Baseball America just dropped its college baseball preseason top 25 rankings on Monday, January 19th, and it views Georgia Tech as one of the top programs in the country entering the 2026 season, as does multiple other outlets.

The Yellow Jackets are coming off of one of their best seasons in recent memory as they went 41-19 overall along with a 19-11 record in the Atlantic Coast Conference which earned them an ACC regular season championship in Danny Hall’s final season as head coach of the program. The Jackets brought some high hopes into the postseason but unfortunately came up just short in both the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament. They fell to Clemson in the ACC semi-final before falling to Ole Miss in the Oxford Regional semi-final after the Jackets felt they were snubbed from hosting a regional of their own.

Despite coming up short in the postseason on top of losing their long-time head coach, Georgia Tech is still believe to be one of the best teams in the country. Baseball America’s rankings has the Jackets coming in at fourth overall, while D1 Baseball’s preseason rankings has them at fifth overall. Perfect Game has the highest placement for Georgia Tech as the Jackets are ranked second overall only behind reigning national champs, LSU.

The preseason rankings are very bullish on Georgia Tech large in part due to the talent they are returning in 2026 along with the talent they added in the transfer portal.

For starters, center fielder Drew Burress enters his third season with the Jackets as one of the top players in the country and as a top prospect in the upcoming MLB draft. Speaking of top draft prospects, Vahn Lackey presents himself as arguably the top catcher in this year’s draft class and the top catcher in the country in 2026. Both players are likely top 15 picks this July and will play a big role in Georgia Tech’s road to Omaha.

The outfield on either side of Burress will feature sophomores Caleb Daniel and Alex Hernandez who both had excellent freshman seasons in 2025 while returning sophomore Kent Schmidt, another player that exceeded as a freshman, returns to play first base.

Georgia Tech’s important transfer portal additions

While the Jackets lost star shortstop Kyle Lodise to the draft a year ago, they did a fine job in replacing him via the transfer portal as Jarren Advincula, California’s second baseman in each of the last two seasons, will slide over to take over shortstop duties for Georgia Tech. Advincula is another draft prospect this year with the potential to be a first round pick. The Jackets also landed Ryan Zuckerman via the transfer portal, former Pitt third baseman who will now man the hot corner. This current position player core certainly stands out as one of the top lineups in the country.

The Jackets also managed to land two big arms via the transfer portal as well. Left handed junior Dylan Loy will join the Jackets pitching staff after pitching out of relief in each of the last two seasons for Tennessee. The big get for the Jackets was Justin Shadek, a right handed, red shirt sophomore coming over from Rutgers. Shadek features some of the best stuff in college baseball and will presumably be Georgia Tech’s Friday night starter. The Jackets also return a number of important bullpen arms such as Mason Patel, Caden Spivey, and Carson Ballard.

In his first year as head coach, James Ramsey will have to handle lofty expectations for this Georgia Tech program. The players are bought in to what Ramsey is already building as he recently stated in an interview that he didn’t have to have one sit-down conversation to retain a player in the portal.

With expectations as high as they are for Georgia Tech, it feels like it’s Omaha or bust for the Yellow Jackets in 2026. We are now roughly only three weeks out from Georgia Tech’s opener as they take on Bowling Green on Friday, February 13th at Russ Chandler Stadium.