The Starting Lineup: The Diamond Report

This marks the return of my pursuit to write a daily, or at-least near-daily, column regarding the sport we all love.  In the past, the college baseball season has begun with my attempts to preview and recap the biggest contests that sandwich that morning’s recap.  It didn’t take long for other things to come up, eventually leaving my good intentions in the dust.  

Today, I’ve decided to give this pursuit another shot, and I’m going to tell YOU, why this time is going to be different, and in doing so, I am going to prove my main point.  For the first time in producing these write ups, I’m not going to tell you what you already know.  With that, I’m not going to be able to tell you anything you don’t already know either.  Okay? So what’s the point?

Well, with this try, the third by count, I’m going to keep it a little bit more real.  A lot of you probably know a little bit about me.  Many of you originally “met” me through the somewhat anonymous persona through which I tweeted as the solo-entity “CWS247”.  I’ve documented the story before, but as time went on, my tweets built on wit, minor clickbaiting, and mostly curiosity, about a sport I had a crush on, led to a little more notoriety than I had ever imagined.  With some work and learning daily, CWS247 became College Baseball Central and the shiny new name came with a fresher, more polished Twitter presence.

Now, this is still a morning column, it’s going to be buttoned up, but it’s going to be a lot more fun for both you and me.  I want to wake up at 6 AM excited to talk about college baseball, with a side of wit and humor before checking in to my day job, because I know you’re doing the exact same thing.  

This is going to be experimental, but consistent.  What I will never do is trash a program or a coach.  Flat out, won’t happen.  I’ll also extend the same courtesy to the players and even the fans.  I want this to be something you read every morning, not to check the scores from the night before, because you’re already a college baseball sicko, you don’t need me to tell you who won the top 25 midweek because you watched every pitch.

So, with setting the table, today is January 23, 2026.  I am on day 33 of being a father, and it’s been an unbelievable experience watching the woman I love be a mother to the person I love more than anything, even though all she does is sleep or wreak havoc... (I'm talking about the baby here).

Conveniently, while managing the mega-life hurdle of learning to be a father on the fly, I worked alongside an incredible group in crafting what I might consider to be the single greatest piece of college baseball content ever.  While the group spent much of the fall speaking to coaches and attending scrimmages, it was 36 days ago when our notes began being crafted into a product.

The team I worked with, Matt Grissom and Quentin Mills (College Baseball Insiders), Monty Taylor (Just Baseball), Noah Bieniek (11point7) and Andrew Riedell (College Baseball Central), worked tirelessly to put this project together.  Text chains and Facetimes sometimes going until 3 or 4 AM, recording statistics across team sites, gathering notes and intel from programs across the country, editing and going on tangents about our favorite college baseball stories kept us on the brink of insanity in the best way.  

Today, we’re set to release our finished work.  The Diamond Report.  A 208 page encyclopedia outlining the 2026 college baseball season, complete with breakdowns on every conference in the country.  Additionally, you’ll find 600 word presentations on each power four program alongside their schedule, projected lineups and rotations, among other juicy tidbits.  On a larger scope, the guide features first- and second-team projections for every conference from the SEC to the MAAC.  Nationally, we project the teams who will be competing in Omaha and the players who will earn All-American status along the way.

With all of this, we’re hopeful the years of free content, insight and coverage yielded from the sources in this guide have earned your financial trust.  For $20, you can support the project we’ve worked on the hardest and give us a massive vote of confidence.  Also, you’ll obtain the greatest product in college baseball history. If you don't want to print all 200+ pages yourself but covet a hard copy to carry with you to the ballpark, that can be arranged too for just a little more.

This guide is a baseball fan's dream, especially if that fan has been “Squidward” in the below meme.  Yeah, I tweeted it just for this purpose.

Stay tuned, I promise it is going to be worth every penny… we greatly appreciate your support.