Latest / Sports Avenue Twisted Podcast / Episode 58 feat. Andrew Riedell - Transfer portals, 2026 CWS early favs, future MLB prospects in the 2026 Draft

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Episode 58 feat. Andrew Riedell - Transfer portals, 2026 CWS early favs, future MLB prospects in the 2026 Draft · Sports Avenue Twisted Podcast

• 0:26
  Welcome to another edition of the Sports Ave.
• 0:28
  Twisted podcast. We have a special guest in here
• 0:31
  who's part of the College Baseball Central, who's an
• 0:33
  analyst, and that's Andrew Riddell.
• 0:36
  Welcome to the show. Introduce to yourself and let
• 0:39
  everybody else know what you do and other credentials.
• 0:44
  Hi, my name is Andrew Idel. I I'm part of the college
• 0:47
  baseball Central Central family. I know you guys have had a Jake
• 0:52
  McKeever who's my Co host for the Southern Fried baseball
• 0:57
  podcast. We cover everything SEC baseball
• 1:00
  there. And then I also have a new new
• 1:03
  podcast with our founder of College baseball Central, Noah
• 1:07
  Darling called Band the Wave podcast talking everything about
• 1:11
  college baseball. A little bit about me, I I just
• 1:15
  finished up my playing career. I played at a small College in
• 1:19
  New Orleans, LA by the name of Loyola New Orleans University.
• 1:24
  I was a right-handed pitcher there for six years.
• 1:28
  This last year I ended up getting into covering college
• 1:31
  baseball and I got to cover Tulane baseball and LSU and
• 1:36
  started talking about the SEC baseball.
• 1:38
  And yeah, that's that's really just it for me.
• 1:41
  I mean, thank you guys for having me on.
• 1:43
  I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for coming on today.
• 1:47
  It's it's a pleasure to have you and you've been spoken highly of
• 1:53
  and so we're excited to have you and dive deep into what was the
• 1:57
  college baseball season and, and the future and beyond.
• 2:01
  So we really appreciate you joining us.
• 2:03
  Thank you. All right, so let's get started
• 2:09
  here and let's talk about the Champions and that's the LSU
• 2:12
  Tigers and talk about what went well for that organization.
• 2:18
  I believe this is Jay Johnson's second championship as a manager
• 2:22
  for the Tigers. And looking at the team, that
• 2:25
  rotation was led by Kate Anderson, who was drafted.
• 2:27
  We could talk about that later. And and they're our talented
• 2:30
  squad. I mean, they they have a track
• 2:31
  record of winning and they have a great recruitment.
• 2:34
  Talk about that team, talk about their culture, what has gone
• 2:37
  well for them. I mean it, it sounds crazy, but
• 2:41
  Jay Johnson had a little bit of pressure coming into coming into
• 2:45
  this last season. You go out, you get Paul
• 2:48
  schemes, you win a national championship, you lose about 75%
• 2:53
  of that team and then you go to Chapel Hill and go losing the
• 2:59
  regional final to UNC. And Jay Johnson had a little
• 3:03
  pressure coming on him this year.
• 3:05
  So he thought, I need to go back in the portal.
• 3:08
  I got to do what's best and that was recruit elite level players
• 3:12
  from the portal. I mean, Anthony Ionson coming in
• 3:16
  from UC San Diego, Daniel Dickinson from Utah Valley,
• 3:20
  Chris Danfield from Auburn and Luis Hernandez from Indiana
• 3:24
  State, they come in, they instantly make an impact in that
• 3:27
  starting lineup. Chase Shores misses the 2024
• 3:31
  season with Tommy John surgery. He comes in and makes a, he
• 3:36
  makes an impact in the back half of the year with the bullpen.
• 3:39
  But I mean, what went well for this team was it never felt like
• 3:44
  there was a period in time where they slowed down.
• 3:48
  They lost two series in the SEC. They lost, they lost to Auburn
• 3:53
  and they lost to text saying that both of those series are on
• 3:55
  the road. So what Jay was basically saying
• 3:58
  to them, look, if you want to play baseball in Omaha, you're
• 4:01
  going to have to make sure all of our games go through the box
• 4:04
  because the box is highly arguably one of the best college
• 4:09
  environments in all of college baseball.
• 4:11
  So playing at home, playing with that 10th man, allegedly it's
• 4:17
  it's a very easy ballpark to play in if you're the home team
• 4:20
  at Alex Box Stadia. They just never slowed down.
• 4:25
  It was, they had that series against A&M where it was like it
• 4:28
  was weird. It had the rain delays, just
• 4:31
  rain delay, rain delay, rain delay.
• 4:33
  And then Auburn was just a weird team last year.
• 4:35
  I thought, I think Auburn's gonna be another good team this
• 4:38
  year. But I felt like those two series
• 4:40
  you could easily write off and look at this team and be like,
• 4:43
  wow. They nearly went toe to toe with
• 4:46
  2023 LSU record wise and not talent wise, but record wise.
• 4:52
  And once they got into the postseason, some some say they
• 4:56
  did get gifted a little easy regional with having Rhode
• 5:00
  Island, Arkansas, Little Rock and Dallas Baptist.
• 5:03
  But I mean Dallas Baptist and Little Rock, they gave them a
• 5:06
  run for their monies. We were talking about maybe not
• 5:09
  even having LSU and the Super regionals because Arkansas
• 5:13
  Little Rock knocked out as Zach Cohen in the first few innings.
• 5:17
  So they're lucky to have Case in Edmonds just piggyback and just
• 5:22
  dominate the rest of that game, handing it to Ions and sending
• 5:25
  them to the Super regionals against once West Virginia and
• 5:29
  Steve Sabin's at West Virginia, I got to give him a lot of
• 5:32
  credit. He was phenomenal this past year
• 5:35
  with West Virginia. But it was just talent.
• 5:38
  You look at talent on paper, talent on the field.
• 5:42
  LSU was going to sweep them nine times out of 10.
• 5:44
  I think it was just they just ran out of gas, West Virginia.
• 5:49
  And then you kind of place LSU in Arkansas on the same side of
• 5:54
  the bracket. So you're thinking, OK, this
• 5:57
  talent field is not the best, but LSU and Arkansas are 100%
• 6:04
  going to give us a show for two, two to three games.
• 6:10
  And we ended up getting 2 very good games out of the whole
• 6:15
  College World Series from LSU and Arkansas.
• 6:18
  And then obviously Coastal Carolina that that championship
• 6:23
  series, it was just all LSUI mean.
• 6:27
  Kevin Schnal accidentally bumps the umpire, he gets tossed and
• 6:32
  it was just the momentum, like even top the ninth against
• 6:36
  Coastal Carolina in Game 2. Chase Shores comes in, he gives
• 6:41
  up a lead off single. And I think everyone in the
• 6:43
  press box kind of like thoughts themselves, like, Oh my God, the
• 6:47
  time runs up at the plate right now.
• 6:49
  And it doesn't even feel like that momentum wise.
• 6:52
  It just felt like LSU had all the momentum through that
• 6:55
  championship series. And that was that was really the
• 6:58
  story of their whole season, just keeping the momentum,
• 7:02
  keeping to their plan and just dominating every aspect of the
• 7:07
  game. They did every little thing
• 7:08
  right. If you look at their losses, it
• 7:10
  was they still did the little things right, but it was we
• 7:14
  didn't hit well, 300 scoring position.
• 7:17
  We made one bad pitch because really that's that's what the
• 7:20
  story of their season was. It was they came up clutch in
• 7:24
  the big moments. So give us an entire breakdown
• 7:30
  of what happened in the College World Series.
• 7:32
  Yet. Coastal Carolina, Arizona,
• 7:34
  Oregon State, Louisville, and on the other side you had UCLA,
• 7:39
  Murray State, LSU and Arkansas. So tell us some of what happened
• 7:45
  in that College World Series, how it went down to some of the
• 7:47
  disappointments and surprises that went on.
• 7:51
  I mean, there were some really disappointments because I'll be
• 7:56
  honest, I had, I had Arizona performing a lot better in the
• 8:01
  College World Series. I thought, I thought Arizona was
• 8:07
  going to do a little bit better, but with their pitching coach,
• 8:10
  Kevin Vance being linked to San Diego State, I think there was
• 8:13
  already writing on the wall that this team could be owed to and
• 8:17
  BBQ getting ready to go home. Oregon State too.
• 8:21
  They does. They disappointed me.
• 8:22
  I thought Oregon State, it would be Oregon State and Coastal
• 8:25
  Carolina playing for that that side of the brackets winner.
