With college baseball season on the horizon, preseason polls and lists are starting to be released.
On Wednesday, D1Baseball.com released their Top 100 Impact Transfers list. Tony Vitello brought in a handful of transfers in the offseason, and three cracked D1’s list on the Top 100.
Transfer third baseman Zane Denton, transfer OF Graham Merritt and transfer short stop Maui Ahuna were the three Vols to make the list, and all made the Top 50.
Denton came in at No. 47. The former Crimson Tide third baseman returns to his home state of Tennessee for his true senior season. Denton led Alabama in 2022 in home runs, RBIs (48) and total bases (112).
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The second on the list was Merritt, who came in at No. 14. The former Cincinnati Bearcat earned AAC Player of the Year honors in 2022 and brings a lot of potential to Rocky Top. The incoming redshirt senior won conference player of the year honors after hitting an incredible 19 home runs and posting a .315 average at the plate last season.
The third and highest-ranked incoming Vol to make the list was former Kansas Jayhawk Maui Ahuna, who came in at No. 4. The highly touted transfer comes to Knoxville as a junior, having spent his first two years of college ball in Lawrence. The 2022 All-Big-12 First Team selection brings plenty of talent offensively and defensively to Tennessee, as the Hawaii native went .396/.479/.634 as a sophomore.
In addition to cracking the top five of the transfers list, Ahuna landed on Perfect Game’s Preseason All-American third team roster and Collegiate Baseball Newspaper’s Preseason All-America Third Team roster.
First pitch for Tennessee’s 2023 baseball season is Tuesday, February 17, against Arizona at 8 p.m. ET in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the MLB Desert Invitational.
