Welcome to Omaha! After a long regular season, regionals, and super regionals, only 8 teams remain. Those teams are Wake Forest, Florida, LSU, Virginia, Tennessee, TCU, Stanford and Oral Roberts. These 8 teams will travel to Omaha, Nebraska, for the College World Series, which spans about 2 weeks and will test the pitching of each team. Wake Forest comes into the tournament with high expectations, which are well deserved since they were continually ranked as the #1 college baseball team in the country for most of the season. However, there’s one thing you should know about Omaha – anything can happen. Everything you’ll need to know about the CWS is broken down below, so let’s get into the odds, a preview and my best bet for the tournament!
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College Baseball World Series Odds
Wake Forest (+275)
LSU (+380)
Florida (+450)
Virginia (+450)
Tennessee (+750)
TCU (+850)
Stanford (+1200)
Oral Roberts (+2200)
Be sure to shop around for the best price for your pick. For example, Wake Forest is +275 at DraftKings but only +240 at FanDuel, so if you’re interested in the Demon Deacons, I’d advise using DraftKings to get more bang for your buck. Similarly, if you’re a fan of Cinderella stories, Oral Roberts is +2200 to win at DraftKings but +3000 to win at FanDuel. Whether it’s a small difference or a massive one, every dollar counts!
The College Baseball World Series is essentially the Elite 8 of March Madness. You can think of the regionals and super regionals as a sort of Round of 64 through Sweet Sixteen equivalent. However, the CWS is different in the fact that it is double elimination. One loss will not send a team home – they need to lose twice. Every team in Omaha is guaranteed 2 games, and it’s up to the team if they will play more.
The tournament begins on Friday, June 16, and could end as soon as Friday, June 25, or can go as long as Saturday, June 26, if a third game is required in the Championship. It’s going to be hot, humid and wet at times because scattered thunderstorms are common in Omaha around this time of year. Without further ado, let’s get into the contenders and pretenders for the College World Series trophy.
College Baseball World Series Preview
Seven of the 8 teams in the tournament finished in the final top 25 rankings on May 28. The outlier? The Oral Roberts Golden Eagles, who had quite the roller coaster of a time during the regionals and super regionals. During the super regionals in Eugene, Oral Roberts played Oregon three times and, well, it’s hard to describe the craziness of the first two games, so here’s a short summary:
ORAL ROBERTS SCORES 2 IN THE 9TH TO WALK OFF OREGON 🚨🚨🚨
After blowing an 8-0 lead last night, to coming back from a 7-4 deficit tonight, this series has been WILD
ORU vs Oregon tomorrow… winner goes to Omaha 🔥 pic.twitter.com/BukXc7eCMj
— 11Point7: The College Baseball Podcast 🎙 (@11point7) June 11, 2023
Anyways, the other 7 teams have fairly close odds to win the tournament. It might be surprising to see Stanford, who was ranked as the 6th best team in the country in the final top 25 poll, with the 2nd highest odds to win, but that’s due to the side of the bracket they are on. Unlike March Madness which starts with 64 teams and narrows down to the Elite 8 after a few days, the College Baseball World Series begins with the top 8. The bracket gets split in half, and this year’s bracket has Wake Forest, Stanford, LSU and Tennessee on one side and Florida, Virginia, TCU and Oral Roberts on the other side. No offense to the latter side, but any side with the Demon Deacons and the Tigers is the better half. And unfortunately for Stanford, they had the unlucky draw to face Wake Forest in the first game of the tournament. That puts them at an immense disadvantage, but as I said earlier, anything can happen in Omaha!
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College Baseball World Series Winner Best Bet: Wake Forest (+275)
Entering the College World Series as the #1 seed in the country means a lot of eyeballs will be watching their every move, and the expectations are sky-high. However, the honor of being the best team in the country is similar to the Madden curse – something always goes wrong. A #1 seed has not won the College World Series since Miami did it in 1999, which means history is not on the Demon Deacons’ side. In the 23 years since the Hurricanes won it all, the #1 seeds are 20-for-23 in making the super regionals (including Wake this season), 14-for-23 in making it to Omaha (including Wake this season), 2-for-22 in making the College World Series Finals, and of course, 0-for-22 in winning it all. However, this might be the best college baseball team in years.
Including the regionals and super regionals, Wake Forest is 52-10 this season. Yes, they don’t play in the SEC like LSU, Florida or Tennessee, but that didn’t stop them from beating up on teams like Coastal Carolina, Boston College, Maryland and Alabama. It’s hard to identify the root of Wake Forest’s success this season because they’ve been pretty amazing at everything. Their offense finished with a .309 batting average, a .432 on-base percentage, a .556 slugging percentage and an absurd 129 home runs, which led them to scoring 9.4 runs per game – the 4th most in the country. Brock Wilken led the charge in the Demon Deacon’s offense, batting .357 with a 1.351 OPS (no, that’s not a typo) and 30 home runs. But it’s not like he’s the only source of their power because, in their most recent 22-5 win over Alabama, the top 6 hitters in the Wake lineup combined for a .357 batting average and 88 home runs this season. That makes it incredibly difficult for opposing pitchers because you can’t pitch around one guy to get to the next – every hitter can hurt you. That’s when you know you have a good lineup.
Based on that, you might think that offense is Wake’s strong suit. I mean, they average 9.4 runs per game, how could it not? Maybe because they also had the lowest ERA in the entire country. The Demon Deacons finished with a 2.84 ERA which was by far the best in baseball because the team with the 2nd lowest ERA was Tennessee… at 3.57. That’s a substantial difference between the best and 2nd best ERA’s which further demonstrates the dominance of Wake Forest. Their rotation is led by Rhett Lowder, whose hair might be even more glorious than his pitching. The right-hander comes into the College World Series with a 15-0 record, a 1.80 ERA and a .207 opponent batting average. He’s a top 3 pitcher in Omaha and the obvious ace of the Demon Deacons, but what makes Wake so dangerous is their depth.
Most teams will have one dominant ace that is their game one starter and then a few decent arms that can throw 4-5 innings and act as a bridge to the bullpen. Good offensive teams can get away with mediocre starters because even if their pitcher gives up 8 runs, they can score 10. That’s not the case with Wake Forest, though. After Lowder, they have Josh Hartle, who comes into Omaha with an 11-1 record, a 2.28 ERA and 131 strikeouts in just 86.2 innings. And following him is Sean Sullivan, who is 5-1 with a 2.47 ERA and just a .170 opponent batting average. This trio has led Wake to one of the best seasons in their program history, and it also helps that their bullpen might be the deepest in the country.
The key to winning at Omaha is staying hot at the plate and having enough pitching to play 3 games in 4 days. A lot of teams can do the first, but by the 3rd or 4th game of the week, most teams have used all their arms already. Wake will have 3 starters ready to go along with Seth Keener, who had a 1.79 ERA and a .165 opponent batting average in 60.1 innings, and can be a long reliever or starter if needed. Wake has all the tools to be the first #1 seed to win at Omaha since 1999, and at +275 odds, they’re my best bet to win the College World Series.
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