Every January, D1Baseball does something interesting after fall coverage wraps up. They ask a question:
Who actually stood out?
The answers tend to be names that looked different during fall workouts and intrasquads. Players whose arrows appear to be pointing up heading into the spring. Some are obvious. Some are not.
Buried in this year’s list were three Big West position players: Cameron Kim (Cal State Fullerton), Tommy Farmer (UC Irvine), and Braxton Thomas (Cal Poly).
If you follow the conference closely, there’s a decent chance you haven’t seen much of any of them yet. Two are new to the Big West. The third has spent most of his first two seasons trying to stay on the field. That’s fine. This isn’t a scouting report, and it’s not a declaration that any of these players are about to dominate the league.
Think of this instead as a heads-up. These are names national writers flagged before the season started, and there are clear, practical reasons why each one could matter in the Big West in 2026.
Cameron Kim, 3B/SS – Cal State Fullerton
D1Baseball’s note on Cameron Kim was short and blunt: there may not be a player in the Big West with more upside
That’s not language they use casually.
Kim arrives at Cal State Fullerton after two seasons at UCLA where consistent playing time was hard to come by. Over that span, he made 17 starts total, bouncing in and out of the lineup. That alone makes him difficult to evaluate. Some players force the issue immediately. Others need a longer runway before anything stabilizes.
Physically, Kim looks the part. He’s listed at 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, with a frame that fits in the middle of a college lineup. He also offers defensive flexibility between third base and shortstop, which matters at Fullerton, where versatility has always been valued and opportunities tend to follow players who can handle multiple roles.
What changes here isn’t just the uniform. It’s the situation. At UCLA, Kim was trying to crack a veteran roster. At Fullerton, he’s being brought in to play. If he hits, the at-bats will be there. That’s a meaningful difference, especially for a player whose college career to this point has been defined more by limited reps than by failure.
A breakout for Kim doesn’t need to look dramatic. It probably looks like everyday playing time, more consistent contact, and stretches where the physical tools show up often enough to stop being theoretical. Sometimes upside lingers simply because no one ever gives it room to surface. Fullerton appears willing to do that.
Tommy Farmer, OF – UC Irvine
Tommy Farmer is the most established player on this list in terms of experience, even if Big West fans are just getting to know him.
A transfer from Texas, Farmer made 48 starts for the Longhorns last season, hitting .249 with 13 doubles while playing in one of the deepest lineups in the country. Even if the stat line doesn’t jump off the page, earning regular at-bats in the SEC isn’t trivial.
What stood out to D1Baseball — and what should matter locally — is how Farmer fits at UC Irvine. Head coach Ben Orloff described him as a 70-plus runner and a true center-field athlete, the type of player who impacts games beyond the box score.
That profile plays well in this conference. Irvine has built winning teams around defense, speed, and pressure, and Farmer checks each of those boxes. He doesn’t need to become a middle-of-the-order bat to be valuable. If he tightens his zone control a bit, puts more balls in play, and lets his speed work, he becomes a difficult matchup quickly, both offensively and defensively.
The Colin Yeaman comparison Orloff mentioned isn’t about identical skill sets so much as trajectory. It’s about a player arriving with tools and experience, then taking a step forward once role and environment align. If Farmer breaks out, it likely won’t be loud at first. It’ll show up as better at-bats, cleaner reads in center, and more pressure on opposing pitchers, before it becomes harder to ignore.
Braxton Thomas – Cal Poly
Braxton Thomas might be the most straightforward breakout case on this list, even if he’s also been the hardest to evaluate.
At 6-foot-2, 220 pounds, Thomas looks like a middle-of-the-order hitter the moment he steps into the box. Power has never been the question. Availability has.
His first two seasons at Cal Poly were disrupted by injuries, limiting both his reps and his visibility. That makes it difficult to get a clean read on who he is as a college hitter. You can’t evaluate consistency if a player never gets the chance to be consistent.
According to D1Baseball’s Eric Sorenson, this fall was different. Thomas finally had a healthy, uninterrupted fall, and the reports were emphatic. He was described as the best hitter on the team during workouts — not in flashes, but day to day.
That matters for a Mustangs lineup that lost some power from last season. In a conference where true power threats can be scarce, even one hitter who forces pitchers to be careful can change how an entire lineup functions.
For Thomas, the breakout formula is simple: stay on the field. If he does, the physicality and bat speed suggest the production should follow naturally.
Why These Names Are Worth Noting
None of this requires blind faith. D1Baseball didn’t present Kim, Farmer, and Thomas as sure things – only as players who looked different this fall, whose arrows are pointing up.
What ties them together is timing.
Kim is stepping into a clearer role.
Farmer is landing in a system that values exactly what he does well.
Thomas is finally healthy and getting uninterrupted reps.
Those are the conditions under which breakouts tend to happen.
For Big West fans, this isn’t about prediction. It’s about awareness. These are names worth circling early – players you might not have seen much yet, but ones national eyes have already flagged.
Sometimes the breakout doesn’t announce itself.
Sometimes it just shows up, and keeps showing up.
Big West Dugout 