• 8:30
  I thought Coastal Carolina was going to come in and take care
• 8:33
  of business on that side. But Louisville did give them a
• 8:35
  run their money. I think I think Dan McDonald
• 8:38
  does does a phenomenal job there.
• 8:41
  I think this Louisville teams can be primed to make another
• 8:43
  run to Omaha and potentially run the ACC pretty easily this year.
• 8:49
  Louisville, Louisville really shocked everyone pitching wise
• 8:53
  because they had Tucker, Tucker, Gavins, and it's like they felt
• 8:57
  like they can turn to him at every moment and just get big
• 9:00
  outs from him. You had that moment where it was
• 9:04
  Louisville in Arizona and they cut to the dugout.
• 9:06
  McDonald's ripping his team a whole new one and it sparks the
• 9:11
  offense. The next, you know, Louisville's
• 9:13
  moving on to the next elimination game on the other
• 9:15
  side of the bracket. I hate to say this, but the
• 9:19
  lights did get too bright for Murray State, sadly.
• 9:23
  I mean, Murray State, it was just such great story.
• 9:25
  They go into Oxford, they run the table at the Ole Miss
• 9:28
  Regional, they go into Durham and they take care of Duke.
• 9:34
  And then they find themselves with arguably three of the four
• 9:38
  best teams in college baseball, some going with UCLAUCLA came in
• 9:45
  probably as the hottest team in college baseball at that given
• 9:49
  time because you look at their Rd.
• 9:51
  They didn't have to face Texas in the Super regionals, they
• 9:54
  face UTSA. They got to take care of them
• 9:57
  pretty quickly. And then Murray State gets the
• 10:01
  loser of LSU, Arkansas, and they face a pretty pissed off.
• 10:05
  Gage Wood and Gage Wood takes it out on him, throwing a 19
• 10:09
  strikeout. Almost perfect game.
• 10:12
  It was a no hair. Crazy with them.
• 10:15
  Yeah, Engage Wood is a competitor on the mount.
• 10:18
  So you see, I mean, from Bracket 2, I can't even really say there
• 10:23
  were any disappointments. I was just really.
• 10:27
  I was just really surprised by the competitiveness of Arkansas,
• 10:31
  LSU and UCLA and those, those like, we'll, we'll talk about it
• 10:34
  later. I think those early UC, those
• 10:37
  early teams for Omaha, LSU, Arkansas and UCLA will be 3 that
• 10:41
  everyone mentions. So you tweeted a lot about the
• 10:48
  transfer portal and it was a frenzy.
• 10:51
  I don't know how everyone kept it up, but you were pro at it
• 10:55
  and talk about the transfer portal and who had the best
• 10:59
  recruitment through the portal because I know a lot of teams
• 11:02
  benefit from it, but which teams or teams benefit the most?
• 11:08
  I mean, we can the, the transfer portal is just changing now.
• 11:12
  It's a whole new landscape. I've talked to, I've talked to
• 11:15
  some teams about it and they're just going to live through the
• 11:19
  portal. They're saying now it's it's
• 11:21
  we're just going to live through the portal.
• 11:23
  We're not going to bring in that many high school kids with the
• 11:26
  risk of them getting drafted. We're just going to go through
• 11:28
  the portal. I think everyone's talking about
• 11:30
  how great Wes Johnson did at Georgia.
• 11:34
  I mean, their big problem this last year is pitching.
• 11:37
  They live in a very. Hitter friendly ballpark so
• 11:41
  whenever they did go on the road, they struggled hitting
• 11:45
  but. At home they had a pretty high
• 11:48
  ERA they had they were always rotating pictures in and out of
• 11:52
  the of the weekend rotation, but it seemed like they only had one
• 11:59
  one lock at a for their Friday night guy with that being.
• 12:06
  What is his name? Brian Curley.
• 12:12
  Brian Curley. My bad.
• 12:14
  I'm having Brian Curley on Friday nights was the only thing
• 12:16
  guaranteed for them. So what does Wes Johnson do?
• 12:20
  Wes Johnson goes out and recruits 55 pitchers with
• 12:24
  starting experience at the D1 level.
• 12:27
  I mean, Joey. Joey Volchoko.
• 12:29
  I never get that name right. Joey Volcheck, Matt Scott, Dylan
• 12:33
  Vig, Kenny Ichikawa, K Nioke, Grant Edwards, Brad Pruitt, Brad
• 12:40
  Pruitt. Those are all guys.
• 12:43
  Oh, and Thomas Allison from UConn, those are all guys that
• 12:46
  have starting experience at the D1 level pitching.
• 12:50
  So if one guy struggles in the rotation for Georgia, Wes
• 12:55
  Johnson isn't going to worry about it.
• 12:56
  He's. Just going to plug the next guy
• 12:58
  in, the next competitor that he thinks he has there.
• 13:01
  And I mean Georgia, we you look at the bats, they've had the
• 13:04
  last. Few years, I mean Charlie Condon
• 13:09
  2024 and then this past year they have Christian Adams,
• 13:15
  Devin, OB. The big one obviously being Ryan
• 13:19
  Zabrowski. They bring in just more
• 13:22
  offensive weapons. Michael O'Shaughnessy from
• 13:25
  Davidson, Rylan Lujo from Dayton, who I thought was going
• 13:29
  to be going to their rival UF and then obviously the big
• 13:32
  Bopper himself, Bryce Callaway, who I got to see play a handful
• 13:35
  of times in New Orleans. Like that's going to be a very
• 13:39
  scary lineup next year. Another team that I I you can't
• 13:44
  mention the transfer portal without mentioning Tony Vitello.
• 13:47
  It seems like I'm just going to go just quickly go over there
• 13:52
  recruiting. I mean, 20 bucks hello.
• 13:54
  And Josh Elander, what they do at Tennessee is phenomenal.
• 13:57
  But you, you lose your whole starting rotation and we're not
• 14:03
  whole, but you lose your Friday and Saturday.
• 14:05
  And Liam Doyle and Marcus Phillips, well, you bring in
• 14:08
  Landon Mack and Evan Blanco to replace some, I think that's
• 14:12
  very good. And with a very highly touted
• 14:16
  high school class coming in as well.
• 14:18
  And then Brian O'Connor's first year in Mississippi State, I
• 14:21
  think he did a phenomenal job. But pulmonary, pulmonary at
• 14:24
  South Carolina, I talked to a few few coaches over there,
• 14:28
  people, few people in the athletic department as well
• 14:30
  saying this reminds some of when Paul got to LSU.
• 14:35
  The first year at LSU, they didn't make the FCC tournament,
• 14:39
  they didn't make the SC tournament.
• 14:41
  Next year they were in Omaha. They had to just get their feet
• 14:44
  wet, bring in some new talent and get guys I want to play
• 14:48
  pulmonary style baseball. Just guys they have right now.
• 14:52
  Tyler Bock, Luke Yazzy, Bradley Hodges from Virginia, Logan
• 14:57
  Souter from Purdue, Ethan Lismo from Western Kentucky, Alex
• 15:01
  Valentine who will make a big impact on that.
• 15:02
  Pitching staff from Texas State like Pulmonary is ready to go.
• 15:07
  I think South Carolina is going to be very or much more
• 15:10
  competitive than when though in the what people thought they
• 15:13
  were going to be last year. But it's mostly just your usual
• 15:16
  SEC teams dominating. Florida State had themselves a
• 15:20
  nice transfer portal class bring in, bring in some good arms.
• 15:26
  They brought in Trey Beard from FAUI thinks one of the best mid
• 15:30
  major pitchers in the whole country.
• 15:34
  So now him and a power for school will be very good.
• 15:37
  Cole Stokes from Oregon as well. And then obviously you look at
• 15:41
  the defending champs. I talked to Jeh Johnson, I
• 15:44
  talked to Dave and Horn. Even when Arkansas was up there.
• 15:48
  I talked to those guys are like, yeah, whenever we're not here or
• 15:52
  practicing, we're making calls with transfer portal guys trying
• 15:55
  to get them to come to our school.
• 15:57
  Jay Johnson mentioned a story where where a Tennessee pitcher,
• 16:03
  he didn't tell us the name at the time, but it ended up being
• 16:07
  Nate Sneed. It was Nate Sneed.
• 16:09
  Nate Sneed was in the portal in 2023 and LSD was in Omaha.
• 16:14
  And just because LSU was in Omaha, Tennessee got eliminated
• 16:18
  before them and Sneed ended up going to Tennessee and LSU ended
• 16:24
  up winning the whole thing. So he really harped on the
• 16:27
  importance of just recruiting even while you're still
• 16:32
  competing at this level of even the level of Omaha so.
• 16:36
  I thought there was some really good transfer portal classes in
• 16:40
  the SEC, I mean with all the coaching changes we had as well.
