If there’s one thing you quickly become aware of when following college baseball, it’s the fact that there is a never-ending supply of Top 25 polls. Unlike its college basketball or football counterparts, baseball has six legitimate polls — just review the constantly updating Wikipedia page — instead of the one Associated Press Top 25.

This creates all types of confusion, as we dived into last season, but it’s not something that’s going away any time soon. An interesting exercise is to take the composite of each poll — giving 25 points to the first ranked, 24 to the second, and so on — and get a general sense of how the national landscape is shaping up.

College Baseball Hub has its own composite of eight(!) polls, but we’ll narrow our focus to the “core” five: D1 Baseball, Baseball America, ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, and Perfect Game.

As was the case in 2022, there’s a consensus No. 1: Wake Forest. Last year, that title belonged to LSU, the eventual national champions. Here’s the full Top 25, led by the Demon Deacons.

Rank		Team	USA	BA	PG	NCBWA	D1	Points
1		Wake Forest	1	1	1	1	1	125
2		LSU	2	2	3	2	4	117
3		Florida	3	4	4	3	2	114
4		Arkansas	4	3	2	4	3	114
5		TCU	5	6	5	6	5	103
6		Vanderbilt	6	7	6	7	6	98
7		Oregon State	7	5	9	8	7	94
8		Tennessee	8	8	11	5	9	89
9		Texas A&M	10	11	7	10	8	84
10		Virginia	11	10	10	11	14	74
11		Texas	13	13	8	9	16	71
12		Clemson	9	9	21	12	10	69
13		East Carolina	12	14	17	13	11	63
14		North Carolina	15	17	14	16	15	53
15		Duke	14	16	23	14	12	51
16		South Carolina	21	12	13	15	25	44
17		NC State	16	22	19	18	13	42
18		Stanford	23	15	12	17	—	37
19		Iowa	20	20	16	21	20	33
20		Coastal Carolina	19	19	25	19	18	30
21		Texas Tech	22	18	—	20	21	23
22		UC Santa Barbara	18	—	24	24	17	21
23		Alabama	17	—	—	23	19	19
24		UCLA	24	—	18	22	22	18
25		Auburn	—	23	15	25	—	15

Now, a consensus Top 25 is nice, but it’s interesting to see where these ranking outlets disagree. Which teams are some polls higher on than others? And vice versa?

RedditCFB puts out a weekly look at AP ballots during the football season, sorted by how similar each voter is to the overall poll — a lower score is more conventional, a higher score is a bigger outlier. It essentially measures the average number of ranks that one poll differs from the consensus.

That might seem like overkill for a five-poll sample size, but it’s a fun exercise. Here are the five polls, sorted by the average difference score (click to expand):

Perfect Game comes in as the most different from the consensus, which you’ll see below. For those fans looking to pick your poll based on who believes in your team more…consider this:

Perfect Game

Higher on: Auburn (+10), UCLA (+6), Kansas State (+6)
Lower on: Clemson (-9), Duke (-8), Coastal Carolina (-5)

Baseball America

Higher on: Oklahoma State (+5), South Carolina (+4)
Lower on: NC State (-5)

D1 Baseball

Higher on: UC Santa Barbara (+5), Alabama (+4), NC State (+4)
Lower on: South Carolina (-9), Texas (-5),

NCBWA

Higher on: Tennessee (+3)
Lower on: N/A (none farther than two spots below consensus)

USA Today

Higher on: Alabama (+6), Clemson (+3)
Lower on: Stanford (-5), South Carolina (-5)

Based on those numbers, it should come as no surprise that South Carolina was the team that divided opinion the most. The Gamecocks were as high as No. 12 in Baseball America’s rankings and as low as No. 25 in D1 Baseball’s. They settled at 16th in the aggregate rankings.

It’s useful to look at both outlets reasoning — BA sees the Gamecocks as having an explosive lineup and big upside on the mound, even with quite a few new faces. D1 Baseball, meanwhile, agrees on the lineup — but harbors their doubts on the mound.

Featured Image: Credit to Wake Forest, LSU, and Florida Athletics