Hi guys. I'm trying to work on a project to compare the true talent levels of different division I college baseball players, and I am running into a problem that I may be overthinking, but I need some advice. I am currently in the process of collecting all the data baseline stats (hits, HRs, K's, normal counting stats), and with those, I can then calculate more advanced stats such as ISO, wOBA, FIP, etc. My issue with these stats is that each conference premieres a vastly different level of performance. For example, maintaining a wOBA of .400 in a league like the SEC is significantly more impressive than a .400 wOBA in the Horizon League. This would be similar to if the scoring environments were different in the AL and NL in the MLB, but they are not different enough to warrant different statistical measurements. In college, however, they are, and it is even more apparent this season, where many conferences did not allow a non-conference schedule.

A common solution for this is to use league-adjusted stats like wRC that control for league and park effect. These stats seem to be made for exactly my scenario (and they may indeed be what I'm looking for), but there is still something about them that I am still struggling with: A wRC of 150 in the SEC should also be more impressive than a wRC of 150 in the Horizon League.

Basically, I am looking for stats that are not as much league-adjusted, but more opponent-adjusted or environment-adjusted. I feel like the league-adjusted stats should account for this, but I still feel like I will run into the problem I describe above. Am I missing something about how league-adjusted stats work, or are there some other stats I could use to fix this issue? Also, if anyone else has worked on a project like this I would love to see what you have done! Thanks!

Edit: Additionally, solving something like this could also be beneficial not only for baseball purposes but for other college athletics as well such as basketball (a 25 PPG scorer in the B1G is probably much better than a 25 PPG scorer in the MVC) and football (passing for 500 yards in the Big 12 is not impressive, but doing so in the Big 10 is amazing). Any tips on figuring this out in baseball can also be applicable to other sports, and likewise, anyone with knowledge on handling this elsewhere may be able to help with this as well!