• 16:44
  So it was a really fun period in the transfer portal this year.
• 16:50
  With regards to the transfer portal, it seems like we're in
• 16:54
  an era now where tampering is starting to define this transfer
• 17:00
  portal. So just just tell us is it is
• 17:04
  this something that can be fixed?
• 17:05
  Is there a way to fix it? What can they do here to to make
• 17:09
  it better so to limit the the tampering that goes on?
• 17:15
  That's a problem with the whole transfer portal.
• 17:19
  There's really no true definite, definite way to fix tampering
• 17:24
  because you can have players texting player or coaches
• 17:30
  texting players and even players texting players.
• 17:33
  When I was playing in college, our coach always told us that we
• 17:37
  were the best recruiters with transfer portals within the
• 17:41
  transfer portal. So a good example of it.
• 17:45
  I'm not. Saying tampering occurred here,
• 17:47
  but San Diego Garcia goes from Oregon to LSU.
• 17:53
  The one common theme there, though, was Steven Milam.
• 17:57
  It played high school baseball with Garcia.
• 18:00
  So was was there 100% some influence for Garcia to come to
• 18:06
  LSU knowing that they just won a national championship and he's
• 18:10
  going to be playing with one of his former high school best
• 18:12
  friends? Yes, 100%.
• 18:15
  But with the whole tampering, the big thing we heard this year
• 18:19
  was East Carolina. East Carolina threw out some
• 18:24
  accusations of SEC coaches taxing his players to enter the
• 18:30
  portal. Will throw you money and it
• 18:33
  happens. There are some cases that I've
• 18:36
  heard directly from players and schools saying that some ACC
• 18:41
  schools and SEC schools are taxing me to enter the portal.
• 18:45
  Do I think it, do you think it's worth it to enter the portal and
• 18:50
  me get a look in this conference even if I get paid a lot of
• 18:55
  money? So I don't think there's AI,
• 18:59
  don't think there's a solution to fix it because you can't, you
• 19:04
  can't come out and say that you can't come out and call out of
• 19:09
  school. Wayne Kiffin got in trouble in
• 19:12
  football doing that a couple years ago when he was at his
• 19:16
  first couple years at Ole Miss, a player.
• 19:19
  He had a high school recruit on campus and a coach was calling
• 19:24
  him on that visit from another school, and he went on social
• 19:27
  media calling out that other school.
• 19:29
  You can't just come out now and make public accusations.
• 19:33
  And even in an era where the NCAA is not even sure about
• 19:38
  eligibility and how to handle the transfer portal now because
• 19:41
  the POW, that's kind of the unexplored.
• 19:45
  Sea it's just it's so difficult to even define what is tampering
• 19:51
  because you can look. At a school and look at players
• 19:56
  be like, oh, he had a good year at a group of five school, of
• 20:00
  course he wants to make the jump to a power for school.
• 20:03
  Of course he wants to have the opportunity to compete there.
• 20:05
  So it's just, it's so weird to. Like even think about what could
• 20:11
  someone do if they get caught tampering?
• 20:14
  It's not like the NBA where you get caught.
• 20:18
  You get caught talking to a player before the negotiation
• 20:23
  period. It's not like you're going to
• 20:25
  lose a second rounder. It's just it's kind of the
• 20:27
  unexplored. See, no one knows what we can do
• 20:31
  about it yet. So talk about some of the top
• 20:35
  players that was transferred there.
• 20:37
  And the biggest name that was out there is AJ Grassford that
• 20:39
  came from Duke who went to Virginia, Chris Hakopian, who
• 20:44
  got who was a Maryland guy that got transferred to Texas A&M.
• 20:49
  You mentioned about Trahan, you mentioned about Joey Voltko.
• 20:53
  Is there anybody else you could mention?
• 20:55
  Carson Tinney's another one and Will Gasparino's another one.
• 20:59
  So talk about some of those top recruits.
• 21:01
  AJ Grassi is the big one and Chris Hakopian are the two big
• 21:06
  names that are out there. Talk about some of those guys.
• 21:07
  And if there's anyone else, just mention those guys as well.
• 21:11
  I mean, Chris Okopian going from Maryland to Texas A&M, it seemed
• 21:16
  like. It seemed like he just had so
• 21:19
  much talent at Maryland that he just needed to be at the biggest
• 21:23
  level possible. Just he was phenomenal in
• 21:27
  Maryland last year and you think with any given opportunity he
• 21:31
  was going to leave. That and he got that
• 21:32
  opportunity, opportunity and left.
• 21:35
  Carson Tinney was an interesting one because I will, I will admit
• 21:39
  he was someone that was chasing up the AG.
• 21:42
  He was someone that I heard about UF, UF in Texas were
• 21:48
  fighting for him and he ultimately chose Texas.
• 21:52
  Carson Tenney's he'll probably be a Buster Posey finalist.
• 21:55
  He'll probably win it this year since Caden Bodine is not
• 21:59
  playing college baseball anymore.
• 22:01
  Like Carson Tenney is just adding to a whole like new level
• 22:05
  what Texas baseball is going to be.
• 22:08
  I didn't even mention in the last question Texas with how
• 22:12
  they recruited Josh Livingston from Wichita State.
• 22:17
  I got to watch Wichita State last year and there was just one
• 22:22
  2-3 and four. Those were the four best hitters
• 22:25
  I saw on the top of the line up I think in any college program I
• 22:28
  saw last year. But 5 through 5 through 9,
• 22:32
  they're absolutely putrid. Like I watched Josh Lemington
• 22:36
  take BP and his swing is so good, so natural, and he just
• 22:40
  puts balls over the wall pretty easily.
• 22:43
  Another name I think is going to make a big impact, Tyler
• 22:46
  Littenberger going from, excuse me, from Appalachian State to
• 22:52
  Clemson. I mean, Clemson is a team that
• 22:56
  we should be thinking is going to Omaha.
• 22:59
  Every year they're the top of the ACC every year they're
• 23:03
  losing pieces. Coach Bakich comes out, brings
• 23:06
  in the former App, former App State freshman of the year from
• 23:11
  the Sunbelt Tyler Littenberger. I think he's going to make a big
• 23:14
  impact. And then he mentioned it, AJ
• 23:17
  Gracia, who will probably be a top five pick in this upcoming
• 23:21
  draft. He follows his coach to Virginia
• 23:25
  and just like there's not, there's not enough words to to
• 23:29
  describe AJ Gracia because he's that he's just simply that dude,
• 23:34
  in my opinion, he's going to 100% be a golden Spikes Canada
• 23:39
  this year just and it's time to do 29 home runs over 100 RBIs.
• 23:45
  Like this guy is going to be a dog for for the Cavaliers this
• 23:51
  year. And yeah, I mean, there's
• 23:55
  there's a lot of if, if I wanted to talk about every big transfer
• 24:01
  guy, we'd probably be here for over 3-4 hours.
• 24:05
  So I'll, I'll, I'll just cut it off at Grassia.
• 24:08
  But yeah, there's a bunch of big portal kids that were just
• 24:14
  making jumps. Not even like like obviously
• 24:18
  you're following your coach at times, but this was just better
• 24:21
  for where they where they were fit, like better fits for them,
• 24:26
  better competition for them as well.
• 24:31
  So some of the players from the transfer portal who you think
• 24:35
  could be factors in 2026 with guys like Jackson Kershaw,
• 24:43
  Andrew Middleton going from Mass to to West Virginia.
• 24:47
  And then you got Aidan Robbins from Seton Hall going to I
• 24:52
  believe it's Texas, I believe. So yeah, just just give us some
• 24:57
  guys that you think that could be could be factors on their on
• 25:00
  their new college teams next year.
• 25:03
  I think Aiden Robbins is a very good one to start off with him
• 25:07
  going to Texas. He was he had one of the highest
• 25:10
  batting averages in the country last year and this kid is just
• 25:13
  scrappy header hitting 422 last year, getting on base in almost
• 25:18
  every game. I think he he's got a good
• 25:21
  strikeout to walk ratio. He walked 4545 times and just
• 25:27
  he's he's going to fit perfectly in the Jim Schloss Nagle lineup
• 25:31
  where they're going to be competitive, they're going to be
• 25:33
  putting pressure on the opposing team.
• 25:36
  He will be someone that will just make a huge impact.
• 25:40
  Texas A&M as well. One of the guys Jake Dewar from
• 25:45
  Florida Atlantic, he was at TCU two years ago, finds his his way
• 25:51
  into Boca Raton, FL. He has a phenomenal year.
