Welcome to the Prospects Live Weekly College Baseball Roundup! Each week, we’ll bring you highlights and stories from the college baseball series happening over the weekend, MLB Draft prospect performances to note, and a recap of our analysts' incredible work nationwide!

Highlights From the Week/Weekend

Duke (#12) upsets Wake Forest (#1): Well, this series was far from without drama. After a series win over Wake Forest, Duke has to make its way into the top 10 in rankings in the United States. In what was supposed to be a pitcher duel on Friday night between two top MLB Draft prospects in Josh Hartle and Jonathan Santucci, the offense came to play. Duke scored six off Hartle in 3.2 innings, and Wake Forest scored five off Jonathan Santucci in 2.2. Neither pitcher made it into the fourth. Duke would hold on to take game one, thanks to their offense. Specifically, AJ Gracia going 4-for-5 with two home runs and five RBI. The freshman Gracia has been stellar for the Blue Devils.

Saturday provided even more fire as Chase Burns took the mound and dealt against the Duke Blue Devils. He was the main reason the Demon Deacons were able to tie the series at one game apiece. Jake Reinisch and Austin Hawke provided most of the offense, as both hit a home run and drove in two, combining for four of the six Wake Forest runs. David Falco, Jr. notched his fourth save for Josh Gunther, who gave up a two-run double in the ninth. The third decisive game three was an ugly one that went back and fourth, but Duke eventually pulled off a 10-8 victory.

Arkansas takes over as the #1 seed: In both the USA Today Coaches Poll and D1Baseball rankings, Arkansas has taken over as the number one overall seed. The Razorbacks improved to 13-2 after sweeping McNeese. They’ve had a big win over Oregon State this year and have been just rolling through the competition. The pitching staff has combined for a 2.79 ERA and the bats have been in full force. Arkansas starts SEC play next week and will look to start strong and keep their number one seed.

Kansas makes noise against TCU (#3): Kansas welcomed an undefeated TCU squad and looked unphased. They took two of three from the Horned Frogs over the weekend to improve to 9-5. Jayhawks Friday night starter Reese Dutton outdueled TCU two-way start Payton Tolle. Dutton went seven innings pitched giving up just four hits and one earned run while striking out eight. Shortstop Chase Diggins provided the offense Friday night in the 3-1 victory with his second home run. Kansas came out swinging on Saturday, putting up five earned on TCU starter Kole Klecker. Everyone up and down the lineup was coming up clutch in RBI situations. Good on the Jayhawks. TCU dropped to 8th in the coaches poll and Kansas got three votes for the top 25.

Miami comes out on top against Virginia (#13): It was a rough series for Virginia in their first weekend of ACC play. It started Friday night when Miami trailed by four runs, and then Daniel Cuvet hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh to put the Hurricanes up 6-5. Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, all of those runs were unearned thanks to errors on the field. Virginia’s luck didn’t get much better on Saturday night when the Miami Hurricanes erased a nine-run deficit and scored 13 runs in its final two turns at the plate. Aiden Teel gave up six of those runs earned. It was an ugly night for the Cavaliers. UVA avoided the sweep in a shootout on Sunday, winning 14-11. The bright spot for Virginia was that Henry Ford was a consistent force in the Cavaliers lineup, driving in six runs this weekend. Virginia dropped three spots to #15 and Miami received seven votes.

Texas A&M (#7) improves to 16-0: Tyler was right, I was wrong. Granted, I knew I was going to be incorrect. The Texas A&M Aggies remained undefeated after a relatively easy schedule this week. I predicted they might lose to Texas in a midweek game, but they won that fairly-handily. They dominated Rhode Island in the first two games, completely shutting them out and scoring 17 runs. Ryan Prager was dominant again on Friday night, pitching seven innings while giving up just one hit and striking out 13. He improved to 4-0 on the season. Tanner Jones followed suit on Saturday, going four innings while striking out eight. The Aggies did their thing as usual with the bats, with home runs coming from the usual suspects in Braden Montgomery, Jace LaViolette, Hayden Schott, and Ted Burton. The weekend performance was good enough to bump them up to #4 in the polls.

MLB Draft Prospect Updates

Chase Burns is an absolute electric factory: We talked a bit about it already in the Duke v. Wake Forest summary, but Chase Burns was absolutely on one this Saturday. The righty struck out 14 batters in six innings pitched. He was absolutely disgusting all game long. He generated 24 whiffs and sat 96-99 mph with the fastball all game, even hitting 101 mph on his 98th pitch. The slider was disgusting and was 86-91 mph with some insane bite. It’s fairly easy to say that Burns is the best pitcher in this draft class. Hagen Smith is probably not too far behind, but Burns is trying to do everything he can to make himself the best pitching prospect in the draft.

Charlie Condon continues to do his thing: We talked about how Charlie Condon was making a case to be the consensus 1-1 in the draft, and he continued to push that narrative with his performance on the field this weekend. He’s now slashing .565/.659/1.290 with 12 HRs, 25 RBI, and seven 2Bs with a 1.949 OPS—just video game numbers at this point. Condon even appeared in centerfield this weekend, showing off his athleticism on the defensive side of the ball, too. There were question marks about his defense going into 2024 and he’s looked like a plus defender at third base this year. Condon is making an easy argument as to why he should be highly considered as the 1-1 in 2024.

Jac Caglianone is just cruising on both sides of the ball: With his new cleaned-up delivery, Caglianone has looked incredible on the mound this year. He punched out nine batters over six hitless innings against St. Mary’s this weekend. He’s got a 1.80 ERA and a 0.87 WHIP this year, which is just on the mound. He’s also hitting .429 with five home runs, 16 RBI, and a 1.203 OPS. He’s been up to 100 mph on the mound, and on the plate, he has been putting up insane exit velos. It’s a bit early, and we haven’t hit SEC play yet, but Cags has so far cleaned up some of the issues he’s had on the plate and on the mound that he would get knocked on. It will be interesting to see if those adjustments yield positive results in SEC play.

Dakota Jordan was white hot this weekend: Man, is the bat just loud off of Dakota Jordan’s bat. He’s got some of the highest exit velocities in the entire country. Some of the best bat speed and hands I’ve seen from the right-handed batter's box. He destroyed Evansville pitching this weekend, going 7 for 9 with three home runs, 10 RBI, and five walks. Those are some video game numbers, regardless of the team he’s facing.

Other Names of Note:

1B Blake Burke, Tennessee: 5-for-9, 3 2B, 2 HR, 6 RBI

INF Colby Shelton, Florida: 7-for-15, 3 HR, 6 RBI

RHP Luke Holman, LSU: 6 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 10 K

LHP Ryan Prager, Texas A&M: 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 13 K

LHP Gage Jump, LSU: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, BB, 10 K

RHP Trey Yesavage, ECU: 6 IP, 3 H, ER, 2 BB, 9 K

LHP Carter Holton, Vanderbilt: 5 IP, 4, 0 R, 3 BB, 11 K

LHP Hagen Smith, Arkansas: 4 IP, H, 0 R, 3 BB, 9 K

RHP Brody Brecht, Iowa: 4 iP, H, 0 R, 3 BB, 9 K