⚾ 2026 UVA Baseball Offseason Thread

OUT OF ELIGIBILITY:

  • C Noah Jouras
  • RHP Kevin Jaxel
  • RHP Joe Colucci
  • RHP Lucas Hartman
  • OF Harrison Didawick
  • LHP Dean Kampschror
  • RHP Tyler Kapa

DRAFT ELIGIBLE (chance of going pro in my opinion):

  • OF AJ Gracia (very high)
  • INF Eric Becker (very high)
  • LHP/OF Kyle Johnson (high)
  • INF Joe Tiroly (high)
  • 1B/OF Sam Harris (medium)
  • 1B/OF Antonio Perrotta (low)
  • C Jake Weatherspoon (low)
  • RHP Nate Bassett (low)
  • LHP Tommy Roldan (very low)
  • INF Noah Murray (very low)
  • RHP Charlie Oschell (very low)

RETURNING PLAYERS:

  • C Will Broderick
  • INF RJ Holmes
  • C Thomas O’Connell
  • LHP Henry Zatkowski
  • OF Zach Jackson
  • OF Will Mahala
  • RHP Noah Yoder
  • RHP John Paone
  • LHP Brendan Cowen
  • INF/OF Bryce Neely
  • RHP Michael Yeager
  • RHP Ryan Prior
  • RHP Thomas Stewart
  • RHP Christian Lucarelli
  • LHP Max Stammel

TRANSFERS OUT:

  • RHP Matt Augustin
  • RHP Ben Schulman (Dartmouth)
  • OF LJ Edwards (Indian River State College)
  • OF Will Huggins
  • RHP/INF Jayden Stroman
  • INF/OF Aiden Harris (VCU)
  • OF Griffin Enis (Dallas Baptist)
  • RHP Christopher Worley
  • RHP Drew Koenen

TRANSFERS IN:

HS COMMITS (PG ranking and potential draft risk):

61st. 3B Bo Lowrance (extremely high draft risk)

108th. SS Will Yow

116th. RHP Wyatt Clatur (draft risk)

136th. SS Bryant James (low draft risk)

174th. LHP Sean Loggie (draft risk)

230th. SS Sal Garcia

254th. RHP Griffin Loy

266th. RHP Wes Peterson

283rd. RHP Quinn Showalter

303rd. Pierce Quinn

355th. RHP Nic Stutzman

358th. C Bradley McCafferty

474th. OF Cannon Murtagh

501-1000. C Barrett Bucholz

501-1000. LHP Cole Duhaime

501-1000. SS Colton Guillot

Overall class rank pre-draft: 9th in the country

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Portal opened today.

So far Matt Augustin, LJ Edwards, and Ben Schulman have entered from our side.

We also had three portal commits already, LHP John Downing from Seton Hall, 1B David Hanson from Yale and LHP Grant Meert from Johns Hopkins.

I’ll use the first post in this thread to keep track of who we get and who we lose.

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Awesome work, brother!

Matt looked promising other than his injuries and wasn’t LJ pretty highly rated? Guess he isn’t going to workout for us.

Schulman I’m not surprised about at all. Augustin also not overly surprised just given how snakebit he’s been over the last two years with injuries. Maybe he was frustrated with the lack of opportunities while on his way back, seemed like our coaching staff was trying to be extra careful with him. Or maybe he just wants a fresh start.

Edwards does hurt though, OF is looking crowded and will likely have a couple more names enter but LJ was a former top 100 player who I believe got injured this year (never confirmed). Was hoping he’d return, he was a very highly regarded hitter coming out of HS.

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One thing to track is that roster limit is 34 players + DSAs.

2026 team had around 10 DSAs from what I heard last fall. LHP Brendan Cowan is the only I know for sure was a DSA. Incoming first years could have that designation last year to open the pool of available players.

You can count the numbers above and see that the roster math is already tricky.

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I wonder if 5-5 helps the odds that KJ returns. Basically preserves his leverage for another year. I could see him wanting to return to have a breakout year to go in the first few rounds but I could also see him just wanting to get to work in the pros.

He also has speed. Speed+power.

https://x.com/11point7/status/2061425026113626168?s=20

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Why aren’t they waiting until after the title game for the portal to open like they did for basketball?

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There’s talks of trying to move/shorten the portal window, coaches have been pretty vocal about frustrations with managing portal recruiting while still in the thick of postseason play. It’s the reason why Pollard had to scramble to figure out our roster last offseason, Duke made the super regionals so he got a late start to the portal after he left to take our job.

With baseball though there’s not really a great window to fit it in. The season ends in late June, the MLB draft is the middle of July, the deadline to sign if you get drafted is typically two weeks after that, and then you’ve gotta have time to enroll in college.

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This is shaking out to be a pretty tough tournament for the ACC it seems. GT and FSU lost their elimination games today

Yeah, and I’m not rooting for Carolina. Go everyone but SEC + UNC.

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FSU does not surprise me…but GT looked pretty well positioned for a run to Omaha.

Jayden Stroman is in the portal.

https://x.com/overslot_/status/2061858320563237319?s=46

Really wish we would’ve found him more of a role. Probably my biggest annoyance with year one of Pollard.

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He has enormous potential but does need a ton of work with his mechanics.

He was also visibly frustrated when leaving the mound the last couple times he pitched for us. Figured that was probably a bad sign.

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Maybe get him an inning or two in the postseason and he stays.

He and Edwards leaving is bad news.

Easily replaceable!

Aiden Harris in the portal. Not surprised about that one.

https://x.com/overslot_/status/2061872419917509064?s=46

1 Like