be
eliminated because the first three recommended changes to the
RPI will make the formula more accurate. The current bonus and
penalty system is just an attempt to make the current RPI more
accurate and will no longer be necessary.
Part
1 - Overview
Part
2 - The Weighting of Three RPI Factors
Part
3 - The Weighting of Home Wins and Road Wins
(photo by Jimmy Jones)
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