The Florida State Seminoles will be heading to Omaha for the 19th time in school history and the 13th time under head coach Mark Martin Sr. without winning a title. They have a current record of 54-12 after losing to Bucknell (7-0) in the opener of the Tallahassee Regional before reeling off victories over Florida (17-11), Bucknell (24-9), Tulane (17-8 and 16-7). The Seminoles then hosted Wichita State in the Super Regionals where they lost the first game 10-7 before winning the final two games by scores of 14-4 and 11-4 to qualify for the College World Series. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 College World Series, 2008 NCAA Tourney, ACC, CBB Column, FSU

Stanford (39-22-2)

Coached by Mark Marquess (32nd Season)

After losing the first game of the Palo Alto Regional to UC Davis, Stanford won 4 straight, including 2 games over Pepperdine. They won the Fullerton Super Regional in consecutive games with solid pitching and timely hitting, winning by scores of 4-3 and 8-5. Stanford dropped many games they should have won late in the season, losing to Santa Clara, UC Davis, University of San Francisco, and then dropping consecutive series to Cal and Arizona, and were at one point 3 outs away from being upset by UC Davis in an elimination game before their bats came alive. The Cardinal possess a resume of series victories over Arizona State, Texas, Fullerton, UCLA and Oregon State. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 College World Series, 2008 NCAA Tourney, CBB Column, Pac 10, Stanford

By Willie Nicklaus

Florida State’s Buster Posey is the ACC Player of the Year and was the 5th pick of the 1st round.

Charlotte’s Chris Taylor, was named the Atlantic 10 Baseball Co-Player of the Year, and was drafted in the 45th round by the Cardinals. From the Atlantic Sun, Florida Gulf Coast’s Jason Peacock won the league’s top individual award, and was selected by the Florida Marlins with the 778th pick in the 26th round. From Big Ten Champion Michigan, senior Nate Recknagel was honored as Player of the Year and was drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the 19th round. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: CBB Column, MLB, MLB Draft

Aman Reaka has provided us with his top 50 college players for the upcoming 2008 MLB draft that will take place on Thursday. He has Pedro Alvarez as the top player in his rankings with Gordon Beckham in the second slot. Aaron Crow, Buster Posey, and Brian Matusz round out the Top 5. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Top Players, CBB Column, MLB Draft

By Willie Nicklaus

With the NCAA regionals finished, I thought it was a good time to post my All-Freshman team for 2008. The high school Class of 2007 was a highly touted one, and they did not disappoint as contributors to their respective teams. Here they are with a little information about each. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2010 Top Players, ACC, Alabama, Auburn, Big 12, Big East, Big South, Big West, Cal, Cal State Fullerton, CBB Column, Coastal Carolina, Conference USA, Florida, GT, Kent State, MAC, Miami (FL), Middle Tennessee, Ole Miss, Rice, Santa Clara, SEC, Tennessee, Texas, UNC, University of San Diego, West Coast Conference, West Virginia

Aman Reaka and myself have been accumulating a bunch of questions from our readers over the past few weeks about the upcoming MLB draft. We have picked out the five best questions that have been sent to us and have answered them below. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ACC, Big Ten, Bryant, CBB Column, CBB Interview, Division 2, Division 3, FSU, Michigan, MLB Draft, Pac 10, SEC, South Carolina, Tampa, Trinity Unversity, Wake Forest, Washington State

I asked all our writers for their thoughts on what teams would make the College World Series in Omaha. Our writers have some interesting views of the Tournament with some people picking Dallas Baptist to make it to Omaha which would be a huge shocker for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 College World Series, 2008 NCAA Tourney, CBB Column, CWS Preview

By Willie Nicklaus

Thought this would be a good time to do a follow up on some of the freshmen who have been contributing to their respective teams, as the regular portion of the season has concluded and conference tourneys are ready to begin.

I like to use OPS percentage as a gauge as the equation includes power factors as well as on-base frequency. I have also included the HR and Extra-base hits frequencies to show a player propensity for delivering a big hit. With the conferences getting ready to do battle this week, we included the overall batting averages and also batting averages in conference play only. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2010 Top Players, ACC, Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Big 12, Big East, Big South, Big West, Cal State Fullerton, CBB Column, Coastal Carolina, Conference USA, Florida, GT, Kent State, LSU, MAC, Middle Tennessee, Rice, SEC, Tennessee, Texas, University of San Diego, West Coast Conference, West Virginia

