Marcus Traxler: Looking to history to identify state amateur tourney trends
Aug. 1—MITCHELL — Cadwell Park is the place to be for South Dakota baseball fans for the next two weeks.
With 90-plus years of history, some trends have identified themselves about which teams have success and ultimately win state titles.
Here are some facts to know and share regarding the Class B state amateur baseball tournament:
* The Sunshine League has the best tournament winning percentage since 2016, with its teams winning 66.7% of their games. The Cornbelt is second with a .610 mark, and the State Line League is at .549 in third in that span.
* Since 2016, the Sunshine leads the way with 18 quarterfinal teams, with 16 from the Cornbelt, 10 from the State Line, five from the Pony Hills, four from the South Central League and three from the Eastern Dakota League.
* It's good to be a district champion, right? In the last five state tournaments, district champions are 21-14 in the first round of the tournament (a .667 win percentage), including 4-3 in the 2022 bracket.
* In the last 10 state tournaments, a district champion has won the state title five times. The Dell Rapids Mudcats are an exception, losing in the district tournament and then coming through the state bracket to win it all in 2021 and 2022.
* Interestingly, Alexandria accounts for all five instances of a district champion winning the title since 2013. The Angels won the District 5B title in 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020, and then went on to win the state championship, too. Of note, the Angels enter this year's tournament as the district champion once again.
* The Class B state title winners have been concentrated in three leagues for much of the last 20 years, with the champions coming exclusively from the Cornbelt, South Central and Sunshine leagues. The last champion from outside those three leagues was Redfield Dairy Queen in 2006.
* While the South Dakota amateur baseball tournament marks its 91st year in 2023, Cadwell Park will host the state amateur baseball tournament for the 35rd time since it first hosted in 1975. Mitchell is set to host again in 2024.
* Since the move to two divisions in 1991, just 12 clubs have won a Class B championship in Mitchell: Alexandria, Canova, Crofton (Neb.), Dell Rapids Mudcats, Dell Rapids PBR, Madison, Macy's Renner, Montrose, Parkston Mudcats, Redfield, Wynot (Neb.) and Vermillion.
* A total of 47 teams started in the Class B amateur baseball district playoffs in 2023, meaning 68% of the state's teams are represented in the bracket. That is the same number as in 2022 and down from 49 teams in 2021.
* In the last 10 state tournaments, the Class B state champion came from the bottom half of the 32-team bracket six times. That included both Dell Rapids Mudcats victories. From 2018 to 2020, the champion came from the top half of the bracket, where the games are traditionally spaced further apart with up to three days off before the quarterfinals, a day off before the semifinals and the earlier of the two semifinals on the penultimate day of the tournament.
* Runs were harder to come by in the 2022 Class B state tournament, with 4.94 runs scored per team over 31 games. It was the lowest-scoring tournament overall since 2016, and only eight teams scored more than 10 runs in a game, down from 11 instances in 2021 and 15 in 2020.
* On that note, Dell Rapids' title ended a streak of five consecutive state champions averaging at least eight runs per game in the state tournament. The Mudcats scored a mere 29 runs in five games, but allowed just 11 runs to opponents.
