The 2025 season will be the first with Oregon State as an independent rather than being part of a conference. The Pac-12 all but disintegrated in recent years, with 10 of the 12 schools leaving for the BigTen, ACC, or Big 12 beginning this school year, while Oregon State and Washington State were left without a viable conference. Washington State chose to enter an agreement to become a member of the Mountain West Conference for their baseball team, but Oregon State chose to go independent. This means a majority of their games are on the road and have put together one of the more intriguing schedules in the country.

With all the changes and the transfer portal being such commonplace in college sports these days, nobody would fault players at Oregon State from entering the portal and transferring to another school, but that wasn’t even on the table for Colorado native Dallas Macias.”I came to Oregon State because of Oregon State, not because of the Pac 12. I love Oregon State, I love the history of Oregon State, and I love the coaches.”

Not being in a conference isn’t preventing the Beavers from playing in impressive ballparks. Their first 11 games of the season are spread out between Surprise, AZ in the Spring Training stadium for the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals. Then Round Rock, TX at the Triple-A home of the Rangers affiliate, the Round Rock Express, and Globe Life Field, the 40,000+ seat home of the Rangers. Macias and Oregon State played at Globe Life Field a season ago, and the thing that stood out most was the incredible size. “The main difference that I remember, especially at Globe Life, the entire stadium as a whole is pretty massive…It feels like it is a bigger stage and the actual surface area is bigger than most stadiums…the outfield, I remember thinking ‘there is some room out here!’”

Macias transitioned from infielder to an outfielder when he arrived at Oregon State, but he became comfortable at the new position rather quickly. What best set himself up for success going from the dirt of the infield to the grass of the outfield? High school football! “A lot of the footwork that I have been doing since I was a little kid and through high school, a lot of that played a huge role defensively in the outfield in the footwork because it is really all the same stuff…It made it extremely comfortable.”

Now a junior in college, Macias is draft eligible, and hopes to make those trips to Minor and Major League ballparks a daily occurrence, and there is a good chance he will be doing just that next year. MLB.com has him ranked as the #60 overall draft prospect in the draft, while I have him as the #55 college baseball prospect in the class. He feels spending so much time on the road this season is actually an advantage getting him setup for success at the next level, where weeks long road trips are regular occurrences. 

That said, the series he is most looking forward to this season isn’t at one of the big ballparks, nor is it a trip to Colorado’s state neighbor Nebraska, it isn’t even a trip to play baseball in Hawaii. Instead, the series he has circled on his calendar is a weekend series in the middle of May that sees Long Beach State visit Corvallis. Why? “One of my best friends (Alex Champagne) growing up plays for Long Beach State and they come to us…that is another Colorado kid and I am really excited for that!”

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