University of North Carolina Athletics
Bolt Earns Preseason Honor From Baseball America
February 3, 2015 | Baseball
By John Manuel, Baseball America
DURHAM, N.C. --- Preseason No. 1 Vanderbilt, the defending College World Series champion, also leads the way on Baseball America's preseason All-America team with three first-team members. Righthanders Walker Buehler and Carson Fulmer and second baseman Dansby Swanson - whom the Commodores plan to shift from second to shortstop this spring - were voted onto the first team.
Baseball America annually polls major league organizations' scouting departments to vote on the team and make their selections based on performance, talent and professional potential. In the past, the preseason All-America team has been a predictor both of the first round of the draft and of team success. For example, nine members of the 2014 preseason first-team became first-round draft picks last June, as did eight second-teamers. Reds first-rounder Nick Howard was the lone college first-round pick who was not selected as a preseason All-American last year.
Two players repeat as preseason first-teamers: LSU shortstop Alex Bregman, who was listed last year as a DH, and Cincinnati's Ian Happ, who has moved from second base to the outfield. Florida State outfielder D.J. Stewart moves up from a preseason third-teamer in 2014 to the first team in 2015. North Carolina outfielder Skye Bolt, a second-teamer last preseason, was voted onto the third team for 2015.
Stewart and Bolt are two of five players from the Atlantic Coast Conference voted onto the preseason first team, tied with the five from the Southeastern Conference.
Because the team is voted on by scouts, BA does not focus solely on Division I players, and righthander Phil Bickford of College of Southern Nevada, a junior college, was voted onto the second team. Bickford played at Cal State Fullerton as a freshman before transferring, and was an unsigned first-round pick in 2013 out of high school.
