Believe it or not, the college baseball season begins for the Michigan Wolverines this weekend. They are set to take the field for the first time this year on Friday against No. 12 Oregon State in the 2026 College Baseball Series in Arizona.
Before the season gets underway, let’s set the stage for the race to Omaha and take a look at how things unfolded last year for the Wolverines and what to expect this season.
A look back at last season
Michigan finished the season 33-23 overall and 16-14 in conference play in 2025, which
was good for sixth place in the conference. Michigan earned a bid to the Big Ten Tournament, but an opening loss to Illinois in extra innings ended the season. The Wolverines played another game against Oregon and lost, but the season would’ve been over with a win as well.
Michigan had a very promising start to the 2025 season, starting 4-0 in the Puerto Rico Challenge, including a win over then-No. 2 Virginia. Unfortunately, the Wolverines lost four games in a row after that and ended up having a mediocre season overall.
2026 expectations
Head coach Tracy Smith is ready to lead the Wolverines into battle for his fourth season in Ann Arbor. He has a 93-79 overall record at Michigan, and this season will be another difficult battle.
Michigan is once again expected to be a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten team. The conference is pretty far behind others like the ACC, SEC and Big 12, as there are usually only a couple of real College World Series contenders each season.
Michigan is not expected to be one of those teams this year, as the Big Ten released its preseason poll earlier this week, which included only the top-six teams. The Wolverines did not make the cut, with the six teams being UCLA, Oregon, USC, Nebraska, Indiana and Iowa.
Essentially, it would be a major win if Michigan makes it to the NCAA Tournament. It’s tough to get an at-large bid in the Big Ten, so fans should be hoping to see the Wolverines qualify for the Big Ten Tournament. If they get there, they’ll have a shot to secure an automatic bid by winning the conference tourney.
Players to watch
The Big Ten also released a list of players to watch in the Big Ten for the 2026 season, and three players from each team were chosen. The players who made the cut from Michigan are sophomore pitcher Tate Carey, senior pitcher Gavin DeVooght and sophomore catcher Noah Miller.
Last season, Carey finished with a 3.63 ERA in 57 innings pitched. He struck out 51 batters and walked 18. Devooght finished with a 5.17 ERA in 15.1 innings pitched while striking out 14 batters and walking eight. Miller had a nice season behind the plate and was an important bat as well, hitting .291 with 18 RBIs and two homers.
Some other players to watch for Michigan are junior outfielder Greg Pace Jr., senior pitcher David Lally Jr., graduate infielder Joe Longo, senior outfielder Jonathan Kim, senior pitcher Max Debiec, senior pitcher Kurt Barr and sophomore infielder Brayden Jefferis. All were impact players last season.
A look at the first weekend
Michigan will start the season at 4 p.m. ET on Friday against No. 12 Oregon State in Surprise, Arizona. The Wolverines will spend the entire weekend there, and they will have some good tests to start the season. They will play four games there, with three of them being against preseason top-25 teams. Michigan will play Oregon State again on Monday to end the trip, and sandwiched between those games are Stanford and No. 24 Arizona.
Michigan plays Stanford 8 p.m. ET on Saturday, Arizona at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, and Oregon State at 2 p.m. on Monday. This is going to be a difficult trip for the Wolverines, but it will be a great test to see where they’re at early in the season.
