All college sports fans know by this point in the athletic calendar that this is the one and only season of the current Big 12, which for baseball means a highly touted Texas Longhorns team and an Oklahoma Sooners program just two years removed from a run to the College World Series final. These two teams will be preparing for SEC play in a calendar year, but in the present they are facing a Big 12 with four new teams this season, before four more teams join the conference next year.
The four new teams for 2024 are BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF.
Here are some notes and points of interest around the Big 12 as we look ahead to the beginning of this unusual first and final season in a changing conference.
The Polls
Four Big 12 schools made the College Baseball Nation Preseason Top 25:
No. 5 TCU
No. 10 Texas
No. 19 Oklahoma State
No. 20 Texas Tech
Three Big 12 teams crack the 2024 USA Today Preseason Top 25:
No. 5 TCU
No. 13 Texas
No. 22 Texas Tech
Perfect Game Preseason Top 25 published the first week of January:
No. 5 TCU
No. 8 Texas
No. 20 Kansas State
No. 22 Oklahoma State
Mock Draft Note
MLB Pipeline released a Mock Draft back in mid-December and they had four Big 12 players going in the first round, which consists of 30 players:
#2 JJ Wetherholt
#17 Carson Benge
#28 Kaelen Culpepper
#30 Kevin Bazzell
Golden Spikes Award Notes
When the Golden Spikes Award watch list was announced by USA Baseball it consisted of 55 players to watch, 9 of those players are on Big 12 teams:
Kevin Bazzell; C/INF; Texas Tech
Carson Benge; OF/RHP; Oklahoma State
Kaelen Culpepper; INF; Kansas State
Lebarron Johnson Jr.; RHP; Texas
Gavin Kash; INF; Texas Tech
Tyson Neighbors; RHP; Kansas State
Nolan Schubart; OF; Oklahoma State
Payton Tolle; LHP/INF; TCU
JJ Wetherholt; INF; West Virginia
For what it's worth, FanDuel has published preseason odds on who will win the Golden Spikes Award. FanDuel places West Virginia's JJ Wetherholt with the third best odds to win the Award. Oklahoma State's Carson Benge is thirteen on the FanDuel list.
Final Thought
The new look Big 12 this year will be replaced next year with another new Big 12 and, well, let’s just play baseball already.
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