(Photo: Sun Devil Athletics)
From the outside looking in, Arizona State baseball had a great 2025 season.
The Sun Devils stayed in the hunt to finish the regular season as the No. 1 team in the Big 12 until the final weekend of their first year in the conference, and they won 36 games for the first time since 2019 while making the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2021.
But to the team, the year was a failure.
When ASU recorded its 27th out against UC Irvine in the second elimination game of the Los Angeles regional, it meant the Sun Devils’ chances of being the last team standing were over. And if you don’t win in the playoffs, who cares? Because the players certainly don’t.
“(Head coach Willie Bloomquist) talked to us a lot about how we made the postseason, but we shouldn’t be celebrating that,” junior right-handed pitcher Wyatt Halvorson told reporters at ASU baseball’s first preseason media availability Friday afternoon. “That should be a standard, that should be expected. … I think last year’s team was a way better team than one win in the playoffs. That was definitely disappointing, and for me, at least, that kind of pissed me off.”
25 Sun Devils have departed the program since then, due to graduation, the MLB draft or the transfer portal. But for the 16 returners and 27 new faces in the clubhouse, last year’s shortcomings serve as motivation. It’s a long way to Omaha, and the 2026 iteration of the Sun Devils could very well never make it, but to give themselves a chance, they’ve already got it on the forefront of their mind.
“It starts right now,” junior left-handed pitcher Cole Carlon said. “Six (plus) months away (from the college baseball playoffs), this is a really big time to set the foundation for what we want to do moving forward.”
To set that foundation, the Sun Devils need to put in the work. They have scrimmages scheduled against Cal Baptist and Grand Canyon later in the fall, but for now, they’re taking advantage of the opportunities to get in work with and against each other.
The Sun Devils have practiced, scrimmaged and lifted this fall, bonding over the shared experiences. Only time will tell how far the play on the field can take them, but the group has the chemistry needed to be great. Players sat in on their teammates’ interviews on Friday, joked about asking questions and raved about the squad.
“We all get after it in the weight room,” Halvorson said. “We all push each other in conditioning, the hitters in BP (batting practice), pitchers when we’re doing our individual defensive competitions. I’ve never been around a group of guys who want to work as hard and have as much fun working hard, ever. … That’ll help us going into the spring, for sure.”
Now, as upperclassmen, Halvorson and Carlon are a big part of setting the foundation and standard for the transfers and underclassmen. In their third year, their time to get to Omaha is running out. Still, they have two years to accomplish their goals; for a group of six seniors, graduates and fifth years, 2026 could very well be their last dances.
One member of that group is senior southpaw Sean Fitzpatrick, who has barely missed the ultimate goal multiple times in his baseball journey.
The Texas State Championship was just out of reach for Fitzpatrick in high school, finishing as the runner-up his junior year and failing to advance past the semi-finals as a senior. Before transferring to ASU prior to the 2024 season, he played at Arkansas, a program that was two wins away from lifting the CWS trophy.
In his last year of eligibility, he’s still as hungry as ever to reach the finish line.
“You guys see, right behind you, it says ‘Destination Omaha,’” Fitzpatrick said in reference to the picture of the College Baseball World Series that takes up the back wall of Phoenix Municipal Stadium’s media room. “I’ve been part of some good teams in my college career, but I haven’t gone to Omaha. I want that for myself, but I also want it for the guys and the coaching staff. It’s something that’s attainable and that has to be our goal this year.”
Fitzpatrick’s fellow senior, right-handed pitcher Kole Klecker, is one of just a few players on ASU’s roster who have experience in Omaha after transferring in from TCU this summer.
At the end of Klecker’s freshman year, the Horned Frogs went on a magical run. After barely managing to finish Big 12 regular season play above .500, they didn’t drop a single game in the end-of-season tournament, punching their ticket to the NCAA tournament. There, their run continued to Omaha before losing in the semi-finals.
Klecker threw 10 innings of three-run ball across two starts in the CWS, and through that experience learned what it takes to win at that level.
“Just understanding being part of that team, knowing what it takes, just sharing that with the guys around me,” Klecker said. “It’s about stacking days, getting 1% better every time. We’ve got a lot of depth here, we’ve got a lot of experience, we’ve got a great coaching staff around us. When all those things get put together, that’s when something special can happen.”
Klecker’s experience is invaluable, and it’s part of what makes him one of the headliners of a transfer class that’s ranked No. 11 in the nation by 64 Analytics. He joins players like fifth-year outfielder Dean Toigo – who posted a 1.127 OPS at UNLV last season – junior infielder PJ Moutzaouridis – who has one of the best gloves at shortstop in the nation – and graduate outfielder Matthew Polk – who brings three years of SEC experience from Vanderbilt.
Bloomquist was also able to offer a full 34 scholarships for the first time this year, a major increase from the previous 11.7 that he had to disperse throughout his entire team.
The new faces make it clear that the Sun Devils no longer have the team that got them the Los Angeles regional last season, but just a quick sniff of the playoffs isn’t where they’re trying to end up anyway.
“That’s not going to happen again,” Halvorson said. “We’re a much better team than one win in the playoffs. We expect to go to much farther and higher places.”
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