ASU baseball starts its new era at Phoenix Municipal Stadium Friday night, and does so with expectations of a third-place finish in conference, according to the Pac-12 preseason coaches poll.
ASU received two votes to win the conference, but still fell behind UCLA and Oregon. The poll gave 10 points if a team was voted to finish first, nine points to finish second, eight to finish third, etc. ASU finished with 82 points, UCLA with 96 and Oregon with 84.
UCLA came in first, followed by Oregon, ASU, Stanford, Oregon State, USC, Arizona, Cal, Washington, Washington State and Utah.
Nationally, ASU has also gotten preseason recognition. The Sun Devils are a consensus late teens, early 20s squad as far as ranked teams go. Baseball America has them as the No. 18 team in the country while Collegiate Baseball Magazine has them No. 19, Perfect Game USA has them No. 20, USA Today has them No. 21 and D1Baseball.com has them No. 24.