Baseball America writer Aaron Fitt has put out his 2009 NCAA Tournament Projections. He has Texas A&M as the top overall seed. The rest of the top eight seeds are North Carolina at number 2, LSU at number 3, Cal State Fullerton at number 4, Rice at number 5, Texas at number 6, Ole Miss at number 7, and UCLA at number 8. The other number 1 seeds to host are Baylor, Georgia, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Arizona State, and UC-Irvine. The only number 1 seed that isn’t hosting according to Fitt is San Diego who needs to head to Louisville. Read the rest of this entry »

(Photo Courtesy of Texas A&M Media Relations)

Baseball America has put out their Preseason Top 25 which is led by the Texas A&M Aggies. They are coming off a 46-19 season which ended with a Super Regional appearance where they were swept by Rice. The Louisiana State Tigers come in at the number 2 spot after making the College World Series last season. North Carolina comes in at number 3 after another appearance in Omaha. Texas and Cal-State Fullerton round out the Top 25. Read the rest of this entry »

West Virginia’s Greg Van Zant recently made a proposal to the NCAA about changing the RPI to make it more reasonable for Northern schools. The main point in his proposal was that 60 percent of games are won by the home team. This gives the Northern schools who have to start the first three weeks of the season on the road a disadvantage in the RPI. It is the primary factor in figuring out who is going to be the at-large selections for the NCAA Tournament. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball America announced that Mike Minor of Vanderbilt was named the Summer POY. Minor had a tremendous summer with the USA Collegiate National Team with two victories over the Cuban Olympic Team at the Haarlem Baseball Week in Holland. Minor started five games with the team this summer accumulating a 3-0 record with a 0.64 ERA. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE

Grant Green Courtesy of Cape Cod Baseball League

DURHAM, N.C.-Louisiana State and Texas lead all schools by placing five players apiece on Baseball America’s top prospects lists for 19 different summer college leagues and Team USA. It’s the second straight year Texas has placed five players on BA’s summer lists. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball America has put out their 2008 Freshmen All-American teams led by Chris Hernandez of Miami (FL) who was named BA National Player of the Year award winner. The full team is available below. Read the rest of this entry »

Every Monday Baseball America comes out with their weekend review. Aaron Fitt ended up attending the San Diego Tournament which featured some of the best pitching matchups of the season. The full article available here.

The three strikes segment focuses on the Shooter-Hunter matchup in Minnesota, Texas A&M bats warming up, and some more thoughts on the USD tourney. The full article is available here.

John Manuel sat down for a chat session to discuss BA Top 25. The full chat transcript is available here. Baseball America’s Top 25 is available here.

Baseball America has put out their Preseason All-American list lead by Justin Smoak (South Carolina) and Pedro Alvarez (Vanderbilt). Both players are expected to become top 5 picks in the 2008 MLB Draft in the springtime. Miami first baseman Yonder Alonso was the other corner infielder on the team leaving Brett Wallace (Arizona State) off the squad. The middle infielders are Gordon Beckham (UGA) and Jemile Weeks (Miami FL). The outfielders are teammates Kyle Russell and Jordan Danks of Texas. The team is filled out by Dennis Raben of Miami (FL). The biggest snub on the team is Dominic De La Osa (Vanderbilt). The pitching for the squad is led by Aaron Crow of Missouri after an unbelievable summer in the CCBL. The other pitchers are Christian Friedich of Eastern Kentucky, Brett Hunter of Pepperdine, Brian Matusz of San Diego, and Ryan Perry of Arizona. How is Jacob Thompson (UVA) left off the team? He has had two outstanding seasons in a very competitive ACC. Zach Putnam of Michigan is listed as the utility man after a strong NCAA tourney last season.

Full Release
All-American teams can be viewed here.

We check in with Aaron Fitt over at B.A. tonight with a chat and a key piece of news out of the NCAA meetings in Nashville.

Aaron hosted his first chat of the year. Among the various topics discussed are the top five college prospects in the 2008 MLB draft: Pedro Alvarez of Vanderbilt, Aaron Crow of Missouri, Brian Matusz of San Diego, Justin Smoak of South Carolina and Brett Hunter of Pepperdine. Aaron says Alvarez is the class of the draft, featuring the top tools in the game. Aaron also discusses Texas’ reloading and the top three in the SEC (Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt), among other issues.

Aaron also gives a recap of the failure of attempts to override the drastic revamp of many rules in NCAA baseball in a Blog Entry found here.

Baseball America writers Aaron Fitt and John Manuel put out an article ranking the top programs in the BCS conferences while including traditional baseball power conferences in C-USA and the Big West. The article ranks programs with a letter grade from an A for excellent to an F for failing. Some of the schools that received the A standard were Miami, FSU, Stanford to name some. Duke and Pacific are among a few schools that received an F for a grade. The full article is available in PDF format by clicking here.

Baseball America writer Aaron Fitt recently wrote an article on the Duke Blue Devils and Boston College Eagles baseball program. Both teams have been bringing up the rear of the pack through their history in one of the best conferences in the country. The Duke Blue Devils are led by third year head coach Sean McNally who led the Blue Devils to a 29-25 overall record in 2007 the first time they finished over .500 since 1998. The Blue Devils struggled in conference only picking up six wins in 30 conference games. Mik Aoki is entering his second season with the Eagles where he led them to a 24-27-1 overall record and 12-17 in the conference. The full article from Baseball America is available here.

Baseball America has released their annual rankings of the Top 25 Recruiting Classes. Click on the respective schools for a press release about the incoming class. Thanks to UCLA for posting the entire Top 25 in a press release.

Baseball America’s Recruiting Class Rankings

Rank School
1 San Diego
2 Louisiana State
3 Oregon State
4 North Carolina
5 Auburn
6 Notre Dame
7 UCLA
8 Cal State Fullerton
9 Texas
10 Arkansas
11 Missouri
12 Vanderbilt
13 Pepperdine
14 Mississippi
15 Clemson
16 Arizona State
17 Virginia
18 Texas A&M
19 Rice
20 Miami
21 Tennessee
22 Georgia Tech
23 Tulane
24 Georgia
25 UC Riverside