It’s that time of year! The Texas Aggie baseball team is set to open up the 2026 season on Friday against Tennessee Tech at Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park. We’re counting down the days with our 2026 Aggie Baseball Preview Series.
Crabcakes and football.
We’ve been led to believe that’s what Maryland does.
Except that a Potomac native’s business has always been baseball.
“We had a baseball facility back home, and that’s what our family did for work,” said Texas A&M infielder Chris Hacopian. “Having access to a facility every day… That’s what I grew up in, and I know I grew up in a state that’s not a big baseball state, but I had so much access to baseball. It was a blessing.”
The 2022 Maryland Gatorade Player of the Year, Hacopian has been blessed with serious talent. Texas A&M fans hope he’s more than a blessing.
His path to professional baseball is making a stop in College Station, where he bolsters a talented Aggie roster intent on correcting last year’s wrongs.
Further, he forms a dangerous trio atop Michael Earley’s lineup with infielder Gavin Grahovac and outfielder Caden Sorrell.
As it turns out, baseball is serious business in Orange, Calif., and Highland Village, Texas.
A&M’s big three — Hacopian, Sorrell and Grahovac — are about to begin their junior seasons, and each is eyeing big things with July’s MLB Draft approaching.
Respectively, they’re ranked No. 16, No. 20 and No. 26 in MLB.com’s top 100 draft prospects.
All of them have garnered some sort of preseason All-American honor.
All of them — along with every man in the Aggie clubhouse — aren’t thinking about their professional futures at the present moment.
“It’s great to see your name in certain things, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean anything,” Grahovac said. “It has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid. … My family is excited, but at the end of that day, we want the same thing, and that’s to have a healthy season, play hard and enjoy every single moment I have with my teammates right now. We’ll worry about that six months from now.”
A shoulder injury forced Grahovac, a 6-foot-3 and 230-pound corner infielder, to miss A&M’s final 50 games of 2025. Sidelined, he watched as the Aggies fell from preseason No. 1 to missing the NCAA Tournament.
He proved to be a massive loss but returns with a new perspective.
“I definitely gained a deeper appreciation for the game of baseball,” Grahovac said. “I think that I learned a lot about myself off the field about my identity and what it is away from the field. That’s the toughest thing.
“I had to be a good teammate. I had to learn how to be a leader in ways that weren’t directly on the field.”
On the field, Grahovac is a former SEC Freshman of the Year. In 2024, he mashed a program rookie record 23 home runs for an A&M team that fell one win shy of a national title.
Off it, he’s always looking to improve and isn’t afraid to mentor a crop of Aggie youngsters that hope to follow in his footsteps — names like Nico Partida, Boston Kellner and Jorian Wilson.
Like Grahovac, Sorrell was hobbled last spring. A hamstring tear limited him to just 26 games.
Unlike his more vocal teammate, he prefers to lead by example, and what an example it is, hitting .337 with an OPS of 1.219 in 2025.
“I don’t like to ride the highs too much,” Sorrell said. “I don’t like to ride the lows. Baseball is a very mental sport, so as soon as you get too down on yourself or you get too high on the coaster, that’s when things start to go south.”
Speaking of lows, the ones experienced in Earley’s debut campaign still loom large in the minds of A&M’s detractors, but there are no lingering ill effects amongst the club.
Just ask Sorrell.
“Nobody has it in their minds,” he said. “A good way to look at it is that a lot of people have already written us off from the year we had last year, so it definitely takes a lot of pressure off of some people’s shoulders.
“I don’t think anybody is really too worried about it or thinking about it anymore.”
Hacopian certainly wasn’t thinking about it on June 19 when he committed to the Maroon & White.
Considered the best bat in the transfer portal last summer, he opted to leave the University of Maryland — his father’s alma mater, where he was the 1992 ACC Player of the Year.
A 2024 Freshman All-American, Hacopian hit .347 with 29 homer runs and 103 RBI across two seasons with the Terrapins.
“It was fun and comfortable, but as far as leaving home, I’ve got to leave home sooner or later,” he said. “It sucks to be away from the family because there is so much family in Maryland, but it’s all good. … I bet you they end up at pretty much every SEC series.”
There are a number of reasons why he picked A&M.
The university’s culture. The history of the program. Hitting tutelage from Earley. Infield expertise with Cliff Pennington.
Not to mention playing in America’s best college baseball league.
“I’m not afraid of any competition,” Hacopian said. “I’ve got goals to play professional baseball, and if I can’t play in the SEC, then I don’t deserve to play professional baseball.”
The SEC attracts top-end talent. Before joining the league in 2013, A&M had already done that for decades.
Even after a down year, the Aggies believe they have the pieces necessary to make another run. It’s a familiar thought amongst the 16-team conference.
“It’s appetizing, and it’s something that you want to be a part of,” Hacopian said. “There is a lot of talent here, too. That was really cool to have the opportunity to be in a lineup with other guys who are as talented as they are.”
“These guys want to win. The coolest thing is that these guys want to be at A&M,” Grahovac said. “We can compete with anyone. … They come here because we all have the same goal, and that’s to win a national championship.”
With the 27th overall pick in last year’s draft, Cleveland made Jace LaViolette the 15th Aggie to be selected in the first round. It’s possible that Hacopian, Grahovac and Sorrell join that list in just a few months.
It would be a childhood dream come true for each.
“Since I was four years old, I always wanted to play in the big leagues, and growing up, I wanted to be the best player I could be,” Sorrell said. “It would mean the world to my dad and my grandfather as well. … I think it would mean the world to them for sure.”
“I’m just excited for that day, if it comes, to hug my mom and hug my dad and just say ‘thank you’ to them and then get rolling,” Hacopian said. “Getting drafted is just the start of the dream, and I’m sure it’s going to be a rocky road. If that day comes, I’ll be excited and headed there with gratitude.”
Between now and then, there’s another dream to tend to.
“National championship. This town deserves it,” Hacopian said. “This team, it would be really special to accomplish that, but it’s going to be a long day-to-day process to do that.”
They’re ready to crash the party in Omaha and remind the country what Texas A&M baseball does.
Win.
