2025 Big 12 Baseball Season Preview

Projected Standings (2024 Record)

1. Oklahoma State (42-19; 19-9)
2. Arizona (36-23; 20-10 Pac-12)
3. TCU (33-21; 14-16)
4. Arizona State (32-26; 17-13 Pac-12)
5. West Virginia (36-24; 19-11)
6. Texas Tech (33-26; 12-17)
7. Kansas State (35-26; 15-15)
8. UCF (37-21; 14-15)
9. Kansas (31-23; 15-15)
10. Cincinnati (32-25; 17-13)
11. Houston (26-28; 7-21)
12. Baylor (22-31; 10-20)
13. Utah (33-22; 16-14 Pac-12)
14. BYU (21-31; 7-23)

Top 10 MLB Draft Prospects For 2025

1. Nolan Schubart, OF, Oklahoma State
2. Brendan Summerhill, OF, Arizona
3. Brandon Compton, OF, Arizona State
4. Mason White, SS, Arizona
5. Gabe Davis, RHP, Oklahoma State
6. Ben Abeldt, LHP, TCU
7. Ben Jacobs, LHP, Arizona State
8. Kien Vu, OF, Arizona State
9. Jack Berg, LHP, Arizona
10. Isaiah Jackson, OF, Arizona State

Team To Beat: Oklahoma State

Viewed as one of the Big 12’s best and most consistent programs over the last 12 years under head coach Josh Holliday, Oklahoma State is once again geared up to do damage in the conference and make a push to the College World Series, which it hasn’t reached since 2016. The Cowboys bring back premier outfielder Nolan Schubart and righthander Gabe Davis, who appears in line to join the rotation. Holliday surrounded his veterans with promising transfers, including Hawaii southpaw Harrison Bodendorf and St. John’s righty Mario Pesca. The only Big 12 team to post a better overall win percentage than OSU in the last three years was Texas in 2022, and the Longhorns are members of the SEC now.

Player Of The Year: Nolan Schubart, OF, Oklahoma State

Two of Oklahoma State’s top three offensive producers from 2024 moved into the pro ranks, but the Cowboys are still quite confident that their offense will click. That’s thanks largely to the return of Schubart, who left little to the imagination last year in terms of his capabilities. With a scorching 90th percentile exit velocity of 111.6 mph, he led the Big 12 with 23 home runs, 68 RBIs, a .513 on-base percentage and 1.351 OPS en route to becoming the 13th Oklahoma State player ever to earn All-America honors in multiple seasons.

Pitcher Of The Year: Ben Abeldt, LHP, TCU

Abeldt has been masterful over two seasons out of the TCU bullpen, pitching to a 2.81 ERA with 10 saves, 125 strikeouts and 40 walks in 99.1 innings. Those marks include a career-best season as the Horned Frogs’ closer in 2024, when he posted a sterling 1.83 ERA with eight saves, 54 strikeouts and 16 walks in 44.1 innings while holding opponents to a .186 batting average. It appears that Abeldt will try his hand at starting games this season, an experiment that at least seems positioned to go well seeing as that he’s familiar with the Big 12 and has dominated over 58 appearances. His track record and projected role propelled him to this pick.

Freshman Of The Year: Mason Russell, LHP, Arizona

A 6-foot-1, 185-pound lefthander who has already shown off a smooth, repeatable delivery, as well as a reasonably advanced feel for spin, Russell has the makings of a future weekend rotation star. He backed up his lofty projectability with a standout first fall in Tucson in which he produced a 0.82 ERA with 12 strikeouts to three walks across 11 innings. An Arizona high school product, Russell has the potential to give hitters fits as a first-year player.

Notable Storylines

●  Six Big 12 programs gained entry to the 2024 NCAA Tournament, which ranked third behind the Southeastern (11) and Atlantic Coast (eight) conferences and matched the Big 12’s best performance since 2017, when it saw seven teams reach the field. However, two of those teams, Texas and Oklahoma, are now a part of the SEC, and three former Pacific-12 Conference squads—Arizona, Arizona State and Utah—have joined the Big 12. Arizona earned host status last year after winning the Pac-12 regular season and conference tournament titles. Meanwhile, Arizona State was among the first teams out of Baseball America’s preseason Top 25. The Big 12 should once again be a highly competitive, multi-bid conference even with its changes.

●  TCU lefthander Ben Abeldt has been among the nation’s top relief arms over the last two years and now needs to successfully make the jump to the rotation, where he’s likely to be responsible for Friday nights. If he can do it without too many hiccups, Abeldt could not only climb this year’s draft boards but also catapult the Horned Frogs into the national conversation after they opened the year unranked.

●  After three straight tournament misses to open his tenure in Tempe, which marks Arizona State’s longest postseason drought since it became a Division I program in the 1950s, head coach Willie Bloomquist finds himself in somewhat of an “if not now, when” situation. The Sun Devils have four of the Big 12’s top 10 preseason draft prospects for 2025 on their roster—lefthander Ben Jacobs and outfielders Brandon Compton, Kien Vu and Isaiah Jackson—and a number of promising underclassmen, to boot. Bloomquist needs to show that he can make things happen with his best group yet in Tempe.

●  Fourth-year Arizona coach Chip Hale has an opportunity to do something rare if his team can live up to a reasonably lofty 2025 billing. Hale won a College World Series title as a Wildcats player in 1986 and an MLB World Series as a bench coach with the Nationals in 2019. Now, Arizona is ranked to begin the 2025 season and viewed as a top contender to win the Big 12 and make a deep postseason push. A national championship as a coach would place Hale in rare company.