Yes, the College World Series players are getting bigger and stronger

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(Photo by Eddie Kelly / ProLook Photos)

If it seems like this season’s College World Series players are cut from a different cloth than the CWS stars of years past, know that it’s not just your imagination.

This year’s lineups of CWS finalists Texas A&M and Tennessee were larger and heavier than usual. It’s not easy to determine the height and weight of all CWS finalists over the last 70+ years, but looking at the lineups of the champions and runners-up over the last 15 years, it’s safe to say that this year’s champion will be one of the largest and heavier lineups in CWS history.

When South Carolina won it all in 2011, it did so with a deciding game roster that included only two players taller than 6 feet 0 inches and two players heavier than 200 pounds.

This year, 15 of the 20 starters in Game 2 of the CWS final were taller than 1.80 m. Only four starters weighed less than 90 kg.

That’s the trend in the CWS. The players on the CWS teams of the last few seasons are taller and heavier than they were a few years ago. Since the pandemic, the size of the players has been steadily increasing, but there has been a huge jump in the last two years.

The 2023 LSU-Florida matchup was even tougher. Last year’s average player was 6’1″ tall and weighed 205 pounds.

Thanks to the extra year of eligibility for players affected by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the shortened MLB draft and relaxed transfer rules, college baseball is more dominated by juniors and seniors these days. That could play a role in the bigger, heavier lineups, as players often gain weight—and very rarely lose weight—as they get older and more mature.

The changing nature of the game is almost certainly part of the change as well. The average weight of 199 pounds in 2009 was the highest of any year studied through 2023. We could have gone back even further for the study, but Fresno State’s 2008 roster does not include player weights and the Georgia baseball team’s roster is no longer available on the team’s website. Still, heavier lineups in 2009 coincided with a home run rate that had skyrocketed thanks to bat rolling.

As the home run rate dropped, so did the average size of a starter in the CWS finals. With fewer home runs, there was an increased emphasis on athleticism and defense. In 2013 and 2014, this culminated in a total of six home runs in 30 CWS games over two seasons. A team built to win with walks and home runs was not going to make it to the dogpile league.

In 2023 and 2024, a team that doesn’t hit home runs was unlikely to succeed in Omaha. And if that means using less agile players in some spots on defense, the offensive gain will likely be worth it, especially if the opposing team also scores more of its runs through home runs than it did a few years ago.

There is a bit of a misconception that Charles Schwab Stadium lacks home run power. This is an understandable misconception, as Rosenblatt was a launching pad for home runs. The opening of the new stadium in 2011 coincided with the introduction of a “dead ball” period in college baseball, so it suddenly seemed like the new college baseball championship stadium was an impossible place for home runs.

But as home runs regained popularity in college baseball, they generally returned to Omaha. The home run rate at Schwab Stadium exactly matches the home run rate of Division I as a whole.

We can say with certainty that the lineups for the CWS champions and runners-up have gotten bigger in recent years. However, we can’t say whether the bigger, heavier players lead to more home runs, or whether the increased home runs lead to bigger and heavier players being prominent, or a little of both.

Here’s a look at the average height, weight and BMI of the starting lineups (nine batters plus the starting pitcher) for the final game of each CWS Finals since 2009. For 2024, we used the lineup from Game 2 of the CWS Finals. The 2012 and 2016 averages do not include Arizona’s stats because the Wildcats do not list weights on their roster.