What went wrong with Texas A&M baseball: Preseason No. 1 Aggies left out of NCAA Baseball Tournament

Less than a year removed from its first appearance in the College World Series finals, Texas A&M must watch the NCAA Baseball Tournament from home. The Aggies, who entered the 2025 season ranked No. 1 overall, were excluded from the full 64-team field. 

In fact, they weren’t even listed among the selection committee’s “First Four Teams Out.” Texas A&M didn’t just miss the cut — it was nowhere near. 

The Aggies were the quickest team to ever go from preseason No. 1 to unranked. Now, they’ are also the first preseason No. 1 team to be left out of the tournament since 1991. This from a team that boasted four preseason All-Americans and multiple players that could hear their names called in the early rounds of July’s MLB Draft. 

It’s especially crushing since, at one point, this Texas A&M team had some hope. The Aggies shook off a rough start to conference play — they won just one game in their first three series — to take a series against Tennessee in April. The sparked a mini hot streak from April to May, with ensuing series wins against South Carolina, Arkansas and LSU. 

But an 0-3 series loss to Missouri — a team that hadn’t won a single SEC game before it swept the Aggies — in the second week of May all but sealed Texas A&M’s postseason fate. Even a decent run to the SEC Baseball Tournament quarterfinal round wasn’t enough to salvage a listless season. 

So what went wrong for an ostensibly talented team that once boasted so much promise? 

Inexperienced coach not enough to right the ship 

Texas A&M’s troubles track all the way back to June 25, 2024 when, just one day after the Aggies’ loss to Tennessee in Game 3 of the College World Series finals, former coach Jim Schlossnagle left for Texas. The Aggies quickly turned to hitting coach Michael Earley, who broke into the coaching ranks as an assistant at Arizona State in 2017, to fill the void. 

While Schlossnagle’s departure stole all the headlines, especially given the timing and the nature of A&M’s rivalry with Texas, his decision to bring a couple of key assistants with him was equally devastating to the Aggies. Max Weiner, Texas A&M’s pitching coach who had a hand in developing stars like Ryan Prager, and Nolan Cain, who was associate head coach under Schlossnagle at Texas A&M, both left for the same positions in Austin. 

Not only did Earley, a first-year head coach, have to maintain stability following Schlossnagle’s sudden exit, but he quickly had to fill the three most important spots on his inaugural coaching staff. He did a laudable job, at least early on. 

Headline players like Jace LaViolette, Gavin Grahovac and Kaeden Kent all initially entered the transfer portal before withdrawing in the wake of Earley’s hiring. Prager eschewed the MLB Draft for another year with the Aggies. 

That talent retention led to Texas A&M’s lofty preseason ranking. A 5-0 start to the year, including a respectable series win against Cal Poly, quieted some questions about Earley’s inexperience. 

Conference play brought those concerns roaring back as the Aggies struggled to keep up with their league mates. Questionable pitching and pinch-hitting decisions were the hallmarks of a young coach trying to spark his team. 

Injuries limit the lineup 

Texas A&M is no stranger to impactful injuries, but the 2025 Aggies were decimated to the point that they never put their ideal lineup on the field. Outfielder Caden Sorrell, a 2024 Freshman All-SEC selection, missed the first half of the year with a hamstring injury. 

Grahovac, an All-American third baseman, underwent season-ending shoulder surgery after six games. Top hitter Hayden Schott was limited almost the entire season after he retore his meniscus. Those medical concerns alone would set any team back. 

Texas A&M’s pitching staff didn’t escape the injury bug. The Aggies lost top bullpen arm Shane Sdao before the season even began and key reliever Josh Stewart after his season debut in a Feb. 22 win against Cal Poly. 

Underperforming stars 

While injuries certainly took a tole on players like Schott, most of Texas A&M’s key players suffered a dropoff in production in 2025. It was a particularly disappointing season for LaViolette, who entered the year at second in CBS Sports’ 2025 MLB Draft prospect rankings. 

After hitting 29 home runs last year — the second most in Texas A&M history — he didn’t even break 20 in 2025. His slash line fell from .305/.449/.726 in 2024 to .258/.427/.576 this year. His OPS also dropped 0.172 points (from 1.175 to 1.003 ) between 2024 and 2025. 

Regression wasn’t exclusive to LaViolette, though. Third baseman Wyatt Henseler was the only Aggie to play in at least 40 games and finish the season with a batting average above .300. 

Prager, who turned down a third-round slot in the 2024 MLB Draft to return to Texas A&M and was the preseason favorite to win SEC Pitcher of the Year, went through his own struggles. He tied his career high with four losses after losing a single game in 2024, saw his ERA balloon from 2.94 last season to 4.21 and struck out 73 batters as opposed to 124 in 2024. He did have four more starts last season, but that doesn’t necessarily account for over 50 missing strikeouts and an elevated ERA. 

It’s no surprise, then, that Texas A&M saw a statistical dropoff in almost every major category between 2024 and 2025. 

All of this, in conjunction, explains Texas A&M’s dropoff, at least in part. How the school navigates Earley’s future will be well worth watching during an earlier-than-expected offseason for the Aggies.