What the Numbers Mean
A guide to PEAR's ratings and rankings.
The Quick Answer
The two main PEAR metrics measure different things:
| Column | What it answers | Built from |
|---|---|---|
| TSR (Rating) | “How good is this team?” | Team statistics (hitting, pitching, advanced metrics) |
| NET | “How strong is this team's résumé?” | Schedule difficulty + quality of wins and losses |
The Rating (Team Strength Rating)
The question the Rating answers: if these two teams played on a neutral field tomorrow, who would win and by how much?
It has a little factor with schedule and results, but it is mainly based on underlying stats. A team could be 10–20 and carry a high Rating if their underlying stats say they're good. Conversely, a 30–5 team with a weak Rating probably padded their record against bad opponents. The Rating is the team's true talent level, stripped of all context.
The Rating is meant to be pretty intuitive, to get who would win, just subtract the Rating values. If Team A is +5 and Team B is +2, PEAR expects Team A to win by roughly 3 runs on a neutral field. Home field advantage adds about 0.8 runs on top of that.
| Rating | What it means |
|---|---|
| +7 or higher | Elite — potential national championship contender |
| +5 to +7 | Very good — likely regional host candidate |
| +1 to +5 | Above average — solid D1 program |
| -1 to +1 | Average |
| Below -1 | Below average |
| Below -5 | Significantly below average |
The NET Ranking
The NET tries to identify the most deserving teams. If the Rating answers “how good are you?”, the NET answers “how good has your season been?”
It's an RPI-style metric that fixes the things I don't like about RPI. Two big ones: some teams in RPI can lose points for a win, and others can gain points for a loss. That shouldn't happen. If you win a game, you should gain ground. If you lose, you should lose ground. The NET is built around that principle, combining three things:
- Resume Quality (RQI) — The quality of your wins and losses, measured against what a solid-but-not-great “bubble” team would do playing your exact schedule. Beat a team that good teams usually lose to? Big credit. Lose to a team everyone beats? Big penalty. You always gain points for a win and always lose points for a loss — the size of the swing just depends on the opponent. RQI drives the NET, carrying 75–100% of the weight.
- Strength of Schedule (SOS) — How difficult was your schedule, objectively? PEAR asks: “if an average D1 team played your exact schedule, how often would they be expected to win?” The harder the schedule, the worse that average team would do — and the better your SOS. It describes your schedule, not your performance against it.
- Team Strength (Rating) — A small nudge from the raw Rating (at most 10%), so good teams don't get completely buried by a weak résumé, and weak teams don't sneak up the rankings on a fluky win streak.
Being #1 in NET means: you have the best combination of win quality and schedule difficulty in the country — it's about who you beat, not just that you beat them. Being #1 in Rating means: PEAR's model thinks you're the best team in the country right now, regardless of record or schedule. A team can be #1 in Rating and #50 in NET, or #5 in NET and #40 in Rating. That's fine — they're measuring different things.
Quadrant Records (Q1–Q4)
Quadrant records classify each game by opponent NET rank and game location. Location matters because winning on the road against a strong opponent is harder than winning at home against the same opponent. A road win over a Q1 opponent is the highest-leverage result there is — the selection committee weighs Q1 wins more than anything else.
| Quadrant | Home | Neutral | Away |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | opp NET 1–25 | 1–40 | 1–60 |
| Q2 | opp NET 26–50 | 41–80 | 61–120 |
| Q3 | opp NET 51–100 | 81–160 | 121–240 |
| Q4 | opp NET 101+ | 161+ | 241+ |
Which One Should I Use?
NET should be used for backwards facing analysis, like building a bracket or deciding a hosts. TSR should be used when looking into the future, like deciding who wins and odds to advance. Ranking by Rating answers “who is expected to win?” — it's what drives PEAR's game spreads and tournament simulations. Ranking by NET answers “who deserves to be in the tournament?” — it rewards teams that played hard schedules and won the games that matter, which is closer to how the selection committee thinks.
When they disagree: high Rating, low NET means a good team that hasn't built an impressive résumé yet (weak schedule, early losses, or not enough games against top opponents). Low Rating, high NET means a team that beat good opponents on a tough schedule, but whose underlying stats are merely solid — in a neutral-site tournament game, expect some regression toward the mean.