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D1 baseball staff | April 7, 2023

The top 10 catchers in college baseball, six weeks into the season

Top freshmen in college baseball so far in 2023

(Editor's note: The following was first published on d1baseball.com. The original includes a list of the top 50 third basemen entering the 2023 college baseball season. Use code Save23 for a discounted subscription.)

With six weeks in the books, we’re more than a third of the way through the 2023 college baseball season, so it’s time to update our Player Rankings. When we put together our Preseason All-America teams, we followed one guiding principle: If we were building a team to win the 2023 national title, which players would we choose? We use the same philosophy to construct our Power Rankings.

Now we have six weeks of performance to draw upon, and we took early-season statistics into consideration, but we also tried to keep the numbers in context, because some leagues or ballparks are more offensive than others, and the quality of nonconference competition varies widely — so not all stat lines are created equal. In addition to the 2023 numbers, we also considered raw talent, long-term track record from previous seasons and makeup. And for premium defensive positions like catcher and shortstop, defensive statistics and ability were also weighted more heavily. These are NOT professional prospect lists, though they do take pure talent into consideration.

Finally, remember that there are nearly 300 Division I teams, and we’re ranking roughly the top 15 percent at each position. These lists reflect our projections of which players are the best of the best this spring, but many good players in the remaining 85 percent just didn’t make the cut. We’ll revisit the Player Rankings again after Week 12 and make adjustments as players prove themselves on the field.

BEST PLAYER BY POSITION SIX WEEKS IN: 1st Base | 2nd Base | Shortstops | 3rd Base

With all that said, here’s a look at the top 50 catchers in college baseball at the six-week mark. Third-team preseason All-American Kyle Teel of Virginia moves up to the No. 1 spot, and fellow ACC stars Jacob Cozart (NC State) and Jack Payton (Louisville) join him in the top three.

RANK PLAYER TEAM
1 Kyle Teel Virginia
2 Jacob Cozart NC State
3 Jack Payton Louisville
4 Calvin Harris Ole Miss
5 Ben McCabe UCF
6 Julian Brock Louisiana
7 Ryan Campos Arizona State
8 Luke Shliger Maryland
9 Tomas Frick North Carolina
10 Justin Wilcoxen East Carolina

Read D1Baseball.com's full top 50 list here. 

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Division I
Baseball Championship
June 16 - 26, 2023
Charles Schwab Field Omaha | Omaha, NE

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