2011 CBD Mid-Major Preseason Poll

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By: Aaron Kirby
College Baseball Daily will be releasing a weekly Top 25 Mid-Major Poll for the 2011 Season. It will be released every Monday until the end of the College World Series. You can check out the full presason poll below with a large writeup on each team.

One of the first things you will notice is 4 Big East teams in the top 10. (#2 UCONN, #4 Louisville, #9 St Johns (43-20) and #10 Pittsburgh (38-18)) With the addition of TCU in a couple years, we may have to take the “mid-major” tag off the Big East. Each one of the Big East teams has a lot coming back and the Big East could get 4 teams in NCAA. South Florida could join in on the fun too and make the league even stronger this year.

The usual suspects, #1 TCU (54-14), #3 Coastal (55-10), and #4 Louisville (50-14) are once again at the top and joined by #2 UConn. TCU has the clear cut edge with the pitching staff they have but the other 3 are not too far behind.

#5 College of Charleston (44-19) and #6 Florida Atlantic (37-24) are right on the edge of the top 5 and both could have special seasons. Each team has a ton of offense coming back and FAU has some very good arms back entering the season. How far CofC will go will depend what it gets from it pitching staff. The new bats may slow down their offense a little but they should still be able to score runs with anyone.

#8 Fresno State (38-25) had an up and down season last year in winning the WAC regular season title but missing out on a Regional. However, they get 6 of 9 starters back including the nations leading HR hitter last year Jordan Ribera-.343/27/69 and 2 of 3 weekend guys.

FIU (36-25) enters the season at #11 but they may get hit with a big blow if a certain someone does not get cleared. But like FAU, FIU has some offense coming back as well as 2 of 3 weekend starters.

San Diego (37-22) comes in at a surprising #12. That may be a little low for them but they lost alot from last years (37-22) team. Have only 3 of 9 starting position players back and lost all 3 weekend starters. They will need some people to step up on offense but the gift of 1st rounder Dylan Covey means they should be hard to beat on Fridays.

#13 Texas State had a very solid season last year (38-22) and is in position to improve on that with 6/9 position players and 2/3 weekend starter back. Another Southland team that made a nice run last year but came up a little short is #17 SE Louisiana(40-19) who returns 8/9 starters and 2/3 weekend starters. Look for Texas St. and SE Louisiana to be at the top of the Southland once again in 2011.

#15 FGCU(38-20) lost one of the nations best pitchers last year in Chris Sale who ended up in White Sox bullpen by end of year, but have enough to stay at the top of the Atlantic Sun with 6/9 starters and 1/3 wkend guys.

#20 Liberty could not knock off the Big South bully Coastal Carolina last year but did manage to go (42-19) and have the pieces in place to try again this year with just 4/9 starters but 2/3 weekend guys who won 8 and 9 games respectfully.

The SOCON put 4 clubs in the Preseason CBD Mid-Major Top 25, #5 CofC(44-19), #14 WCU(37-21-1), #19 Citadel(43-22) and #25 Georgia Southern(34-22), after putting 3 teams in NCAA tourney last year for first time and should get at least 3 in this year. Elon has been in regional the last 3 years is outside top 25 to start year. CofC will be the clear cut favorite to win the SOCON but not to far behind should be #14 WCU.

WCU returns 6 of 9 starters and 3/3 weekend starters should build on last years SOCON championship appearance. Along with 6 starters WCU gets catcher Stephan Notaro(13 HRs 2009) back from medical redshirt in 2010 after breaking his leg in the 2nd game last year. They also return 29 of 37 wins on pitching staff.

#19 The Citadel lost one of the nations best pitchers (Asher Wojciechowski 12-3 with 155 Ks) but return potential pitcher of year candidate lefty Matt Talley 8-3 3.71. The new bats should put an emphasis on pitching, defense and speed which are their strengths. Citadel returns all 3 outfielders and each had 20+ SBs last year. Citadel has had a very rough off season this year. First, they lost starting 3B David Greene who left the program and just two weeks ago lost another piece of their starting rotation in Sophmore to be Michael Clevinger who started 15 games as freshman and logged over 90 innings.

After falling short of expectations in 2010 #25 Georgia Southern has the pieces to make it back to top of SOCON 5/9 starters and 2/3 weekend guys. Two big pieces are SRs Payne(43 sbs) and Moye(8-4) who got drafted but decided to return to GSU.