• 25:54
  His year ends up being cut short do it due to a broken toe, but
• 26:00
  he hit 428 four 2811 double S, 27 RBI's and that short period
• 26:06
  there and 34 games where he was, he was probably the front runner
• 26:11
  to be the American Conference player of the year at that point
• 26:15
  in time. But he's going to make a big
• 26:18
  impact for Michael Early and the Aggies this coming year.
• 26:22
  And then just like there's some smaller guys as well.
• 26:26
  I think one of my favorite, one of my favorite mitts is actually
• 26:31
  for a sunbelt team for Troy. I think Niko as Paul Cuta from
• 26:37
  Stony Brook, NY Stony Brook, a small D1 in the CIA on Long
• 26:43
  Island, New York. Niko transfers to Troy after
• 26:48
  their head coach, legendary coach sank retires and he hits
• 26:53
  320 in this one and only year at Stony Brook with 20 bombs, 60
• 26:58
  plus RBI's. I think he's going to make a big
• 27:00
  impact on the Sunbelt and possibly be Sunbelt newcomer of
• 27:04
  the year and Sunbelt player of the year.
• 27:07
  I think Troy is geared up with bringing in someone like him
• 27:11
  that will make an instant impact to that lineup.
• 27:16
  So some of the guys who were who were eligible in this past MLB
• 27:21
  draft ended up being committed to college and we could talk
• 27:24
  about some of the names. Jack Bauer was the big name from
• 27:27
  who went who was committed to Mississippi State.
• 27:30
  Nico Partita committed to Texas A&M, JoJo Parker's brother Jacob
• 27:37
  Parker, Mississippi State and then you have Marcus Stroman's
• 27:42
  younger brother Jaden Stroman, who got committed to Virginia.
• 27:45
  And then you got Omar Serna, Angel Cervantes and Trent
• 27:49
  Grindlinger. Like talk about some of those
• 27:52
  guys. Is there any other big names
• 27:54
  that we didn't mention about you can mention those guys as?
• 27:56
  As well. I don't know if you guys
• 27:59
  mentioned Angel Cervantes, he's going to UCLA.
• 28:03
  He'll probably be a like he's someone out might be in the
• 28:06
  weekend rotation from like year one.
• 28:11
  I mean, there was there was a couple shockers.
• 28:13
  I mean, obviously I wasn't in a plan of when the draft was
• 28:19
  taking place, but I was talking to some some scouts inside some
• 28:24
  war rooms about where they were thinking and you can just say
• 28:28
  every mock draft was wrong. Obviously the big shockers,
• 28:32
  Willetts going one and Tyler Bremner going to with everyone
• 28:37
  thinking, oh, it's going to be holiday or Kate Anderson going
• 28:40
  1. So seeing some of these high
• 28:43
  school names falling and going to college, it's not really it's
• 28:50
  it. No, it actually is pretty
• 28:51
  shocking, especially Jack Bauer. Jack Bauer is this 65 lengthy
• 28:57
  lefty that is already throwing 100 mph.
• 29:02
  The question is, how is Brian O'Connor and Justin Parker going
• 29:07
  to use them in Year 1? Is he someone that we'll see
• 29:12
  immediately start in the rotation?
• 29:17
  Is he someone that we'll see in the?
• 29:18
  Bullpen Back in the bullpen. Because he's from Illinois, he
• 29:23
  was someone that, no offense to Illinois, Illinois does not have
• 29:28
  the level of college base or level of high school baseball
• 29:31
  where you think, California, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, they
• 29:36
  don't have the level of competition.
• 29:38
  So coming into Starkville, it's going to be interesting to see
• 29:42
  the adjustments they make and especially when you have a
• 29:45
  skinny, a skinny left-hander in major leagues, they usually take
• 29:51
  their time with them. So it's going to be interesting
• 29:54
  to see how they handle that as well.
• 29:55
  I'm not saying that Bauer will be red shirted you're 1, but I
• 30:00
  just want to see how they handle his development because
• 30:04
  something we've seen from college, the pros now schemes
• 30:09
  schemes with someone that was throwing 100 to 102 in college
• 30:13
  and now he's someone that sits 95 to 97 and it'll hit 9899 a
• 30:20
  hundred occasionally. So that's a that'll be an
• 30:24
  interesting watch as well. And then Mason Pike going to
• 30:28
  Oregon State. He's a two way like star.
• 30:31
  He he's someone that will immediately be added to the
• 30:34
  lineup right away for Oregon State, especially filling the
• 30:38
  shoes of their former shortstop Avia Arquette.
• 30:43
  So you're losing someone in our cat, but you're bringing in
• 30:47
  someone that you're going to have for two years and Mason
• 30:49
  Pike that will make an immediate impact as a shortstop and
• 30:53
  immediately most likely be their Sunday starter in my opinion.
• 30:57
  You mentioned it, Omar Sterna coming to LSU.
• 31:00
  He's someone that 100% compete with Kate and Beatty for the
• 31:05
  catching role this upcoming year.
• 31:09
  I thought, I thought he would get drafted pretty highly, but
• 31:13
  it looked like his number wouldn't have been called
• 31:16
  earlier. And Nico, Bartita, Jacob Parker,
• 31:20
  those are also like they'll make impacts their first years off
• 31:24
  the bench, I think. I think in Year 2 we'll see them
• 31:27
  fully in the lineup. Which team in college baseball
• 31:31
  this season do you think in your opinion, that could be some
• 31:36
  could be a surprise with the talent that they have on their
• 31:39
  teams in 2026? So I'm going to go back to one
• 31:45
  of the teams that I actually covered, the two lane Green
• 31:48
  Wave. I think I think Jay Ullman,
• 31:50
  Anthony, Isio, Walt Jones have done a phenomenal jobs,
• 31:54
  phenomenal job recruiting this year, bringing in some very top
• 31:58
  level transfer portal guys. Another team I'm also going to
• 32:02
  toot my own horn because I covered this conference is the
• 32:06
  Charlotte 49ers, Rob Woodard, who's one of the smartest
• 32:09
  pitching minds in all of college baseball.
• 32:11
  I think Charlotte and Tulane are going to be making some huge
• 32:14
  noise this upcoming year in the American.
• 32:18
  I think, I think the Americans going to be a very dangerous,
• 32:21
  dangerous conference this upcoming year.
• 32:25
  But I think Tulane and Charlotte are going to make the most noise
• 32:29
  in that conference. And I think both those teams
• 32:31
  could possibly, possibly be Omaha contenders.
• 32:37
  You look at the guys they brought in, they brought in guys
• 32:39
  that were competing at the mid major level already and they
• 32:42
  were outbidding some SEC schools to get their guys.
• 32:49
  So the next question I want to ask you is who would you say are
• 32:55
  the early favorites in this upcoming season and talk about
• 33:00
  the top teams, how talented they are and and some teams that
• 33:05
  could come out of nowhere that could be favorites as well.
• 33:08
  So my 2 favorites, you can say these are locks.
• 33:13
  I'm going to go and go on the record.
• 33:16
  These are locks. These two teams will be in
• 33:20
  Omaha, the Texas Longhorns and the UCLA Bruins.
• 33:25
  UCLA did not lose that much. They keep a really young core of
• 33:31
  sophomores going to be juniors and they bring in some very good
• 33:35
  talent. They bring in Will Gasparino.
• 33:37
  Will Gasparino, as you mentioned, I mean, he's he's
• 33:42
  someone that wasn't going to get a lot of playing time at the
• 33:44
  other school. I mentioned Texas, UCLA, it's
• 33:48
  like that team did not have to do that much work in the
• 33:51
  transfer portal because of the, because of the talent they
• 33:58
  already had in house. I, I'm pretty sure actually
• 34:03
  they, if you, if you go to any ranking portal or portal
• 34:07
  rankings, they only brought in four, four kids through the
• 34:12
  transfer portal and all four kids are going to make an
• 34:14
  instant impact. Will Gasparino, Logan Redmond,
• 34:18
  Michael Cunningham and Jacob Swenson, those are guys are
• 34:21
  going to make impacts right away.
• 34:23
  And then the Texas Longhorns, I mean, that's a team that you
• 34:29
  looked at them last year and at the halfway point you're
• 34:33
  thinking, OK, if I'm a Longhorn fan, I should be booking my
• 34:37
  hotel for Omaha. Like we're not losing anytime
• 34:40
  soon. We're running through that CC.
• 34:43
  I thought the SUC is supposed to be this gauntlet.
• 34:45
  This is much easier than I thought.
• 34:47
  And it wasn't they they they cooled down the back half.
• 34:51
  They faced some injuries. But this is a team that this is
• 34:55
  a team that isn't losing much either.
• 34:58
  And with the ones they did lose, they just plug in the transfers
• 35:02
  they brought in. Their biggest loss on the
• 35:05
  pitching front was Jared Spencer.
