![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/a80690c9373870752ed59ea6c278137aa52a832ad4ca89944812265eb95f810d.png\")
<\/p>\nPre-season recognition season is here and Louisville baseball has been active.<\/p>\n
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Louisville baseball <\/a>plays a real game next week. Preseason All-American teams are being announced, and the top media outlets are releasing their lists of their top position players. Alex Alicea<\/a>, Louisville\u2019s junior Shortstop, and \u2018do it all from anywhere in the lineup\u2019 glue guy, is on that list for his position as D1 Baseball has released their top 50 Shortstops in the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alicea, to the surprise of no one in the 502 or in the nation, had cracked the list in the tenth spot, making him truly one of the elite shortstops and players anywhere, in any conference.<\/p>\n I wish I had the very first tweet I ever made about Alex after his first hit as a Cardinal. It very simply read, in all caps, \u201cALEX ALICEA FAN CLUB STAND UP.\u201d You\u2019d be hard-pressed now to find a Cardinal fan who doesn\u2019t expect a hit, a walk, and then a swiped base every time he approaches the plate.<\/p>\n Alicea deserving of praise<\/p>\n The kid is special. He\u2019s a gamer. He sees a play develop one step before, and now he has the expectation and target on his back to deliver in his draft-eligible year. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a well-deserved honor for a guy who has weathered the ups and downs of college baseball. He saw his freshman campaign end with a whimper after going 0-2 in the ACC Tournament, but then in 2025 was two wins from the National Championship Series in Omaha. As a Junior, he has the chance to cement his legacy by being a leader on a Cardinal squad more than poised to find itself headed back to the College World Series.<\/p>\n The Top 10 is led by Roch Cholowsky<\/a> from one of Louisville\u2019s other 2025 College World Series participants in UCLA, who is a name with whom you should familiarize yourself immediately. Kid is a stud. <\/p>\n Tyler Bell<\/a>, with whom Cards fans should be familiar since he plays just down I-64 in Lexington and is also, himself, a stud, clocks in at number 4 on the list. There are two ACC Shortstops ahead of Alicea in the top-10, with Virginia\u2019s Eric Becker<\/a> checking in at number six, and a familiar name from Super Regionals last season \u2013 Jake Ogden<\/a> of Miami just in front of Alicea at number nine.<\/p>\n The Full D1 Baseball Top-10 Shortstops List:<\/p>\n Roch Cholowsky (Jr.), UCLA<\/p>\n Justin Lebron (Jr.) , Alabama<\/p>\n Chris Hacopian (Jr.), Texas A&M<\/p>\n Tyler Bell (So.), Kentucky<\/p>\n Steven Milam (Jr.), LSU<\/p>\n Eric Becker (Jr.), Virginia<\/p>\n Maddox Moloney (Jr.), Oregon<\/p>\n Jaxon Willits (Jr.), Oklahoma<\/p>\n Jake Ogden (Sr.), Miami (FL)<\/p>\n Alex Alicea, (Jr.), Louisville<\/p>\n Louisville\u2019s Season begins next Friday, the 13th, with first pitch against Big Ten foe Michigan State at 3:00pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pre-season recognition season is here and Louisville baseball has been active. Louisville baseball plays a real game next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2289],"tags":[12834,24639,5,648,18891,1579,18890,5073,1694,2341],"class_list":["post-554459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-college-baseball","tag-acc-baseball","tag-alex-alicea","tag-baseball","tag-college-baseball","tag-dan-mcdonnell","tag-louisville","tag-louisville-baseball","tag-louisville-cardinals","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-baseball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116013329022064440","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}