With less than three weeks until Opening Day, the college baseball world is buzzing with preseason rankings, awards, and Omaha projections.

Our preseason Top-25 Rankings dropped this week, which means it’s finally time to sit back and watch the greatest show on earth as 300+ schools battle to be the final dogpile!

College Baseball Top 25 Rankings

UCLA is the top team in the country. It’s no surprise the Bruins got our nod for the No. 1 slot. Returning eight offensive starters, including clear cut Golden Spikes front-runner Roch Cholowsky. Just a few months removed from an Omaha run, they added key pieces like Will Gasparino from Texas in the portal, there are no easy outs in this lineup.

The pitching lost nearly nothing as well, returning the entire rotation, plus securing one of the top high school pitchers from the 2025 draft class in Angel Cervantes, who made his way to campus after declining his second-round draft selection.

With a tenured coach like John Savage at the helm, the sky is the limit for the Bruins.

Defending champions check in at number two. While Jay Johnson and the LSU Tigers lost arguably the best one-two punch in college baseball from their National Title run in draft selections Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson, he knows how to win.

While there hasn’t been a National Champion to return to Omaha the following season since the 2018 Florida Gators, LSU added plenty in the portal to boast the lineup which will feature returners Derek Curiel, Steven Milam, Jake Brown, and more.

The Tigers do bring back some key pitching pieces in Casan Evans, William Schmidt, and Gavin Guidry, there isn’t a defined “ace” of this ballclub… yet. When you lose arms in college baseball that feel like automatic wins every time they toe the rubber, it gets tougher and tougher to win games.

While back-to-back Titles may not be on the Horizon, there’s no reason why the talent this team returns, added with the experience and culture of Jay Johnson, can’t have a shot at Omaha.

Trio of SEC teams round out the top five. Mississippi State, Georgia, and Texas finish off the top-five, and while confusing to some, the upside of these teams is undeniable.

Mississippi State enters a new regime under former Virginia Head Coach Brian O’Connor, bringing with him all of the talent that landed UVA a preseason top-three spot in most polls a year ago. While their talent didn’t live up to the expectations, led by potential top-10 pick in Ace Reese, the Bulldogs are set up to be one of the more dangerous teams in the country, only a few years removed from their 2021 National Championship.

The Georgia Bulldogs, led by one of college baseball’s best pitching minds in Wes Johnson, brought in arguably the best pitching in the portal of any team with Joey Volchko, Caden Aoki, and Kenny Ishikawa. The bottleneck for the Dawgs over the last handful of years has been pitching talent. Now flush with it, we should see Wes Johnson’s development shine through the staff while the offense continues to “feed the trees” in Athens.

Texas finishes off our top five under Head Coach Jim Schlossnagle, led by arguably the best pitching staff in the country, a staff that finished sixth in the nation a year ago in ERA. The stopgap for the Longhorns in 2025 was offense, but adding in pieces through the portal like Cape Cod All-Star Aidan Robbins, the Horns may be the least talked-about Omaha threat this season.

Horned Frogs look to take the leap. TCU comes in as the No. 7 team in our preseason poll, and for good reason. After losing out on a regional host spot in 2025, they had the unfortunate fate of traveling to Corvallis, Oregon, where their season would come to an end.

Bringing back a loaded class of freshmen from a year ago in All-American Sawyer Strosnider, Noah Franco, Nolan Traegar, Nate Stern, and Mason Brassfield, this ballclub is absolutely loaded and primed for a postseason run.

With a year of experience under the belt of their younger starters and older veterans to lead the clubhouse under a great skipper in Kirk Saarloos, there’s a reason they’re in our top eight, and could be the last team standing.

Can Coastal repeat their success? The Chants made an incredible run in 2025, losing in two games to the LSU Tigers in the National Championship in Head Coach Kevin Schnall’s first season at the helm.

While they lose key pieces in Jacob Morrison and Riley Eikhoff, they return arguably the best pitcher in college baseball in Cam Flukey, who racked up 118 strikeouts in 101 innings last year.

They also return most of their offense, but will be missing first-round draft pick catcher Caden Bodine. With so much returning and the development this program has been able to accomplish, we could see another Omaha appearance from the Chants.

Just Baseball Trivia of the Week

Our newsletter will have a trivia question every week to test and expand the baseball knowledge of our subscribers! The answer to the weekly trivia question will be at the bottom of the newsletter each week.

Who was Just Baseball’s Preseason Top-25 No.1 team in 2025?

A) LSU

B) Arkansas

C) Texas A&M

D) Texas

Top 100 College MLB Draft Prospects

While all the hype surrounds team-play at the moment, let’s take a break to dive into some of the Top 100 college prospects for the 2026 MLB Draft.

#1 Roch Cholowsky - SS, UCLA

A true five-tool player that boasted a 1.190 OPS with 23 home runs a year ago, showing legit bat speed and exit velo up to 114 mph. The defense isn’t far behind the high offensive ceiling, truly doing it all at an elite level, and is why it makes him one of the top college players we’ve seen in a long time.

#14 Lucas Moore - OF, Louisville

Moore loved his breakout season in 2025, where he served as a crucial piece for the Cardinals, swiping 53 bags and showing that speed patrolling center field where he’ll most certainly stick. Profiling as a table-setter with elite speed and potential for 60 stolen bases at the pro level, he relies on his batted-ball after posting a contact rate of 88% and an in-zone rate of 93%, including a 7% whiff on fastballs altogether.

#34 Owen Kramkowski - RHP, Arizona

Kramkowski got his first real taste of college baseball in 2025 and emerged as one of the best pitchers in the Big 12. While there is time for him to get more physical only coming in at 170 pounds but the mechanics produce an effortless low-mid 90s fastball with an upper-80s cutter.

Adding verticality to his arsenal will be paramount in 2026, but this is how you draw up a pitching prospect. He’ll be one of the more polarizing arms in the country next season, but it’s a definitive starting profile moving forward.

#60 Tre Broussard - OF, Houston

While Broussard profiles as the table setter with great speed and elite defense, he’s flashed sneaky pop with exit velocities upwards of 109 mph. He posted a 90% in-zone contact rate in 2025, which improved to 94% on the Cape. In addition to his hitting ability, Broussard is a double-plus runner and knows how to be a threat on the basepaths.

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Trivia Answer: C) Texas A&M

At the onset of 2025, the Aggies ranked first on our Preseason Top-25. They ended up having arguably the most disappointing year in the sport, finishing the season unranked.

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