• 35:07
  And they dealt without having Jared Spencer the first half of
• 35:11
  the year or in the second-half of the year.
• 35:14
  So what they do, they bring in Hayden Lafoux from Wake Forest
• 35:18
  and he'll probably be a front end guy.
• 35:21
  The rotation. Oh, well, no, he won't.
• 35:23
  They'll have Dylan Volantis be their Friday night starter.
• 35:27
  They have Ruger Rios be their Saturday starter and then
• 35:31
  they'll have Luke Harrison be their Sunday starter.
• 35:33
  So they're just going to go lefty, righty lefty again.
• 35:36
  And then they bring in Teemo Becerra from Stanford, which is
• 35:41
  an interesting case because you can't you can't be granted a
• 35:45
  fifth year at certain schools. Stanford is an academic first
• 35:50
  school, so he couldn't do a fifth or sixth year there.
• 35:55
  What does he do? He goes and goes to Texas and
• 35:57
  he'll be there starting a shortstop this year, replacing
• 36:00
  Jalen Flores. Cal Higgins from Western
• 36:04
  Kentucky, another lefty that will make an impact on the
• 36:07
  bullpen for them. Aiden Robbins, we already talked
• 36:10
  about phenomenal hitter Josh Livingston, phenomenal hitter.
• 36:13
  Carson Penny will be the face of that UT brand.
• 36:17
  I think he'll be someone to just watch like embrace the horns
• 36:23
  like like he'll be the villain. If you know like like the one
• 36:29
  guy you want to get out to rile up a crowd, it will be Carson
• 36:34
  Tinney because I think he is going to be one of the best
• 36:36
  players in college baseball this year.
• 36:39
  And him being on Texas Sears, very fitting.
• 36:42
  They bring in Ashton Larson, Callum early as well who make
• 36:46
  big impacts for them as well. But some some like little, some
• 36:52
  little sneaky teams as well if you want to talk about those.
• 36:58
  I think the big question is if is Georgia finally going to get
• 37:02
  over that hump 2 years ago? They lose the NC State in the
• 37:06
  Super regionals last year. They don't even make it out of
• 37:10
  their own regional. I think this, it's not a
• 37:14
  question if Wes Johnson's on the hot seat.
• 37:16
  But is Wes Johnson going to get over that hump?
• 37:19
  Because in 2023 when he was with LSU, he was already 1 foot out
• 37:24
  the door ready to go to Georgia. Some real sleepers.
• 37:29
  I mean, I wouldn't count out Dan Fitzgerald in Kansas this year.
• 37:35
  Dan Fitzgerald did a phenomenal job this past year at Kansas.
• 37:40
  He earned himself an extension after nearly taking the
• 37:44
  Mississippi State job. He was actually very close to
• 37:48
  taking that job before Brian O'Connor finally, finally
• 37:52
  interviewed for it. So he's he's someone that I have
• 37:59
  a lot of respect for. He's learned from Jay Johnson at
• 38:02
  LSU. He he didn't really lose that
• 38:05
  much. I think the biggest loss they
• 38:06
  had was losing Cooper Moore this past year.
• 38:09
  But he's someone that I think that the Kansas Jayhawks are
• 38:12
  going to be host. I think they're going to host
• 38:15
  this year and I think they'll run the table and win the Big 12
• 38:17
  again. They bring in a couple dogs this
• 38:20
  year. They're bringing in Carter Fink
• 38:22
  from ETSU, who's a really top guy there.
• 38:26
  David Hogg, who didn't play a lot to LSU, but he's just a pure
• 38:29
  athlete as well. So I think Kansas is someone
• 38:32
  that we can be watching out for. And then I love my mid majors,
• 38:37
  but I'm not going to go Coastal Carolina, Oregon State right
• 38:40
  now. Excuse me.
• 38:42
  One team I am actually looking out for is where are they?
• 38:49
  I had it in my notes, the Hawaii Hawaii Fighting Rainbow
• 38:55
  Warriors. I think this is the year that we
• 38:57
  finally get a hot Hawaii Honolulu regional.
• 39:02
  I know that's it. This is a shout out to Mark
• 39:05
  Garland because I know he finally got.
• 39:08
  To him. He he got to go to Hawaii this
• 39:11
  last year and see Hawaii and Hawaii and Orange State.
• 39:16
  But I think this is the year that Hawaii gets it going.
• 39:20
  I mean, they, they nearly lost their baseball coach as well and
• 39:24
  they nearly lost Rich Hill to Arizona State.
• 39:29
  But the school promised them a little bit more resources to get
• 39:33
  it going. And what they do, they bring in
• 39:35
  some really good guys. They bring in guys from Power 5
• 39:38
  schools. They bring in guys from the West
• 39:40
  Coast that aren't afraid of playing in that, that kind of
• 39:45
  environment. Because once you're playing in
• 39:47
  Hawaii, you're, you're flying everywhere.
• 39:50
  You're, you're playing in a weird time zone.
• 39:53
  You're you're playing games at midnight on the East Coast when
• 39:57
  it's really 6:00 over there. When a when you go on the road,
• 40:02
  you're essentially leaving on a Tuesday or Wednesday for a road
• 40:06
  series. So I think this year Rich Hill
• 40:09
  gets going. I think they're pitching Staffs
• 40:11
  can be very good. I wouldn't be shocked to see
• 40:13
  Hawaii and Omaha. I think the Big W is going to be
• 40:16
  a very good conference this year.
• 40:19
  But I think Hawaii has what it takes to get over that hump
• 40:22
  finally. So with all the the big power
• 40:27
  conferences, the powerhouses in in college baseball, which,
• 40:31
  which conferences do you or do you think are going are, are the
• 40:35
  toughest right now, would you say, I mean?
• 40:39
  The easy answer would go the SEC.
• 40:41
  I'm going to say the SEC right away because you're talking
• 40:45
  about having and losing conference record and you still
• 40:48
  have the possibility to be a a hosting seed.
• 40:52
  You can the the key number is 13.
• 40:56
  If you go 13 and 17 in conference, you're considered a
• 40:59
  lock for your for the tournament.
• 41:04
  But you're also you're also on the fringe at that point.
• 41:08
  I think that's he see you're just beating up on each other.
• 41:11
  I kind of mentioned already the American, the American, we saw a
• 41:15
  UTSA as the one seed last year in that tournament.
• 41:20
  They ended up getting in that large bid.
• 41:21
  We had a two team 8 American last year because ECU upset
• 41:27
  Tulane and the OR. There wasn't even really an
• 41:29
  upset, but East Carolina upsets Tulane and the championship and
• 41:36
  steals a bid from UTSAI think the American this year is going
• 41:40
  to be very, very difficult and I think it's one of the best
• 41:44
  conferences in college baseball. Same as the Sunbelt, the Sunbelt
• 41:47
  and the American. I say it's all my college
• 41:50
  coaching buddies. I say those two conferences are
• 41:53
  not those two conferences are not mid majors in my opinion.
• 41:58
  I think those two conferences are very easily some of the top
• 42:04
  conferences in college baseball. I mean we saw out this last
• 42:08
  year, we saw Southern myths in Coastal Carolina go toe to toe
• 42:13
  with each other from the get go. We saw UTS say ECU, they they
• 42:21
  were very good in the back end of this year and I thought ECU
• 42:25
  could have ran the table and made a run to Omaha because they
• 42:27
  have some very young players as well.
• 42:29
  So I think the Sunbelt and the American are two of the toughest
• 42:33
  conferences right now. Who would you say these coaches
• 42:40
  jobs are on the line? And I can mention a few names
• 42:43
  here. Butch Thompson of Auburn has
• 42:46
  been mentioned, John Savage at UCLA.
• 42:49
  Paula Manero from South Carolina and Michael Early, I know that
• 42:55
  they missed a playoff because AM is one of the highly recruited
• 42:59
  class, right? And it comes to recruitment and
• 43:02
  they missed up, they missed a tournament altogether like The
• 43:06
  Who else would you say would be under consideration if and the
• 43:09
  ones that I mentioned, are they considered under the hot seat?
• 43:13
  Well, I, I mean, obviously right off the bat, you said it,
• 43:16
  Michael Early, Pulmonary, those are two guys, Pulmonary where he
• 43:21
  comes in with the championship pedigree and his first year
• 43:24
  misses the tournament. And Michael Early, he was
• 43:28
  someone that comes in at this was a team that was the
• 43:31
  projected #1 no, no other team has missed the NCAA Tournament
• 43:37
  after being the preseason #1 this was a team that they barely
• 43:41
  lost anyone from 2024. The only thing they lost was Jim
• 43:45
  Schlossenagle and they played that whole season with a weird
• 43:49
  they played with a chip on their shoulder, but it was not for the
• 43:52
  right reason. They didn't.
