The 2024 NCAA Division I College Baseball Season Begins
An IBWAA member previews the top teams, players in college baseball in 2024
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Did you know…
. . . While the Major League Baseball draft could pick from college or high school players at the top overall spot, five of the last six first overall selections have been college players.
. . . The Cleveland Guardians have the first overall selection in 2024. This is the first time the Guardians organization has ever selected first and the first time the team has picked earlier than fifth since selecting second in 1992. Two of the last three seasons, Cleveland has selected a college player with its first pick of the draft.
Leading Off
The 2024 College Baseball Season Kicks Off
By Benjamin Chase
After one of the best College World Series in history last June, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I 2024 season begins Friday, with a top-25 matchup kicking off the season on opening night at the home of the World Series champion Texas Rangers' home stadium, Globe Life Field, with No. 9 Tennessee facing 21st-ranked Texas Tech.
So what can we expect this season?
Top Teams
Louisiana State left Omaha with a title last June, and even after losing the first two draft picks in last summer's Major League Baseball draft, the Bayou Bengals are a consensus top-five team in preseason rankings. Southeastern Conference foes Florida and Arkansas are also consensus top-five clubs, which should lead to a fun season (as always) following SEC baseball.
The top team in nearly every preseason ranking is the Wake Forest Deamon Deacons, who have reloaded with top talent after being a tough out for the eventual champion LSU in the College World Series last year.
Oregon State in the final season of Pac-12 Conference baseball has a very good club, as does Texas Christian and Vanderbilt. Those seven clubs have been the top seven in nearly every preseason poll.
Top Players
Last summer's MLB draft was keyed with Paul Skenes, Dylan Crews, and Wyatt Langford as three of the top four selections. Overall, of the 39 selections before the second round of the draft, 18 were collegiate players, including six of the top 10.
This year has significantly more variance early in the season rather than the focus on guys like Crews and Langford that was there from the first pitch of the 2023 season.
In the Baseball America top 200 2024 draft picks, the top ten players and 19 of the top 25 are college players. So who should you know coming into the season?
West Virginia's JJ Wetherholt could likely have the top contact tool in the entire draft after hitting .449 last season. He's also no slouch with power and speed, with 16 home runs and 35 stolen bases in 2023. As a pro prospect, the biggest knock on Wetherholt is that he's most likely a second baseman in MLB, and that hurts his potential draft value.
Speaking of positional value potentially hurting draft value, Wake Forest may have the best pitching staff this year in college baseball, but their top draft prospect is hulking (6'6", 230 pounds) first baseman Nick Kurtz. Kurtz has a tremendous eye for the strike zone and prodigious power. We have seen a first baseman picked first overall, but it takes a rare talent like Spencer Torkelson or Adrian Gonzalez in this millennium.
Jac Caglionone of Florida may be the most well-known draft prospect as he's a legit two-way prospect, bumping triple digits with his fastball on the mound and arguably showing the most power of any returning college hitter with some of the best exit velocities in college baseball. Caglionone does have some legitimate questions about the strike zone on both sides of the ball, as he can struggle to hit the zone while pitching and chases plenty of pitches at the plate.
Oregon State second baseman Travis Bazzana is another impressive future second baseman who is just a pure hitter with better defense than Wetherholt at second, but likely not quite the upside as a hitter. Vance Honeycutt, outfielder from North Carolina could be the top athlete in the college class from power conference schools, with legit power and speed, but his contact ability could drop him behind some of the other players mentioned.
The best "small" school player in college this year is Northeastern's Mike Sirota, an outfielder who reminds many of Chase DeLauter in 2022 coming into the season with the potential for a five-tool prospect.
Of the top arms in college this year, a notable amount are tossing for Wake Forest this year. Three of the top 10 college draft arms are pitching for the Demon Deacons this season (Josh Hartle, Chase Burns, Michael Massey). Hartle is an elite strike thrower from the left side, Burns is a dynamic arm talent that Wake hopes to refine, while Massey was an elite reliever that could be a late first-round pick if he stays in the bullpen and could potentially move up if he takes his dominant two-pitch mix to the rotation and has success.
Lefty Hagen Smith for Arkansas has the stuff to move to the top of draft boards, but he's not quite had the control so far. The college arm that most intrigues me coming into the season is Iowa's Brody Brecht. Brecht's a former football player for the Hawkeyes who is now purely focused on pitching and has elite velocity and a feel for multiple pitches.
Season Schedule
The regular season for Division I baseball continues until mid-May. Conference tournaments will take place the week of May 19-26.
The path to the College World Series in Omaha begins May 31 with Regionals. Super Regionals begin June 7, and the top clubs in the country head to Omaha beginning June 14.
Benjamin Chase is a newspaper reporter in rural South Dakota. He also is an editor for the IBWAA Here’s the Pitch newsletter, co-hosts the Pallazzo Podcasts prospects show, and writes for Rotoballer. He can be found under biggentleben on most social medias.
Great preview! Excited for college baseball to start this week.