2017 College Baseball preview: Preseason rankings, prospects, what and how to watch – CBSSports.com

Soon enough, the winding journey to the College World Series in Omaha begins in earnest, and that — blessedly — means meaningful, for-keeps baseball played in February. February! Yes, the start of the 2017 college baseball season is upon us, and now it’s time preview that very thing. So consider this a first look at who’s going to replace Coastal Carolina atop the college baseball heap (note: it quite possibly could be Coastal Carolina). Let’s light this candle …

Preseason Composite Rankings

To get started, let’s take a look at some composite rankings. What we’ve done is taken each of the six major preseason polls ( Baseball America, Perfect Game, USA Today coaches’ poll, D1Baseball.com, Collegiate Baseball, and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers’ Association) and assigned “poll points” to each team ranked in the top 25 of each poll.

No. 1-ranked teams get 25 points, No. 2-ranked teams get 24 points, all the way down to the No. 25-ranked teams, which get one point. So we add all the points up — across, again, all six major polls — and arrive at our composite rankings.

Here they are for 2017, with point totals in parentheses:

Others receiving poll points: Long Beach St. (15), Rice (11), Maryland (10), Texas (9), Houston (6), Georgia Tech (5), Cal Poly (4), Sam Houston St. (3), UNC-Wilmington (2), Arizona St. (1)

As indicated by their whopping 150 poll points, TCU was ranked No. 1 in all six preseason polls, which is the first time that’s happened since we’ve been doing these here previews. The powerhouse TCU offense will be helmed by sophomore 1B/DH Luken Baker, who mashed 11 home runs last season while running an OBP of .483. Overall, the Horned Frogs return seven of eight position players from the 2016 team that made it to Omaha. In the rotation, lefty Nick Lodolo figures to be one of the top freshman of 2017.

The Horned Frogs have made the College World Series for three straight years, but they’re still seeking their first national championship. To that end, the 2017 team looks like the best in program history.

Otherwise, all eight teams that made the College World Series last year are in the preseason composite top 25 for 2017, with reigning champ Coastal Carolina checking in at No. 15. Meantime, three ranked teams — Oregon State, North Carolina, and Stanford — didn’t make the NCAA tournament in 2016. Obviously, that’s expected to change this time around.

Conference Power Rankings

Now, let’s shift our focus to the conferences. Let’s cobble together some preseason conference power rankings by adding up all the poll points conference by conference (we’ll also include the “others receiving poll points” teams in our tabulations). Here’s what comes out of the wash heading into the 2017 season …

As is typically the case in college baseball, the SEC and ACC lord over all. As you can see, the SEC accounts for three of the top five teams in the composite rankings, and the ACC places seven teams in the top 25 (to the SEC’s six). In matters at least partially related, the states of North and South Carolina combine for seven teams receiving poll points. That’s pretty astounding. As for the otherwise powerful Big Ten, yep, pity the cold-weather circuit when it comes to baseball.

Big games

What follows is certainly not an exhaustive list of high-leverage 2016 contests, but here are all the scheduled matchups between teams in the top 10 of our composite preseason rankings …

• 3/3 – TCU vs. LSU (at Houston)
• 3/14 – Florida State at Florida
• 3/24 – LSU at Florida
• 3/25 – LSU at Florida
• 3/26 – LSU at Florida
• 3/28 – Florida State at Florida
• 4/6 – Vanderbilt at South Carolina
• 4/7 – Vanderbilt at South Carolina
• 4/8 – Vanderbilt at South Carolina
• 4/11 – Florida at Florida State
• 4/13 – Florida at Vanderbilt
• 4/14 – Florida at Vanderbilt
• 4/15 – Florida at Vanderbilt
• 4/20 – South Carolina at Florida
• 4/21 – South Carolina at Florida
• 4/22 – South Carolina at Florida
• 5/5 – South Carolina at LSU
• 5/6 – South Carolina at LSU
• 5/7 – South Carolina at LSU
• 5/9 – Vanderbilt at Louisville
• 5/18 – Florida State at Louisville
• 5/19 – Florida State at Louisville
• 5/20 – Florida State at Louisville

How to watch: For the college baseball enthusiast, the television landscape was pretty bleak for a long time. That’s changed, though. The WatchESPN platform is definitely the way to go. With streaming access to the usual ESPN channels plus the SEC Network, ACC Network Extra, and the Longhorn Network, you can pretty much always catch a game during the season. This season, you can catch 135 regular season games in addition to full coverage of the postseason. Good days, these.

Top 10 draft-eligible college prospects

Now let’s talk individual players, and let’s talk about them with an eye toward the June MLB draft. To this end, I consulted with Hero Sports prospect and draft expert Chris Crawford (@Crawford_MILB on Twitter; he’s also the author of some really nifty draft and prospect guides).

Here are Crawford’s top 10 draft-eligible college prospects heading into the 2016 season:

1. Jeren Kendall, CF, Vanderbilt
2016 stats: .332/.396/.568, 9 HR, 28 SB

2. Kyle Wright, RHP, Vanderbilt
2016 stats: 93 IP, 3.09 ERA, 107 SO

3. Alex Faedo, RHP, Florida
2016 stats: 105 IP, 3.18 ERA, 133 SO

4. Tanner Houck, RHP, Missouri
2016 stats: 105 1/3 IP, 2.99 ERA, 106 SO

5. Brendan McKay, LHP, Louisville
2016 stats: 110 IP, 2.30 ERA, 128 SO; .333/.414/.513, 6 HR as 1B

6. Corbin Martin, RHP, Texas A&M
2016 stats: 26 1/3 IP, 5.47 ERA, 33 SO