• 43:54
  Their coach didn't leave them because of how good they were.
• 44:00
  He laughed because his best friend is the athletic director
• 44:05
  at the school he is going to. So that was a weird
• 44:09
  circumstance. But I think Michael Early and
• 44:11
  Pulmonary are on the hot seat. I don't think Jon Savage is on
• 44:16
  the hot seat at UCLAI think I think his seat can heat up if
• 44:21
  they don't make a deep run into Omaha because of the talent they
• 44:25
  do have there. But I don't think his seats hot.
• 44:30
  Two seats that I know are for sure hot is Todd Whitting at
• 44:35
  University of Houston. I heard his name possibly
• 44:39
  getting tossed around this year for getting fired.
• 44:46
  You're looking at Texas baseball.
• 44:48
  You're expecting every Texas college baseball program to be
• 44:52
  at a certain level and he hasn't gone it to that level.
• 44:57
  I was really shocked to hear he was getting at least one more
• 45:00
  year. And I'm going to go Willy
• 45:02
  Bloomquist at Arizona State. And I know I'm kind of throwing
• 45:05
  the Big 12 under the bus here, but Willy Bloomquist at Arizona
• 45:10
  State, he's on the hot seat where you bring in this former
• 45:15
  big leaguer who's got a lot of respect in the community, but he
• 45:19
  just hasn't done it done at Arizona State.
• 45:21
  You're talking about a one their blue blood, their blue blood in
• 45:25
  college baseball with all their past history.
• 45:29
  They should be like, they should be recruiting top to top and
• 45:32
  they should be like just bringing in top talent.
• 45:35
  And it seems like they've just struggle.
• 45:38
  And I think the struggle is going to continue in this new,
• 45:40
  this new look Big 12 as well. So I I wouldn't be surprised if
• 45:45
  we see Willy Bloomquist get fired after this year.
• 45:51
  Another name I'm going to I'm going to toss into the fire
• 45:54
  here. You'd, I don't know if you
• 45:55
  mentioned this, I'm going to mention it.
• 45:58
  Kevin O'Sullivan at UF, he, I think he's on the hot seat.
• 46:05
  UF has a lot of talent. I, I didn't mention on my Rd.
• 46:09
  there, my team's the Omaha, but I think they're a favorite to
• 46:12
  get to Omaha too. But with the heat that UF is in,
• 46:18
  if you're a Florida fan with football, basketball, baseball,
• 46:25
  you know the history of what that has had have been.
• 46:29
  You know the history of what that what that school is because
• 46:33
  it's a top level school. All the history with Urban
• 46:38
  Meyer, with what Todd Golden's done a basketball recently, what
• 46:43
  with what Kevin O'Sullivan has done at UF.
• 46:46
  I think we're seeing the tides change here with them getting
• 46:51
  tired with Kevin O'sullivan's antics.
• 46:56
  I'm he's serving a three-game suspension to start the season
• 46:59
  because of the whole East Carolina debacle.
• 47:05
  I think his seat might be heating up because they just
• 47:08
  don't want to deal with the drama and the negativity that he
• 47:13
  is. If you're going to, if you are
• 47:16
  going to be a problem, at least be winning, At least be winning.
• 47:22
  We're talking about a Florida baseball program that they have
• 47:27
  not won a national championship since 2014.
• 47:33
  I think when they beat LSU, that was when Pete Alonso was there,
• 47:39
  I think. That's a long time ago.
• 47:42
  Yes. So we're talking about a team
• 47:46
  that has appeared in 14 College World Series, but the last time
• 47:49
  they've been to Omaha was in 2023 or no 2024.
• 47:56
  But they just haven't been getting over the hump. 20/20/17
• 47:59
  was the last time they want they want it and the only time they
• 48:02
  want it. But I think you're getting to
• 48:05
  the point where Kevin O'sullivan's been phenomenal.
• 48:10
  But you start thinking in your head, can we maybe do a little
• 48:14
  bit better for what we're paying?
• 48:17
  Because the drama of what we've been dealing with Kevin
• 48:22
  O'Sullivan, with all the scandals we've had to go through
• 48:26
  with Kevin O'Sullivan, especially when you guys
• 48:29
  mentioned tampering and you when one school gets mentioned,
• 48:32
  everyone thought of Florida. So it's not like Florida is the
• 48:36
  cleanest program. And it's not like Kevin
• 48:39
  O'sullivan's been the cleanest coach.
• 48:42
  I mean, I don't know his, I don't know his payout or his
• 48:47
  buyout, but I that's a name to watch in my opinion for a
• 48:53
  possible firing. Another one I'm going to stick
• 48:57
  in the state of Florida is JD Ortega at Miami.
• 49:04
  It's Miami where I just talked about it with Arizona State and
• 49:08
  how their blue blood, I think Miami's a blue blood as well.
• 49:13
  In his two years at Miami, he led them to a super regional
• 49:17
  finally last year, but he, he's only five games above 500 and
• 49:23
  the, and his coaching history. So I, I think it's, that's a
• 49:28
  very interesting concept to watch.
• 49:30
  He's been a, he's been an assistant coach there for the
• 49:33
  last 20 years, which is also makes me wonder if they give him
• 49:38
  a little bit longer of a leash because the one name I also
• 49:43
  think of with is Mike Martin junior at FSU.
• 49:47
  That is the literal, like the literal son of the most famous
• 49:52
  head coach from your school. And what do you do?
• 49:56
  You fired him. So Ortega, that's someone to
• 50:00
  watch. I think if they kind of regress
• 50:04
  this year and they're under 500 and ACC, if they don't make the
• 50:08
  tournament, I think we could possibly see a firing in Coral
• 50:13
  Gables this year. So who in your opinion are, are
• 50:20
  some players that could potentially break out next year
• 50:24
  and and be such good impact players for teams with guys like
• 50:29
  Ethan Norby at ECU and Aidan NACA, Clemson, Trey Beard who
• 50:34
  just transferred and, and, and Trey Broussard the outfielder
• 50:39
  there. So tell, tell us a little bit
• 50:40
  about who do you think is is going to break out this year and
• 50:44
  have a great season. Well, I love the fact that he
• 50:46
  brought up Ethan Norby at ECU because that's where I was going
• 50:50
  to go. I was going to go with ECU,
• 50:52
  Brain Burress. Brain Burress was a freshman at
• 50:56
  ECU. He walked on his father played
• 50:59
  with Coach Godwin at ECU, actually.
• 51:02
  And Coach Godwin said and his postgame conference after they
• 51:08
  won the American Championship, I asked him the relation of having
• 51:12
  Brayne Burris on his team and having played with his father.
• 51:17
  He said it he wore his number after he played because of
• 51:24
  because of him. So the connection there is
• 51:27
  already really sentimental. But Brayne Burris is was a
• 51:32
  freshman that came in hit 389 in the American and was the most
• 51:37
  outstanding player in the AAC tournament.
• 51:40
  So I think he's someone that takes that next step.
• 51:43
  He's on scholarship going into this next year.
• 51:46
  I think he's going to take a huge step in the in the American
• 51:49
  and most likely when the American conference player of
• 51:53
  the year. Another guy I expect to break
• 51:58
  out. I'm, I'm very glad you brought
• 52:01
  up texting them because I am going to their rivals, Texas.
• 52:05
  I expect Adrian Rodriguez to break out a little bit more.
• 52:09
  Adrian Rodriguez came in, he battled some injuries just like
• 52:13
  the rest of that Texas team. But I think that Adrian
• 52:18
  Rodriguez came in with a lot of hype last year and just kind of
• 52:20
  underperformed. Yeah, you hit 313, but it was
• 52:24
  just kind of an underwhelming 313.
• 52:26
  I felt like we were expecting him to easily be like a dog
• 52:31
  right out of the gate for Texas. I think we're going to see him
• 52:34
  break out this year and possibly be in some, possibly be in some
• 52:39
  SEC Player of the year conversations.
• 52:45
  So I want to talk about a little bit about the 2025 draft, just
• 52:49
  transparent a few months ago and and the college players that was
• 52:53
  drafted and talk about some of those guys who you think could
• 52:57
  make an immediate impact. And I'll mention some names that
• 53:01
  came out with Jamie Arnold, Kate Anderson, Tyler Bremner, Ava
• 53:05
  Arquette, Kate and Boda and Ike Irish, Liam Doyle.
