Tennessee baseball landed at No. 9 in D1Baseball’s Preseason Top 25 on Tuesday afternoon. The Vols land in the nation’s top 10 but come in as just the sixth highest rated SEC team behind No. 2 Florida, No. 3 Arkansas, No. 4 LSU, No. 6 Vanderbilt and No. 8 Texas A&M.
The Vols closed the 2023 season at No. 7 in D1Baseball’s rankings after making a run to the College World Series and going 1-2 with a win over Stanford and losses to future National Champion LSU.
Tennessee lost a number of top players from last season’s team including Chase Burns (transfer portal), Jared Dickey (MLB Draft), Chase Dollander (MLB Draft), Andrew Lindsey (MLB Draft), Maui Ahuna (MLB Draft), Camden Sewell (graduation) and Griffin Merritt (graduation).
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But there’s still plenty of optimism around this Tennessee team due to returning stars Drew Beam, Christian Moore and Blake Burke as well as talented young players Dylan Dreiling and Kavares Tears as well a transfer class that D1Baseball ranked third nationally.
The transfer portal class including Clemson’s Billy Amick, North Carolina State’s Cannon Peebles and Wichita State’s Nate Snead provide a big boost to a team that already had the pieces of a top half SEC team.
Tennessee begins its 2024 season at the Shriner’s Children Hospital Classic in Dallas against Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Baylor. The Vols also face Illinois in a weekend series before beginning a challenging SEC schedule that includes matchups against LSU, Florida and Vanderbilt.
