With a veteran lineup and a pitching staff full of upside, expectations were high for Arizona entering the 2025 season. The Wildcats more then met those, returning to the College World Series.

But the year after getting to Omaha can often be a rough one, particularly for teams that saw the bulk of their best players depart. That’s the case for the UA, particularly in the field, where it must replace six starters.

“I don’t think the expectations are as high for this group,” coach Chip Hale said Monday. “I think we have a lot of questions to answer in the first month of the season.”

Arizona, which opens the 2026 season Friday at Surprise Stadium against former Pac-12 foe Stanford, was still picked by Big 12 coaches to finish second in the league. The Wildcats are also No. 24 in D1Baseball’s preseason poll, so it’s not like the national perception is this is going to be a down year.

But those projections are likely based mostly on the pitching Arizona returns, and it’s a lot. Seven arms that were on the 2025 team bring with them 343.2 innings of experience from last season, roughly 60 percent thrown over 65 games.

That includes frontline starters Owen Kramkowski and Smith Bailey, who combined for 36 starts including one each in the CWS. And on the back end there’s seniors Tony Pluta, the reigning NCBWA Stopper of the Year and UA single-season saves leader and a preseason All-American, and workhorse Garrett Hicks.

Kramkowski and Bailey will be in the weekend rotation, along with one of either Collin McKinney—the Friday night starter for most of last season—transfer Luc Fladda or freshman Jack Lafflam. Hale said the order for this weekend’s games, which include Saturday against Oregon State and Sunday against Michigan, on Tuesday.

The pitching will be under new leadership, as Sean Kenny was hired in late December following John DeRouin’s departure for a job in the New York Mets organization. Arizona has since lost another pitching assistant, Owen Cuffe, to a similar gig with the Colorado Rockies, and Hale is in the process of finding a replacement for Cuffe’s director of player development role but in the meantime Kenny will be flying solo.

“The guys have taken to him,” Hale said of Kenny. “There’s not a whole lot of lab or creating new pitches at this point in the season. That stuff’s been done, the hay is in the barn. He’s coaching them on the things that’s important to get hitters out, and also we want to be a better team at holding runners and defending at the pitching spot too. He’s put a lot of time into that.”

On the hitting side, back are senior Maddox Mihalakis and juniors Easton Breyfogle and Andrew Cain. That trio started 154 games last season and will anchor the lineup, with Mihalakis at third base and the others in the outfield.

Everywhere else will be a lot of new, either to the team itself or being a regular.

Tyler Bickers (Milwaukee) will start at second and likely lead off, while Carson McEntire (Oregon State) will play either left or center field and Beau Sylvester (Oklahoma State) will platoon behind the plate with junior college transfer Roman Meyers. Mathis Meurant will likely start at shortstop, with big shoes to fill after Mason White’s three stellar years, though freshman Cash Brennan is battling him for that job.

First base will be between a pair of redshirt freshmen: Tony Lira, who entered the NCAA transfer portal and had good offers to play elsewhere (per Hale) before choosing to return, and Nate Novitske, who can also play second and third and will be part of the DH rotation.

“We’re going to play the guys who’ve given us reason to play,” Hale said. “They’ve earned the right to get some at-bats, and so they’re going to get their chances.”

Arizona hit 78 home runs last season but 60 of those were by guys who got drafted or graduated. Cain, with six, is the top returning slugger from 2025 while Mihalakis is the active career homer leader with 15.

While the Wildcats may not hit as many out of the park as a year ago they should put the ball in play more. Hale said the emphasis during the fall and in preseason intrasquad games has been battling at the plate and getting on base in whatever way possible, and when runners are on doing things to move them over.

“We saw how it all played in the playoffs when we played Coastal (Carolina) and we played Louisville, and we saw the pressure they were able to exert on us,” Hale said. “I just feel like at this level, after three or four years of being here, it’s something that we need to be proficient at. We need to be better at it. We don’t have to be perfect, but we need to get a bunt down every now and then. We need to be able to hit run. And it’s helps, I think, doing it and working on it over the fall, working on it in the preseason, has also helped us defend it.”