(Editor's note: The following was first published on . The original includes a list of the top 50 first basemen at the Week 6 mark of the 2023 college baseball season. Use code Save23 for a .)
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.
With all that said, here’s a look at the top 50 first basemen in college baseball at the six-week mark. Florida two-way superstar Jac Caglianone leaps to the No. 1 spot, with FAU’s Nolan Schanuel and Wake Forest’s Nick Kurtz rounding out the top three.
BEST PLAYER BY POSITION SIX WEEKS IN: 2nd Base | 3rd Base | Shortstops
| rank | player | team |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jac Caglianone | Florida |
| 2 | Nolan Schanuel | Florida Atlantic |
| 3 | Nick Kurtz | Wake Forest |
| 4 | Gavin Kash | Texas Tech |
| 5 | Gavin Casas | South Carolina |
| 6 | James Tibbs | Florida State |
| 7 | Jackson Finley | Georgia Tech |
| 8 | Kiko Romero | Arizona |
| 9 | Blake Burke | Tennessee |
| 10 | Ryan Galanie | Wofford |
