By Hunt Palmer
Steven Milam may not stack up individual awards or be seen flying up draft boards.
He’s not the best overall shortstop in college baseball. Roch Cholowski (UCLA) is going to be the first pick in the MLB Draft. Justin Lebron (Alabama) hits a bunch of home runs. Tyler Bell (Kentucky )gets a lot of recognition.
Milam just produces.
It’s not flashy. But it’s effective. Milam’s effort over the last two seasons has been at a championship level when you put the entire package together.
It starts with defense, obviously. Milam has made a remarkable two errors in 193 chances this season, and it’s not just the routine plays. He makes sliding stabs to his right, gliding pickups to his left and charges the ball brilliantly.
Defensively, he’s the best ever at LSU.
And the offense has been steady. Milam is hitting .288 for the year which is probably a tick down from what he would have expected. However, lots of SEC players post gaudy numbers in the preconference and midweek action to prop their statistics up. There’s no crime in that, but Milam’s .287 SEC batting average mirrors his season-long stats and is 76 points higher than he posted a season ago. Keep in mind, only two full-time starters on LSU’s 2023 title team posted a better SEC batting average than Milam’s from this season.
The switch-hitting shortstop has reached base 49 times in 27 league games and has 10 extra-base hits. Couple that with sterling defense at one of the most demanding positions on the field, and you’ve got a great player for a team that has underachieved.
WILL HE COME BACK?
That’s the question on every Tiger fan’s mind. It wasn’t on Jay Johnson’s two weeks ago when he said an MLB team should take Milam early enough for him to sign.
Perfect Game’s March draft board had Milam 70th overall. ESPN did not include him in their top 85 in April. MLB.com did not list him in the top 150.
Slot values start at about $475,000 once you get out of the top 50. Milam’s decision may come down to signing for $300,000 to $400,000 or coming back to LSU where money is available, but this is not Sam Leavitt/Jordan Seaton money. It’s college baseball money. And if Milam comes back, he loses leverage and may lose six figures off his slot in next year’s draft as a senior.
Johnson’s tone two weeks ago made it sound like he’s expecting to trot a new shortstop out there in 2027. Two months remain until that decision truly has to be made, but Johnson will likely have conversations with Milam in the near future that dictate what the Tiger coach needs to do in the transfer portal.
Milam would be a huge returnee to next year’s LSU team, but that feels unlikely.
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