Seven Bruins mentioned in D1Baseball’s power rankings

We should be gearing up for Memorial Day weekend events across the country when it comes to baseball season. We should know who the best MLB hitters are at this point, who the best starting pitchers are in the majors.

We should also be preparing for the NCAA College World Series!

But alas, we’re left with no spring sports thanks to coronavirus. And though those athletes did retain another year of eligibility, we’re left with just ‘what-ifs’ and playing out scenarios in our heads.

Still, D1Baseball has ranked the Top 150 players and created a power rankings of all the collegiate baseball players across the country. They created a final updated power rankings system after their preseason teams were heavily dotted with UCLA Bruins.

Here’s how they came up with their teams:

Before the season started, we unveiled power rankings for every position, following the same guiding principle we used to form our Preseason All-America Teams: If we were building a team to win the 2020 national title, which players would we choose? Even though the season was canceled prematurely and there will be no national champion, we’ll stick to that philosophy with our final updated power rankings.

These are NOT professional prospect lists, though they do take pure talent into consideration. We considered past performance and offensive statistics, but we also try to keep the numbers in context, because some leagues or ballparks are more offensive than others, and some leagues simply have more talent than others — so all stat lines are not created equal. And because the season was only four weeks long and nonconference strength of schedules vary so dramatically, we tried not to overreact to 2020 statistics. We made some adjustments based on performance this season, but we also gave some latitude to players who proved themselves over previous seasons and got off to slow starts this spring. We also considered defensive ability (especially at premium positions), makeup and reports of development in the preseason and the shortened spring season.

Finally, remember that there are 301 Division I teams, and we’re ranking the top 10 percent of starting players at each position. Many good players in the remaining 90 percent just didn’t make the cut.

With all that said, here’s a look at the top 150 starting pitchers in college baseball. All five members of our preseason All-America first team remain in the top six of these rankings, but there’s a little shuffling of the order, with Texas A&M’s Asa Lacy moving up from No. 3 to No. 1. Duke’s Bryce Jarvis, a third-team preseason All-American, moves up into the top five. And there’s plenty of shuffling throughout the list.

So, where did the UCLA players find themselves on the final power rankings?

Closer Holden Powell — Ranked No. 1 among all relief pitchers
Shortstop Matt McLain — Ranked No. 3 among all shortstops
Outfielder Garrett Mitchell — Ranked No. 4 among all outfielders
Starting Pitcher Zach Pettway — Ranked No. 11 among all starter pitchers
Reliever Kyle Mora — Ranked No. 21 among all relief pitchers
Catcher Noah Cardenas — Ranked No. 24 among all catchers
Starting PItcher Jesse Bergin — Ranked No. 82 among all starting pitchers

Wish we would have been able to see these guys in action this season. Guess there’s always next year.