• 53:07
  Like meant like, could any of those guys be immediate impacts
• 53:11
  in 2026? The first two names I'm going to
• 53:16
  bring up Kate Anderson and Liam Doyle, both left-handed
• 53:19
  pitchers. I think Kate Anderson, Seattle
• 53:23
  has the difficult choice of they got some contracts coming up as
• 53:29
  well with some of their pitchers have been underwhelming.
• 53:35
  I think Kate Anderson has the potential to be the first player
• 53:39
  called out from this 2025 draft trying to see who's a free agent
• 53:46
  with Seattle pitching wise. But pitching wise, Seattle's got
• 53:50
  almost all their pitchers under control for the next couple
• 53:53
  years. Yeah, I think they're going to
• 53:56
  move on from a handful players pitching wise, especially if
• 54:00
  they don't take that next leap with them being one of the best
• 54:04
  teams in the league this year. If they do struggle in the
• 54:07
  postseason with pitching, I wouldn't be surprised if they
• 54:09
  turned to someone who dominated pitching in the postseason and
• 54:14
  Kate Anderson. I think Kate Anderson is someone
• 54:17
  that is probably the most Major League ready arm in the draft
• 54:22
  and I think he's someone that can make an impact.
• 54:25
  I thought he could have made an impact this year, but talking to
• 54:28
  him and to his agent, some scouts, they they said they'll
• 54:32
  probably shut him down for this year and get him ready for next
• 54:34
  year. And then Liam Doyle.
• 54:37
  Liam Doyle is already at double AI got to see him make his
• 54:41
  professional debut for the Cardinals single a affiliate in
• 54:45
  Palm Beach. I think Liam Doyle, someone that
• 54:48
  will be on the Cardinals opening day roster next year.
• 54:51
  I think he's someone that is going to be, I think they're
• 54:55
  going to try and find his role, whether it's in the bullpen,
• 54:58
  whether it's back end rotation guy.
• 55:02
  But I think Liam Doyle's going to be someone that makes an
• 55:05
  impact for the Cardinals pitching next year.
• 55:08
  I think Liam Doyle's someone that if they work on a little
• 55:12
  bit of his mechanics, he's someone that will make an
• 55:14
  instant impact for the Cardinals.
• 55:17
  And then you guys hit on some others.
• 55:19
  I mean, I think the Marlins are going to take their time at the
• 55:22
  Avia Arquette. I was really shocked to see them
• 55:25
  go college bad because if you look at their track history with
• 55:31
  who they have drafted and you think, oh, they're going to go
• 55:34
  prep that here, right? They're going to go prep that.
• 55:37
  And they didn't. So I think they're going to take
• 55:41
  their time with Bobby Arcat, Jamie Arnold.
• 55:43
  I think they're going to wait for Vegas.
• 55:45
  At least with him. Arnold kind of slipped down a
• 55:50
  little. I thought he could have gone to
• 55:52
  Pittsburgh, Miami or Toronto as well.
• 55:56
  I thought Arnold, I think Arnold's got at least a full
• 56:00
  year development where they won't rush him and then they'll
• 56:03
  probably have him ready for 2027.
• 56:06
  And then Andrew Fisher with Milwaukee, I think he's someone
• 56:10
  that can make an impact for that lineup next year.
• 56:14
  I think his bat is Major League ready.
• 56:16
  I think his bat is really good. He's someone that reached base
• 56:21
  in every game Tennessee played last year, and I think he's some
• 56:25
  of that is just ridiculously good and I'm going to throw a
• 56:28
  little. Wild card out here.
• 56:31
  Jace Lavallette with the Guardian I.
• 56:35
  Think he's someone, I think he's someone that could, I don't
• 56:38
  think he'll crack the opening day roster, but I think they're
• 56:41
  going to work him through the Arizona Fall League with just
• 56:46
  trying to minimize his strikeouts and get him back on
• 56:51
  what he was in 2024, hitting line drives in the gaps.
• 56:55
  And you just honing in on what he was good at in that 2024 year
• 57:00
  and hopefully he can make a big impact for that Guardian
• 57:03
  Southfield next year. So who are some of the top
• 57:07
  players, in your opinion, in the 2026 draft from college that
• 57:11
  could go in the top three to five?
• 57:15
  So the big three that go in my head immediately is Rock Char
• 57:20
  Risky from UCLA, Kayden Sorrell from Tex A&M and Justin LeBron
• 57:26
  from Alabama. I think Lebron's kind of slipped
• 57:28
  down on some draft boards already.
• 57:31
  But you you watch Justin LeBron compete you I think he's a top
• 57:35
  five pick in my opinion. And then Kayden Sorrell and
• 57:43
  Rock. I think Rock is really good
• 57:46
  right away. I think Rock is someone that
• 57:49
  will probably be the number one overall pick unless someone
• 57:52
  blows us all away in the next. I don't know how far the draft
• 57:56
  is, 10 months, 11 months. I think I think Rock is going to
• 58:02
  be the number one pick because of the hype that UCLA team has
• 58:06
  and how he he kind of underperformed in Omaha.
• 58:09
  So everyone's kind of looking to see how he responds.
• 58:13
  He puts up a good campaign with a Team USA in the summer and
• 58:17
  then Kane Sorrell. Kane Sorrell, someone that
• 58:20
  everyone's kind of waiting to take that next step at A&M.
• 58:24
  This last year kind of regressed a little, but the projectability
• 58:28
  is there and I think he's someone that can just dominate
• 58:31
  this next year and be a top five pick this next year.
• 58:36
  What about Derek Curio from LSU? Because I know he's been a top
• 58:39
  name that's been talked about for a little while that he could
• 58:42
  he be a guy who could like rise up to the occasion and be the
• 58:46
  number one pick as well. So my thing with Curriel is in
• 58:51
  the front half of the LSU season, he was ridiculously good
• 58:56
  and then he cooled down the middle and he picked backed up
• 58:59
  in the in the postseason. I think he needs to gain a
• 59:03
  little weight. I wonder if LSU actually put out
• 59:07
  their measurements for this last year, because I remember looking
• 59:11
  at Curriel and thinking that's a pretty skinny guy.
• 59:15
  I thought he was pretty skinny last year.
• 59:19
  I thought he was a pretty skinny guy.
• 59:21
  He looks really small. See, he's 6 to 182.
• 59:26
  He's 6 to 182. I think that's still pretty
• 59:29
  skinny for him. I think he gains a little bit
• 59:32
  more weight and like of muscle, not fat, but I think he's
• 59:37
  someone that can potentially blossom into a just he's already
• 59:43
  got ridiculously good hands. He can spray the ball all over
• 59:46
  the field. I don't think he's got first
• 59:50
  overall draft potential, but but I think he's got top ten
• 59:54
  potential. The strikeouts started to kill
• 59:57
  him in the back half of the year as well where he reached base I
• 1:00:01
  think the first fourty fourty games of the season, but then he
• 1:00:06
  just kind of slowed down the back half.
• 1:00:08
  But I think he's someone that will just.
• 1:00:12
  He'll dominate SEC play again. If he's healthy, he'll just
• 1:00:19
  dominate it again. He'll probably help this LC team
• 1:00:22
  get to Omaha. And then it just, it all depends
• 1:00:26
  on some other outfielder piece as well.
• 1:00:29
  Because if you go do, if you go look at the top outfielders for
• 1:00:34
  the 2026 draft, I think some people are going to be fighting
• 1:00:38
  for who's number one, Kane, Sorrell, Derek Curiel, Sawyer
• 1:00:43
  Straw Stander Curiel, yeah. So I think it's all depending on
• 1:00:49
  who your rankings go to and who the scout is you're talking to
• 1:00:52
  as well. Because I think Curiel has got
• 1:00:54
  top ten potential. So talk about some of the
• 1:00:59
  college pitching prospects that could be eligible in the draft
• 1:01:02
  next year. Like the names that I looked at
• 1:01:05
  is Tegan Kearns, Koons from Tennessee, Cameron Fluky from
• 1:01:10
  Coastal Carolina, and Liam Peterson, probably the top
• 1:01:13
  pitching prospect that could be in the draft next year.
• 1:01:16
  Is there anyone else that you can mention, please?
• 1:01:19
  You could you could mention as well.
• 1:01:22
  Yeah, of course. I mean, I think you really hit
• 1:01:26
  on it Team coons. I got to see him throw.
• 1:01:28
  He's a really, he's another really skinny guy.
• 1:01:31
  It's funny because whenever I talk to Jake about our draft
• 1:01:35
  stuff, I just say, yeah, this kid gains a little bit more
• 1:01:38
  weight in the weight room. Like he's coming out of high
• 1:01:41
  school at like 6, like 65, like 180.
• 1:01:44
  That's not that's not sustainable in in the pros.
