Never-before-seen in the sport of softball, the CSE Transfer Portal Rankings are already making an impact on the college softball scene.

The Rankings are objectively data-based and include a complete list of transfers from Division 1 and Division 2; additional divisions will be accounted for by next year.

As part of the statistics-based ranking, position players are categorized and ranked by wRAA, while pitchers are ranked by FIP. Both pieces of data are unique to the CSE Transfer Portal Rankings and are explained further below:

• wRAA stands for Weighted Runs Above Average and measures the number of offensive runs a player contributes to their team compared to the average player. A wRAA of zero is league-average, so a positive wRAA value denotes above-average performance and a negative wRAA denotes below-average performance.
• FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching and is a statistic that estimates a pitcher’s run prevention independent of the performance of their defense. FIP is based on outcomes that do not involve defense; strikeouts, walks, hit by pitches, and home runs allowed.

Data within the Rankings are monitored daily by CSE Data & Analytics staff, with new entrants into the transfer portal also added to the Rankings at similar intervals.

College coaches are able to access the Transfer Portal Rankings via the CSE College Coach Portal, and the Rankings are already being noticed by those same coaches since being unveiled.

“The CSE Transfer Portal Rankings software has been a game changer in using information to compare other athletes going through the transfer process,” FAU head coach Jordan Clark said. “It gives you data without having to go look on different websites. It’s the one stop shop to information used to make educated decisions on what athletes statistically are best for your team. I enjoy seeing where the players you are looking at ranks compared to different players that have committed to other schools.”

In addition to the unveiling of the Transfer Portal Rankings, CSE will also sponsor the 2nd Annual Transfer Portal Combine as part of the Colorado 4th of July schedule of events. A link to the Combine event can be found here»

Players in the transfer portal will have an opportunity to exhibit their skills in front of college coaches and to speak with those coaches on-site following the Combine event. Participants will also have their verified player metrics listed in the CSE College Coach Portal for coaches to access and reference.

-Written By Justin McLeod