This article is part of our College Baseball Picks series.
College Baseball Picks Today: Best Bets for Friday, March 15
Last week was a phenomenal slate for me cashing over 16 units on the weekend. That's tough to replicate, but I can certainly try on the universal opening weekend of conference play. Fair warning, most of my plays I gave out around 5 PM ET on Thursday were ballooned hard just a few hours later. It's an action-packed Friday slate, so I'll give you one that is still sitting at a reasonable price.
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Texas A&M Aggies (-145) @ Florida Gators (+114)
In what is arguably the best series of the week, the Aggies were a -110 dog when I grabbed them, so as you can see I have a lot of market agreement here. Typically, you love when you can get great opening line/closing line value on a team, but sometimes it doesn't mean a darn thing. In a battle of high-powered offenses, which pitching staff is the more vulnerable?
17-0 TAMU has been a daddy wagon thus far. As a team, they are currently Top 25 in the country in batting average (.320), 17th in homers (32), and 15th in runs scored (170). While there have been many producers, most of the damage has come from their dangerous 2-3 hitters, Jace LaViolette and Braden Montgomery. The pair has combined for 16 homers, 56 RBI's, and a .374 batting average. LaViolette, the college Matt Olson, is my biggest position in the Golden Spikes market for 2024 as a guy who could very well be the top pick in the 2025 draft. And Montgomery has strong chance to be a top 10 pick in this summer's draft. They see a favorable pitching matchup... on paper.
LHP Cade Fisher toes the rubber for the Gators. As a midweek starter in his freshman season in 2023, Fisher was a stud. He pitched to a 3.10 ERA and 48 K/13 BB ratio across 49.1 innings. However, he has been unable to make the jump as a Friday night SEC guy. The 7.56 ERA and .455 BABIP are definitely a bit alarming, but there are expectations he'll regress to the mean at some point. On the positive side, he sports a fantastic 27 K/4 BB ratio in 16.2 innings of work. Against a great Aggie lineup though, it's difficult envisioning this as his "get right" spot.
Texas A&M will give the ball to the surprisingly dominant lefty, Ryan Prager and his perfect 0.00 ERA. Through 23.2 scoreless innings, Prager has amounted a laughable 40 K/3 BB ratio with a microscopic .115 batting average against.
In all fairness, he's drawn a totally butter schedule. The Florida offense is a different animal. They're an offense with the 12th most taters (34), led by All-America two-way player, Jac Caglianone (the college Shohei Ohtani), and Alabama transfer Colby Shelton. Even with his .412 average and five homers, Cags seems like he has gotten off to a little bit slower of a start at the plate, but it doesn't take much for this top-five projected' 24 pick to get going. Prager will need to continue working low in the zone and stay in plus counts accounts an offense that loves the fastball.
In a matchup littered with first-rounders over the next few seasons, I believe we need to ride this wave the Aggies are on. Spoiler alert: they won't be going undefeated. However, I think we could see them take games one and two to get out to 19-0 before Caglianone dots on Sunday to salvage the series.
While the A&M pitching has overperformed thus far, it is a series where I expect a lot of runs to be scored. I wasn't a big believer in Florida for the '24 season, so until I see them look like the team that made the College World Series Finals last year, I'm going to keep fading them in tough matchups.
Pick: Texas A&M ML -145
