Texas A&M baseball’s Michael Earley talks expectations in Year 1
Between being a preseason favorite and building Year 1 of a new culture, Texas A&M baseball head coach Michael Earley talks about balancing it all.
COLLEGE STATION — A Texas A&M baseball team that fell just one game short of a national title in 2024 likely won’t get a chance to repeat its run.
The consensus preseason No. 1 team in the country came into 2025 with a new coach, a lot of hype and high expectations but finished with mediocre 30-26 record. Now, with the NCAA Tournament field to be announced Monday, the Aggies appear to be on the wrong side of the bubble.
It’s a puzzling collapse from a team that featured four preseason All-Americans and potentially several early-round MLB draft picks.
The Aggies tallied 11 conference wins this season and enter Selection Monday with an RPI of 50, both below the benchmark typically needed to be included in the NCAA Tournament field. Two wins in the conference tournament over solid teams likely won’t be enough to overcome a rocky regular season.
Things got bad early. The Aggies lost their first six SEC games and started 1-8 in conference play. They were the quickest program to fall from No. 1 to unranked since the stat was tracked by D1Baseball.
Let’s take a look at three primary factors that played a role in the Aggies’ disappointing season:
Growing pains for Michael Earley, staff
The one person above all who will carry the burden of disappointment is head coach Michael Earley.
There’s something to be said about needing players to rise to the occasion, but when a team that was just one game away from hoisting a national title trophy fails to make the postseason less than a year later, the crosshairs of blame will be dialed in on the head coach.
Earley, in his first year as head coach after serving as the team’s hitting coach had big shoes to fill. He replaced Jim Schlossnagle, who led the Aggies to their first College World Series appearance the year prior. Schlossnagle (135-62 over three seasons) went to Austin to coach the rival Longhorns and brought pitching coach Max Weiner and associate head coach Nolan Cain from College Station.
Earley appeared to grow more comfortable deeper into the season, but there were stark growing pains.
A moment on March 14 caught the ire of the fanbase when the Aggies hosted the Alabama Crimson Tide. With the game tied at 4-4, Earley replaced reliever Luke Jackson, who went 1⅓ innings with two strikeouts, with Brad Rudis.
Rudis allowed back-to-back home runs in the final inning. The collapse was the catalyst to the Tides’ four-run ninth inning, putting them over the Aggies 6-4.
It’s one example of Earley leaning on analytics and matchups, something he did all year with varying success. From pitching changes to pinch hitters, Earley was unafraid to adjust if he thought it could help. However, sometimes, it felt like Earley was overthinking things instead of trusting the players who were performing.
Changes in the coaching staff outside of Earley could have loomed large as well. A&M’s ERA rose to 4.30 in 2025 after being 3.86 last season under the guidance of Schlossnagle and Weiner — meanwhile, Texas’ ERA lowered to 3.56 this season from 4.91 in 2024.
Aggies’ injuries a constant factor
A season that started with injuries to key relievers Shane Sdao (2.96 ERA in 20 appearances last season) and Josh Stewart (39 strikeouts in just under 33 innings last season) snowballed into what would become a common theme for A&M baseball.
Key senior Hayden Schott (.916 OPS last season) re-tore his surgically repaired meniscus at the beginning of the season, forcing him to wear a bulky knee brace. Freshman All-American Caden Sorrell missed the first 25 games of the season with a hamstring injury, followed by missing the entire SEC Tournament due to a hand injury. Over just 26 games, Sorrell hit .337 with 12 home runs and 32 RBIs.
Starting third baseman Gavin Grahovac, a preseason All-American who was the SEC Freshman of the Year in 2024, played in six games before requiring season-ending shoulder surgery.
Most recently, the team leader in home runs this season, Jace LaViolette, broke his hand and had surgery the same day after being hit by a pitch. The next day, the Aggies’ all-time home run leader played in a game, demonstrating his will and care for the team, but he was a shell of himself and in obvious pain.
Mentioning these injuries isn’t an excuse; it’s a fact.
A&M never had its full array of talent on the field simultaneously this season, testing the team’s depth. Now, it could lose LaViolette and key pitchers Ryan Prager and Justin Lamkin to the MLB draft.
Pressure to produce
The Aggies never shied away from the preseason hype, publicly stating they embraced the attention.
“No. 1, we like it. A lot of teams shy away from it, and a lot of coaches would tell their teams to shy away from it and just kind of block it out as noise,” Schott said on Jan. 23. “It’s kind of fun because when you’re No. 1, you do kind of have that target on your back. Everyone knows you’re No. 1 in the baseball world, and they want to beat you.”
It wasn’t just the players who embraced it, as Earley was unafraid to acknowledge the outside noise, stating “… being Texas A&M and having the season we had last year and the players we have on the team this year, we got a target on our back, no matter what the ranking is.”
However, acknowledging and thriving in the situation are often two different things. Earley said he felt his team would press in the batter’s box, looking to make a play with one swing of the bat. It led to troubling results almost instantly, with the team losing four straight games in February to the likes of Texas State and Cal Poly.
A&M had four losing streaks of three or more games in SEC play and eight nonconference losses. The Aggies showed grit, upsetting Tennessee, Arkansas and LSU. Still, a sweep at the hands of winless Missouri was another example of glaring inconsistency and an inability to capitalize on its talent level.
One could wonder how the weight of how good they were told they were affected their play on game day.
Reach Texas A&M beat reporter Tony Catalina via email at Anthony.Catalina@Hearst.com. Follow the American-Statesman on Facebook and X for more. Your subscription makes work like this possible. Get access to all of our best content with this tremendous offer.