{"id":556739,"date":"2026-02-05T22:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T22:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/556739\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T22:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T22:06:14","slug":"where-tennessee-baseball-was-picked-to-finish-in-the-sec-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/556739\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Tennessee baseball was picked to finish in the SEC in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Tennessee baseball won\u2019t enter the Josh Elander era as an SEC favorite \u2014 far from it, actually. The Volunteers have been picked to finish sixth in the conference by the coaches around the league, receiving 162 points in the poll. LSU was picked to win the league with 231 points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Texas, Mississippi State, Arkansas and Auburn rounded out the top five. Tennessee didn\u2019t receive any first place votes in the poll.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Tennessee, which lost star head coach Tony Vitello to the San Fransisco Giants over the offseason, has been ranked as high as the top five in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.perfectgame.org\/Articles\/View.aspx?article=24061&amp;src=hmrep\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">various preseason polls<\/a>. Following an NCAA Super Regional exit last year, Tennessee has reloaded the roster and held returning pieces together despite the coaching change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">One of those new additions, Henry Ford, was named to the SEC\u2019s first-team by the media today. Ford hit .362 with 11 home runs and 46 RBIs last season for Virginia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Right-handed pitcher Brandon Arvidson was also named to the SEC\u2019s first-team. Slugger Levi Clark was named to the SEC\u2019s second team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">2026 SEC Baseball Preseason Coaches Poll<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Tennessee gets things going next weekend with a three-game weekend series against Nicholls State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennessee baseball won\u2019t enter the Josh Elander era as an SEC favorite \u2014 far from it, actually. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,941],"class_list":{"0":"post-556739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-tennessee-volunteers-baseball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116020299902144322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556739","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=556739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}