College Baseball’s Best: Weekend’s Top Performers Shine with Power, Dominance, and Clutch Moments
The college baseball season is off to a roaring start, with towering home runs, record-breaking performances, and dominant pitching duels stealing the spotlight. From clutch bombs to electric strikeouts, these opening weekend stars wasted no time making their presence felt on the diamond.
Opening Day delivered everything we love about college baseball: dominant pitching, explosive bats, and jaw-dropping moments. From future MLB Draft stars to breakout performers, here’s who stole the show on Day One!
College baseball is back, and the 2025 season is shaping up to be one for the ages! With powerhouse programs reloading through the transfer portal, elite draft prospects returning for another shot at glory, and championship ambitions fueling every pitch, this year’s Preseason Top 25 is stacked with talent and storylines that will define the road to Omaha.
Taking a retrospective look back at 2022 Bowman Chrome and it’s more notable for players that have appeared in previous Bowman releases than this one, like Jackson Merrill and Jackson Chourio. But there’s still hope? Right? Another rear-view reminder why Bowman Chrome is almost always the riskiest Bowman release every year.
The Diamondbacks have an incredibly fun farm system and this game featured Druw Jones, one of the biggest names in it. His presence, Robby Snelling's pro debut, and some other names in these farm systems playing win this one made it a good game to check out.
The tools were as advertised for Druw Jones. He is incredibly athletic and fluid in everything he does. At the plate, Jones did not quite get the results or square any ball up particularly hard. But he had some good at bats, particularly his eight-pitch dogfight of an at bat to lead off the game against Robby Snelling (who looked really really good right from the start). Jones was tracking pitches well, laying off tough pitches, and fighting off a bunch of good stuff as well. The pitch recognition was there, which is something you love to see at his age. His swing itself is a bit of a work in progress. He tends to fly open with his front side and pull his head simultaneously, but he has plenty of time and all the tools needed to fix that.
I was most impressed with his work in center field. Jones just glides out there and he can really move. The plus plus speed that he has is going to make a huge impact on his game and should allow him to play a really good center field. He made one throwing error on a throw to third where he sailed it way over the bag and into the stands, but he had a few other accurate throws. Jones made an absolutely absurd play in center, going back to the wall after covering a bunch of ground and snagging it with his backhand. A scout next to me could not believe he caught that, and I couldn’t either. This guy gets the hype he deserves and I walked away extremely impressed.
Snelling stole the show a bit in this game. This was his professional debut and he went three clean innings with three strikeouts. The fastball was mostly 93-94 and got up to 96 on one gun. His slider was 80-83 and the rarely used changeup was in the 84-86 range. His command with all of his pitches was really good and when he can locate the heater like that, his slider is going to be successful. The fastball has some nice firm run on it and plays to both sides of the zone. Maybe his most intriguing skill is his ability to spin the slider, which looked like an above-average breaker with legit break. The slider that he got Jones to go down looking with, as seen below, was a really nice pitch early in the game.
Changeup development will be a key for the lefty going forward. He did not use it a ton and it looked a little flat but it was staying around the zone when he threw it so the feel is there. Needs to get a little more consistent movement on it going forward. It was a really strong showing overall for Snelling and his fastball/slider combination combined with his above average command makes him a really intriguing prospect.
Zavala is still extremely raw but he definitely has some tools. He has plenty of projection in the body and adding some size will do him well. The upper body movement is extremely fluid and his torso movement is loose as well. He got in trouble when he relied on his arms a bit too much and swung through some pitches. The bat-to-ball skills look like a bit of a question mark in this one and when he did get to the ball, the contact was not very impactful. He also had an at bat against a lefty that he really did not see the ball well against, especially the breaking stuff, and went down quickly.
It may not have been the most impressive night for him, but it’s easy to see why Zavala is a guy to watch going forward. The projection and the raw tools are there to be refined, and he has plenty of time to do it.
Verdugo struggled a little bit with the hit tool in this one, but he did have one ball squared up decently well for a hit. He is very pull heavy right now and will need to adjust that approach going forward. Verdugo is just 18 so he has plenty of time to grow, but he looked a little on the smaller side to me tonight.
His hands looked quick and the swing was pretty consistent despite the lack of results. How much impact is in that bat is the question going forward, and more reps to refine his approach will do him wonders.
Pena’s most impressive work tonight came in the field, where he made a really nice play moving to his right and throwing on the run from behind second base to nab the runner at first. The arm strength was shown on that play. He moves well and could be a good fielder at second base if his time at short is done. At the plate, he was patient with the approach and looked to be recognizing pitches well. The impactful contact was not there, but he is a player with a good combination of projection and current skills that make him a guy to keep tabs on.
