Tag: Baseball America

Vance Honeycutt ranked 6th on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects

UNC Baseball standout Vance Honeycutt ranked 6th on 2024 Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects.

North Carolina Tar Heel [autotag]Vance Honeycutt[/autotag] has cracked the top 10 of Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects, coming in at No.6th.

Honeycutt has been a big part of UNC’s success, becoming a household name in a two-year span. Since his arrival, Honeycutt has 122 hits, 37 home runs, 100 RBIs, and 48 stolen bases. Last season, Honeycutt was named ACC defensive player, ranked second on the team in runs (51) and stolen bases (19) despite missing the final ten games due to a lower-back injury.

Honeycutt has already inked his name in UNC history, becoming the first Tar Heel to have 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in a single season.

The Diamond Heels will be counting on Honeycutt again this season as they hope to bring the ACC and National championship back to Chapel Hill.

Follow usĀ @TarHeelsWireĀ on Twitter and like our page onĀ FacebookĀ to follow ongoing coverage of North Carolina Tar Heels news, notes and opinions.

Jared Jones receives Freshman All-American recognition

Jared ‘Bear’ Jones has been recognized by Baseball America as a Second Team Freshman All-American.

[autotag]Jared Jones[/autotag] has been recognized by Baseball America as a Second Team Freshman All-American.

Coming out of high school, Jones was the No. 4 ranked catcher nationally and the No. 1 ranked catcher in Georgia by Perfect Game and ranked nationally as the No. 47 overall prospect.

Jones stepped onto the bayou as a catcher/first baseman and had a stellar freshman campaign. Jones had a .304 batting average with 12 doubles, 14 homers and 45 RBI. Jones spent most of the season splitting time with [autotag]Cade Beloso[/autotag] until Beloso became the everyday starter at first base.

Jones was 1-for-3 against the Gators in the College World Series final. He didn’t play as big of a role down the stretch for the Tigers, but if LSU is going to try to defend their title next season, Jones will be a big part of that title defense.

He will likely be the everyday starter for Jay Johnson’s Tigers as a first baseman next year.

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3 LSU players named First Team All-Americans by Baseball America

Dylan Crews, Paul Skenes and Tommy White continue to rack up the accolades.

Add another accolade to the tally for [autotag]Dylan Crews[/autotag], [autotag]Paul Skenes[/autotag] and [autotag]Tommy White[/autotag]. All three were honored by Baseball America as First Team All-Americans on Friday.

Crews won the 2023 Golden Spikes Award after batting .426 and scoring 100 runs with 71 walks. White was also a big part of the offense, batting .374 with a team-high 24 doubles, 24 homers and 105 RBI.

Skenes, meanwhile, was arguably the best pitcher in the country. He won the Dick Howser Award, earning a 1.69 earned run average with an SEC-record 209 strikeouts. He also had a 13-2 record on the season.

Crews and Skenes are moving on as they are projected to be the first and second picks in the 2023 MLB draft. White, meanwhile, is not draft-eligible and will return to LSU in 2024.

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Oregon baseball finds itself ranked prominently in all season-ending polls

Oregon baseball finished the season as high as No. 12 and as low as No. 19 in all of the college baseball polls.

With the College World Series ending with an LSU dogpile on the mound, all six college baseball polls have been released one final time and the Ducks are squarely in the middle of all of them.

According to these polls, Oregon baseball finds itself ranked as high as No. 12 and as low as No. 19.

D1Baseball.com was the poll that gave the Ducks their highest ranking and well … USA TODAY Sports gave the lowest.

Baseball America ranked Oregon 13th and the National College Baseball Writers of America said the Ducks were No. 14 in the country.

Collegiate Baseball Newspaper also gave Oregon a No. 13 ranking as did Perfect Game.

All in all, it’s a solid ending for the Ducks, but obviously it’s not where Oregon or its head coach Mark Wasikowski envisioned at the start of the season. The goal is and always has been to reach Omaha and the CWS, a goal that’s still elusive for the Ducks.

For the 2024 season, Oregon is expected to field another strong team that will contend for its first Pac-12 regular season title and hopefully its first trip to Omaha since 1954.

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Texas Baseball: Looking at final projections for NCAA Tournament field

We look at Tournament projections a day before Selection Sunday.

Texas baseball is set to make the NCAA Tournament field. Where the team will play is up in the air. What seems clear is that the team will not be hosting a regional after an 0-2 showing in the Big 12 Tournament.

Two sites projected the Tournament field ahead of the selection decision. Both Baseball America and D1 Baseball listed Texas as a No. 2 seed.

Baseball America’s projections would send the Longhorns to future SEC foe Auburn’s bracket with the Tigers listed as the No. 11 host seed. Troy and Air Force were included in the projected Auburn Regional. That draw would be more favorable than what some sites projected.

D1 Baseball’s bracket had Texas traveling to the Stanford Regional with UC Santa Barbara, Santa Clara and their No. 7 host, the Stanford Cardinal. The Cardinal is a team Texas would probably like to avoid playing until the final rounds.

The Longhorns can thank themselves for what will likely be a difficult path to Omaha. Even so, they have the players to get past this hurdle. Texas will look to increase its lead in all-time College World Series appearances over the summer.

Four Tigers land on Baseball America’s All-America teams

The Tigers’ roster is absolutely loaded in 2023.

The accolades continue to roll in for LSU baseball. This time, they come by way of Baseball America, which released its Preseason All-America teams this week with four Tigers making the list.

[autotag]Dylan Crews[/autotag], [autotag]Tommy White[/autotag] and [autotag]Paul Skenes[/autotag] all made the First-Team while [autotag]Tre Morgan[/autotag] made the Second-Team.

