The college baseball season, even if it had been allowed to unfold normally and wasn’t halted by the coronavirus pandemic, would now be over. The College World Series was slated to conclude June 23 or 24 and by now the dogpile would be just a memory as the spring turned to summer.

So, on what should have been the first full week of the offseason, we’re updating the Never Too Early Top 25. We debuted this ranking last month, once the framework for the 2021 season had been decided – every player getting an extra year of eligibility and a five-round MLB draft. Now, with the draft complete and a slew of nondrafted free agents signed, we can revisit the Top 25 with the latest roster movement.

While we do now have more solid information about how rosters are coming together, we still had to make some assumptions to put this ranking together. Chiefly, we are assuming every player who was drafted will sign. That’s true of almost every player selected in the first five rounds in a normal year and should be the case this year as well, because correctly assessing the signability of players in a five-round draft is even more important. There will likely still be some player movement that affects some teams in the rankings – either from unexpected nondrafted free agent signings or in the transfer market – but right now we can only assess the moves that have been made so far.

Using those basic parameters, Florida tops the ranking, as it did in its first iteration. The Gators were No. 1 at the end of the abbreviated 2020 season and did not lose a player to the draft, as righthanders Tommy Mace and Jack Leftwich both unexpectedly will return to Gainesville to again front the rotation. Beyond that 1-2 punch, the Gators have plenty of returning talent, including center fielder Jud Fabian and lefthander Hunter Barco, who are both potential top-10 picks in the 2021 and 2022 drafts, respectively. To top it off, another standout recruiting class is on the way, giving Florida a deep, talented roster worthy of a national championship favorite.

UC Santa Barbara is the lone new team in the rankings, displacing Central Florida. UCSB made it through the draft unscathed and should have one of the best rotations on the West Coast to go with a veteran lineup. UCF, meanwhile, now has a few key pitchers to replace from a team that surged into the rankings this spring.

There are still a lot of unknowns all around, but reasonable projections can be made for the 2021 season. This is our latest attempt. We will continue to update these rankings during the offseason months to come to reflect the latest developments.