The following article first appeared on D1Baseball.com. For more like it, you can .
The top five teams in the 2021 D1Baseball Preseason Top 25 rankings dominate D1Baseball’s Preseason All-America teams. No. 2 UCLA and No. 4 Vanderbilt are the only schools to produce multiple first-team Preseason All-Americans this year, as shortstop Matt McLain and ace Zach Pettway represent the Bruins, while rotationmates Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter represent the Commodores.
The Bruins also tied for the most All-Americans overall (three), with reliever Kyle Mora landing on the second team. The only other clubs with three Preseason All-Americans are No. 1 Florida (first-team outfielder Jud Fabian plus second-team pitchers Tommy Mace and Hunter Barco) and No. 5 Louisville (first-team catcher Henry Davis, second-team outfielder Levi Usher and second-team third baseman Alex Binelas).
TOP 25: Florida, UCLA, and Texas Tech headline the top 25
The following teams landed two players apiece on the All-America teams: Boston College, Miami, NC State and Virginia from the ACC; Arkansas, LSU, Tennessee and Vandy from the SEC; and Oklahoma from the Big 12.
The SEC leads all conferences with seven players on the first team and 16 All-Americans overall. The ACC is next in both categories with five members of the first team and 15 All-Americans overall. The Big 12 is next with five All-Americans overall, followed by the Pac-12 and Big Ten with four apiece. The American Athletic, Big East, Big West, Missouri Valley, Southern and Sun Belt each landed one player on the All-America teams.
D1Baseball’s editors and national writers select the preseason All-America teams with one guiding principle in mind: to identify the best and most valuable college baseball players for the 2021 season. Past performance and future potential factor into the deliberations, but the goal is neither to identify the best future major leaguers nor to reward the players who have put up the gaudiest numbers in past seasons (particularly since the level of competition varies significantly from one conference to another). The objective is to select the players who would provide the most value for a team that wanted to win the College World Series in 2021 — the players who are best equipped to perform against elite college competition this spring.
First Team Preseason All-Americans
(Scroll from left to right to view the full chart)
| Pos. | Name, School | Year | AVG/OBP/SLG | OPS | AB | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Henry Davis, Louisville | 3YR SO | .372/.481/.698 | 1.179 | 43 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 13 | 8 | 4 | 1 |
| 1B | Maxwell Costes, Maryland | 3YR SO | .432/.620/.750 | 1.370 | 44 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 15 | 16 | 7 | 3 |
| 2B | Max Ferguson, Tennessee | 3YR SO | .333/.462/.524 | .986 | 42 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 9 |
| 3B | Cody Morissette, Boston College | 3YR SO | .448/.522/.655 | 1.177 | 58 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 9 | 6 | 3 |
| SS | Matt McLain, UCLA | 3YR SO | .397/.422/.621 | 1.043 | 58 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 19 | 4 | 13 | 1 |
| OF | Jud Fabian, Florida | 3YR SO | .294/.407/.603 | 1.010 | 68 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 13 | 13 | 18 | 2 |
| OF | Christian Franklin, Arkansas | 3YR SO | .381/.467/.619 | 1.086 | 63 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 10 | 14 | 3 |
| OF | Chris Newell, Virginia | 2YR FR | .407/.545/.729 | 1.274 | 59 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 20 | 13 | 21 | 8 |
| DH | Adrian Del Castillo, Miami | 3YR SO | .358/.478/.547 | 1.025 | 53 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 15 | 11 | 8 | 1 |
| UT | Davis Sharpe, Clemson | 3YR SO | .311/.436/.622 | 1.058 | 45 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 8 | 14 | 1 |
| Pos. | Name | Year | W | L | ERA | G | SV | IP | BB | SO | OBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SP | Jack Leiter, Vanderbilt | 2YR FR | 2 | 0 | 1.72 | 4 | 0 | 15.2 | 8 | 22 | .098 |
| SP | Ty Madden, Texas | 3YR SO | 3 | 0 | 1.80 | 4 | 0 | 25 | 4 | 26 | .196 |
| SP | Zach Pettway, UCLA | 4YR JR | 3 | 0 | 1.05 | 4 | 0 | 25.2 | 1 | 29 | .141 |
| SP | Connor Prielipp, Alabama | 2YR FR | 3 | 0 | 0.00 | 4 | 0 | 21 | 6 | 35 | .077 |
| SP | Kumar Rocker, Vanderbilt | 3YR SO | 2 | 1 | 1.80 | 3 | 0 | 15 | 8 | 28 | .118 |
| RP | Devin Fontenot, LSU | 4YR JR | 1 | 0 | 0.90 | 7 | 4 | 10 | 4 | 17 | .143 |
| RP | Jason Ruffcorn, Oklahoma | 5YR SR | 1 | 0 | 0.00 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 12 | .115 |
| UT | Davis Sharpe, Clemson | 3YR SO | 1 | 1 | 3.93 | 4 | 0 | 18.1 | 4 | 20 | .270 |
