Among college baseball’s elite programs, seniors typically make up just a small portion of a team’s roster.
With MLB rules allowing players to turn professional after their junior season, student-athletes with three or four years of experience under their belts aren’t exactly a rarity, but they’re not plentiful either — Among the 25 teams in the latest D1Baseball.com rankings, the average number of seniors and redshirt seniors per team is 4.72, with powerhouses like Florida, Texas and UCLA having no more than two.
And the seniors on those teams aren’t all regular contributors, as the best players on the squad are usually top prospects who go pro at the first opportunity, which means that the five seniors South Carolina will honor this Saturday before playing Missouri, all of whom play consistently, are something of an anomaly — and a large part of why the Gamecocks are in the hunt for an NCAA tournament berth, according to coach Mark Kingston.