Texas went into this series with A&M looking to improve its RPI standing and it overall record. If you would have told me 4 weeks ago or even 2 weeks ago that Texas will come out of this series sweeping all 3 games I would have told you there is no chance at all. Texas got a great outing from Chance Ruffin on Friday night, then the pitching staff received the biggest boost when Austin Wood threw his first career complete game on Saturday night. Texas A&M went into this series just needing 1 win to clinch the BIG 12 regular season title outright, but standing in their way was 6′10″ Kenn Kasparek. Kenn was coming off a stretch where in his last three outing was beginning to look like Kenn of old. With the 14 day lay off between his last outing and today he was showing signs of rust. Kenn had just enough to keep the Aggie hitters off balance only allowing 5 hits and 3 runs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Big 12, CBB Column, Texas, Texas AM

We recently sent a staff member out to check out the Missouri State Bears. We have our observations about some of their top players.

RF Nolan Keane SR, 5′9, 170 - Keane is a power hitting lefty that hit .314 with 9HR and 32RBI last season. This year he is at .341 with 4HR 10 Doubles and 36RBI while striking out 20 times and walking 36 times. He has a shot to be drafted in the middle rounds with his nice bat and on base abilities. I will be watching him to see if he has any pop or just a hit-for-average type player. I will also be curious to see his arm. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Top Players, CBB Column, Missouri State, Missouri Valley

The College Baseball Blog will be attending the Boston College-Wake Forest game on Thursday and providing a live blog for the Division 2 Northeast Regional on Saturday from Franklin Pierce University. Please come by and visit on Saturday as I run the live blog.

Tags: ACC, Boston College, CBB Column, CBB Event, CBB Visit, Division 2, Franklin Pierce, Wake Forest

The CBB recently had an opportunity to take in the Missouri-Kansas series over this past weekend. We focused on the strong Missouri team which includes one of the top pitchers in the country for 2008 in Aaron Crow and one of the top 2009 pitching prospects in Kyle Gibson. We also checked in on some of the other top players on the squad who might make an impact in the coming future.

Aaron Crow JR 6′3, 195 RHP
Crow is one of the top players in the country and I believe him to be the best pitcher in the country (Brian Matusz of San Diego gets a close 2nd). Crow has 2 very strong pitches he relies on. His fastball and his slider. His fastball is in the lower to mid 90’s with good late movement. He has great command of it and throws it on both sides of the plate and will use it up in the zone. His control is extremely good. Having control and command of a mid 90’s moving fastball is a sick thing to have as a pitcher. He couldn’t do it all with just a fastball however. His second pitch is a slider in the mid 80’s. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Top Players, 2009 Top Players, Big 12, CBB Column, CBB Visit, Kansas, Missouri, MLB Draft

The Patriot League Conference Tournament starts up this weekend with Holy Cross heading to Navy and Army hosting Bucknell in best two out of three series to decide which team will advance to the conference championship series next weekend. Navy ended up taking three out of four games this season against Holy Cross while Army lost three out of four games against Bucknell. We previewed the Patriot League in our preseason season previews which can be read here. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Army, Bucknell, CBB Column, Holy Cross, Navy, Patriot League

Miami (FL) at Virginia Tech

The Miami Hurricanes head north to Blacksburg VA to take on the Virginia Tech Hokies in a battle between the First place team and the worst team in the conference. The Hurricanes have an overall record of 39-5 and 20-2 in the tough ACC. The Hokies have a record of 20-28 and 4-20 in the ACC. The Hurricanes have one of the most potent lineups in the entire led by Yonder Alonso and Jemile Weeks. Alonso has a batting average of .384 with 14 homers and 50 RBI in 44 games. He has an on-base percentage of .550. Jemile Weeks leads the team with a .390 average with 16 stolen bases. Chris Hernandez has been perfect in his first collegiate season as he has a 8-0 record with a 2.70 ERA. The Hokies are led by Sean O’Brien who has a batting average of .335 with six homers on the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ACC, ACC Weekend Preview, CBB Column, Clemson, Duke, FSU, GT, Maryland, Miami (FL), NC State, Savannah State, UNC, UVA, VT, Wake Forest

Samuel Wasson is the Co-Founder and Editor of BleedCrimson.net and covers New Mexico State University athletics. He comes to the CBB as our expert on the WAC.

SERIES OF THE WEEK: SACRAMENTO STATE AT HAWAI’I (Les Murakami Stadium)

Why It’s Important: Hawai`i and Sacramento State are separated by just a half a game in the WAC standings, with UH three games behind Fresno State for first place and Sacramento State 3.5 games back. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: CBB Column, Fresno State, Hawaii, Louisiana Tech, Nevada, New Mexico St., Sacramento St., San Jose St., Series Preview, WAC