Crews and Morgan are two superstars for LSU that have been with the Tigers for a while. Both of them represented LSU on Team USA last year. Crews, a centerfielder who is projected as the No. 1 player in the 2023 MLB Draft, is the best college baseball player in the country, regardless of position.

Morgan is a wizard with his glove at first base.

White and Skenes are both transfers. White came to LSU from NC State where he broke the school record for most home runs in one season by a freshman. Skenes came to LSU from Air Force where he was a star on the mound and at the plate.

LSU starts the season on Feb. 17 at home against Western Michigan.

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Tigers ranked in Baseball America’s preseason poll

Auburn is one of eight SEC teams ranked in the poll.

The SEC has made its presence known in the first preseason baseball poll.

The Auburn Tigers came in at No. 22 in Baseball America’s first top 25 preseason poll, but they’re far from the only SEC team featured. The poll features eight SEC teams, of which Auburn is lowest ranked ā€” the top three teams in LSU, Tennessee and Florida all hail from the Southeastern Conference. The Tigers will look to improve on last year’s results where a loss to Arkansas ended the team’s season in Omaha.

Auburn comes in at the back of the poll after two victories in its fall exhibitions, one a 12-11 win over Louisiana Tech and the other 13-8 victory over the Alabama Crimson Tide. It should be an interesting year for the Tigers, as a good portion of the roster that made the team so talented last year has been drafted to MLB. Despite this, players Bobby Peirce, Tommy Sheehan, Mike Bello and Joseph Gonzalez will be back on the Plains for the upcoming season.

The Tigers will get their first chance to improve on their ranking on Feb. 17 when they begin a three-game home series against the Indiana Hoosiers at 6 p.m. CT. The team will play its first SEC team on Mar. 23 against the Georgia Bulldogs.

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LSU has the No. 1 transfer class in the nation, per Baseball America

The Tigers have been very active in improving the roster since the end of the 2022 season.

It has been an interesting offseason for [autotag]Jay Johnson[/autotag] and the LSU baseball team.

The Tigers have had players join the team by way of transferring and by graduating high school, but a few of the guys that were committed to playing for LSU were then picked up in the 2022 MLB draft.

Baseball America recently made a list of who they thought had the best 25 transfer classes in all of college baseball, and LSU came in at No. 1. The class features right-handed pitcher [autotag]Christian Little[/autotag] of Vanderbilt; third baseman [autotag]Tommy White[/autotag] of North Carolina State; right-handed pitcher [autotag]Thatcher Hurd[/autotag] of UCLA; right-handed pitcher/utility player [autotag]Paul Skenes[/autotag] of Air Force; and infielder [autotag]Ben Nippolt[/autotag] of Virginia Commonwealth.

Here is the breakdown from Baseball America.

With a .362 average and 27 home runs as a freshman a season ago,Ā Tommy WhiteĀ showed that heā€™s already one of the best hitters in college baseball, period, and more than good enough to set aside question marks about his defensive viability.

Paul SkenesĀ is an accomplished power hitter in his own right, with a .367/.453/.669 career slash line at Air Force with 24 home runs, and there is optimism about his ability to handle the defensive rigors of catching in the SEC. It will be interesting to see how that is balanced with his time on the mound, where he features a mid-90s fastball that touches the high 90s, a swing-and-miss mid-80s slider and a high-80s changeup that flashes plus.

Infielder Ben Nippolt, a late addition to the class from VCU, had a .430 on-base percentage and walked more than he struck out last season, but perhaps more valuable to the Tigers is his ability to play just about anywhere on the infield.

Right-handerĀ Thatcher HurdĀ had a 1.06 ERA in 34 innings last season and looked like one of the best freshman arms in the country right up until a back injury ended his season prematurely. If heā€™s fully healthy and ready to go, his fastball that touched 96 mph last season and a low-80s slider that had a 56% whiff rate should get plenty of outs once again.

Right-hander Christian Little had moments of excellence at Vanderbilt, but now pitching coach Wes Johnson will look to bring that out of him more consistently. His stuff certainly stacks up, including a fastball that averaged over 94 mph and touched 98 last season.

We are a long way away from baseball season in the spring, but there are plenty of reasons to be excited about baseball at The Box this year.

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How the series loss at Texas A&M affected Arkansas Baseball in the weekly polls

It’s clear that the national pollsters have many differing opinions when it comes to Arkansas Baseball.

Arkansas Baseball suffered just its’ second SEC-series loss of the season last weekend when the Razorbacks fell in two games on the road to a hot Texas A&M squad.

Just how crucial was the series loss? The pollsters have many differing opinions on that.

Out of the five major polls, Arkansas is placed in five different positions. Some polls had in mind that Texas A&M has played very well recently, while others punished Arkansas by losing a series on the road to an unranked program.

Here’s a look at the whirlwind that is the national polls for the week of April 25:

Where LSU baseball stands in the latest polls

LSU is falling in the polls after finishing at .500 last week.

Another week, another set of polls.

LSU finished last week 2-2 after winning against Tulane on Tuesday and taking the final game of the series against Texas A&M on Sunday. The Tigers went into last week ranked No. 8 in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, then proceeded to drop the weekend series to the unranked Aggies.

That dropped LSU all the way down to No. 18, and it dropped out of the Baseball America poll entirely.

Catcher Tyler McManus led the Tigers in hitting last week, batting .444 (4-for-9) with two homers, four RBI, and three runs scored. They have another busy week of games ahead this week as they get a shot at revenge on Louisiana Tech on Tuesday night before starting a weekend series in Gainesville against the No. 7 Florida Gators on Friday.

Here’s how all the latest polls shake out.