• 1:01:49
  But yeah, you you hit on it. Cam Fluky at Coastal Carolina,
• 1:01:53
  he dominated in the postseason. I think he's someone that will
• 1:01:57
  light up, light up draft boards and light up the radar gun this
• 1:02:02
  year. I think he's someone that he'll
• 1:02:04
  probably win the Sunbelt pitch of the year.
• 1:02:06
  He'll be Coastal's Friday night guy and I think he'll just
• 1:02:09
  dominate all all aspects of the game this year.
• 1:02:16
  And Liam Peterson as well kind of goes in that Florida putting
• 1:02:20
  Kevin O'Sullivan on the hot seat because they have so much
• 1:02:23
  talent. He he can use Lil a little bit
• 1:02:27
  more consistency. The ERA was a little higher, but
• 1:02:32
  you look at the fastball, he's mid to upper 90s and he's got a
• 1:02:35
  really good slider and change up that he can pitch off of.
• 1:02:39
  So those two guys are easily like easy like pitching
• 1:02:44
  prospects. Another guy, Jackson Flora at UC
• 1:02:48
  Santa Barbara, he's starting to fly up draft boards already and
• 1:02:53
  he's someone that's already 9697 topping at 101 O1 and his
• 1:02:58
  sliders ridiculously good. He's going to be probably him
• 1:03:02
  and Fluky will probably go back and forth for the best mid major
• 1:03:05
  pitcher of the year. But I think, I think Peterson as
• 1:03:11
  well deserves some respect as well.
• 1:03:13
  And Gabe Gackle, Gabe Gackle at Arkansas, that's one that we
• 1:03:18
  shouldn't have skipped over. But a Gackle, he goes into the
• 1:03:22
  starting row, starting role at Arkansas this past year,
• 1:03:25
  Shruggles goes back to the bullpen, dominates seeing what
• 1:03:30
  role David DVH and Coach Hobbs at Arkansas see what role they
• 1:03:35
  put Gackle and will be very dependent on if he's the top
• 1:03:37
  pitching prospect or if he's just another guy.
• 1:03:45
  So I want to, I want to round out the podcast with this final
• 1:03:48
  question for you. Which teams do you think have
• 1:03:51
  the most talent and the most draft eligible players?
• 1:03:55
  The most talented draft eligible players for 2026.
• 1:04:01
  I mean, we just saw a Tennessee team that drafted 7 guys on day
• 1:04:06
  one and then you turn around and you look at their next year
• 1:04:11
  roster and they're like, wait, that's not possible.
• 1:04:13
  How do they have more potential day one picks?
• 1:04:18
  They the guys they brought in, they're all one year rentals.
• 1:04:24
  Landon Mack, Blaine Brown, Henry Ford, those three guys.
• 1:04:27
  Oh well, I'm going to add one more.
• 1:04:29
  Evan Blanco. Those four guys alone could go
• 1:04:32
  in the first round and this next and will be draft.
• 1:04:35
  Henry Ford was projected to go in the top three rounds and this
• 1:04:39
  last and will be draft. Henry Ford's going to go to a
• 1:04:42
  hitter friendly ballpark and most likely put up 25 to 30 home
• 1:04:45
  runs there and dominate the SEC. Tennessee, they're just a
• 1:04:50
  loaded, loaded class. I think they're going to be
• 1:04:54
  draft heavy as well. One team that I feel like I
• 1:04:57
  really haven't talked about today is Arkansas.
• 1:05:01
  Arkansas, yeah, they lost a bunch of players as well to the
• 1:05:04
  draft, but they bring back Omaha's own Cam Kozhol.
• 1:05:08
  They bring back Kozhol, they bring back Cole Gibbler, they
• 1:05:12
  bring back Gabe Gackle, they bring back a bunch of talent.
• 1:05:16
  They bring back one Alloy, they bring back Coyle.
• 1:05:18
  Alloy they bring back, they bring back Parker Coyle, who was
• 1:05:23
  drafted but didn't signed. Yeah, they lost a big chunk of
• 1:05:28
  that. But the guys they bring in,
• 1:05:31
  Damian Ruiz from Lamar Jackson Kerscher from Oklahoma, James De
• 1:05:35
  Kramer from Oregon State, Ethan, Ethan, Yeah, Ethan Mclavin, TJ
• 1:05:40
  Pompeii and Zach Stewart and Mike Newey.
• 1:05:44
  Those are all guys that will be drafted in the 1st, 2:00 to 3:00
• 1:05:48
  rounds this year. Those last four, especially Nui,
• 1:05:51
  Stuart, Pompei and MacDonald. And those are guys that will as
• 1:05:56
  well dominate the SEC and will just boost their drafts on this
• 1:06:01
  upcoming year. So I think Tennessee and
• 1:06:04
  Arkansas will probably be again the top two that lead the way
• 1:06:08
  with draft prospects. Could you see A&M having a few
• 1:06:14
  guys draft being in the draft next year like grab, Gavin
• 1:06:17
  Gahovic, Sawyer Far and what's that Hakopian and I might be
• 1:06:22
  missing one other name or two. Could you see another team as
• 1:06:26
  well like A&M that could be a high recruitment class for the
• 1:06:29
  draft next year? Also comes down to how they
• 1:06:34
  handle themselves again, because it feels like, I'll be, I'll be
• 1:06:37
  very honest, it feels like this team quit on Michael early
• 1:06:41
  during that Missouri series. So that kind of turns off some
• 1:06:45
  college scouts or not college scouts, professional scouts when
• 1:06:49
  they see that. Yeah, you, you mentioned it,
• 1:06:52
  Kayden Sorrell, Gavin Gahovic. I mean, the list can go on and
• 1:06:58
  on and on. They're placing a whole starting
• 1:07:01
  rotation. But you have Weston Moss who
• 1:07:04
  comes back for another year. He's someone that'll be draft
• 1:07:07
  eligible. Terence Keel, he'll be draft
• 1:07:09
  eligible. Jake Dewar, Chris Copian, Ethan
• 1:07:15
  Darden, MJ Bollinger. Those are all guys that will
• 1:07:17
  make very big impacts and then just go get drafted.
• 1:07:21
  Someone I wish I could have said was Carson Bailey, who's going
• 1:07:25
  to a junior college now. But but this team, they're going
• 1:07:32
  to be again, if they don't make it to the College World Series,
• 1:07:36
  the draft stocks going to be up and down.
• 1:07:39
  But they do have the talent to have a lot of day one and day 2
• 1:07:42
  picks. Well, Andrew, that was fun and
• 1:07:48
  that was some great, great stuff, man.
• 1:07:51
  Awesome work. We appreciate you doing this and
• 1:07:53
  taking time for doing this. Where can we find you on social
• 1:07:56
  media and everywhere else? Well, thank you guys for having
• 1:07:58
  me on. You guys can follow me on
• 1:08:01
  Twitter at Rydell Andrew. I when I was younger, I made
• 1:08:05
  like 5 different twitters. So I finally stuck on one with
• 1:08:10
  my last name and my last name first, first name last.
• 1:08:14
  So Rydell Andrews where you can fall follow me on Twitter, but
• 1:08:17
  also come, come listen to my podcast.
• 1:08:20
  I know you guys, this is probably your guys's favorite
• 1:08:23
  podcast because this is my favorite podcast now.
• 1:08:27
  I'm going to be coming to listen to this one every weekend now,
• 1:08:30
  but come listen to Southern Fried Baseball and Band the Wave
• 1:08:34
  podcast on College Baseball Central.
• 1:08:36
  I know college baseball is kind of in a hibernation state of the
• 1:08:41
  game right now, but it's starting to pick up again.
• 1:08:44
  We got a lot of very cool stuff coming over at a College
• 1:08:47
  Baseball Central. We appreciate the kind words,
• 1:08:51
  man. This was this was fun.
• 1:08:53
  We had a blast. Hopefully we can get you back
• 1:08:55
  down the road in the future and talk some more college baseball.
• 1:08:59
  We appreciate having you on though.
• 1:09:01
  Thank you very much. And yeah, just keep up the great
• 1:09:04
  work on your pods, man. We'll be looking forward to
• 1:09:07
  listening to them. Perfect.
• 1:09:09
  Thank you guys so much for having me on.
• 1:09:12
  We will place the description below and like I said, like I
• 1:09:17
  recommend to listen for you guys to listen to their pod too.
• 1:09:19
  Great stuff, great information and we will place a description
• 1:09:22
  below where you can find and subscribe to link.
• 1:09:25
  But till next time, take care, be kind to each other.
• 1:09:29
  Signing up for the Sports Ave. Twisted podcast on Tuesday,
• 1:09:33
  September 23rd, 2025. Music.