A reasonably strong case could have been made that LSU entered 2026 with the country’s best outfield.
Chris Stanfield, Derek Curiel and Jake Brown manned the Charles Schwab Field grass for a national title team and returned a year older. Stanfield had led the SEC in doubles and played great defense. Curiel was an still is a projected top 10 pick in the MLB Draft. Brown had the makings of a star when given a full time job.
Now we know Curiel broke his ankle in November, Stanfield broke his hand in February and Brown broke his hand in April. While Curiel and Brown went on to post strong numbers, LSU literally never played a game while all three were healthy.
Now, all three figure to be gone.
Stanfield is out of eligibility. Curiel should get more than $5 million in July. Brown is in line for well more than $2 million. That’s going to leave a blank slate in the Alex Box outfield come October for William Patrick to compete with, and the additions need to bring an impact.
That happened on Wednesday.
WHAT WE KNOW
Bino Watters enjoyed a pair of stellar seasons at Notre Dame. The left-handed hitting outfielder hit .317 in 43 starts as a freshman. He slammed nine home runs and posted a .984 OPS to earn Freshman All-ACC honors, and he led the team in multi-hit games in the process.
Notre Dame’s Bino Watters (LF/1B) has arguably the best hit/power combo in the 2027 college class. Pure hitter who’s on time and can deliver the barrel ANYWHERE he wants, and tap into plus power. Needs to get the ball in the air pull-side more. Corner bat long-term, solid speed pic.twitter.com/bKrv0jwMkq
— Oliver Boctor (@OBoctor) January 26, 2026
That solid freshman campaign was elevated a level in 2026 as a sophomore. Watters hit .362 with 10 homers and an OPS of 1.064. His 18 doubles were eighth in the ACC
The Irish didn’t play Georgia Tech, but they did play regional hosts Florida State and North Carolina. In those six games, a very small sample, Watters went 9-for-21 (.429) with a pair of doubles, a triple and two homers.
He swings the bat a lot and makes a lot of contact. In 53 games, he only walked 27 times, but he only struck out 37. Both are low totals. Over 382 career at bats, he’s only got 63 strikeouts. OverSlot puts him in the 17th percentile in chase rate. That means he swings at a lot of balls. However, his out of zone whiff rate is in the 78th percentile meaning he doesn’t miss much. And his barrel percentage and exit velocity numbers are exceptional, especially the 98h percentile in average exit velocity. He hits the ball extremely hard.
Notre Dame OF Bino Watters is entering the transfer portal I’ve been told.
Watters has been one of Notre Dame’s best hitters his last two years there hitting .343 in his two years there with 19 home runs and 90 RBIs and 27 doubles. pic.twitter.com/lrqlfCn0he
— Andrew Riedell (@RiedellAndrew) May 31, 2026
Watters has played both right field and left field for the Irish over two seasons.
THE FIT
Jay Johnson wasn’t just giving lip service when he said what LSU would do in the transfer portal. He’s targeting the types of players he talked about in April. Dawson Park is a great athlete who can play a premium position. Watters is a complete hitter who can do the things offensively that Johnson wants to be LSU’s hallmark.
One of those is using the back side of the field.
The power LSU brought in for 2026 needed to get out in front of the ball to hit for power. Call it “cheating” if you want, but they had to sell out to get to pull side power. That destroys your ability to handle offspeed pitches especially when the pitcher has 96 in the tank. At this point, most SEC pitchers do. Johnson couldn’t work with that which gave those guys a ticket to the bench. The head coach said that would never happen again.
It hasn’t.
OPPO BINO! Watters with his own opposite-field shot, and we're tied up!
106 MPH
418 🚀#GoIrish ☘️ pic.twitter.com/MKI8ZCfIhh— Notre Dame Baseball (@NDBaseball) May 19, 2026
Watters drives the ball out of the ballpark the other way as much as he does to the pull side. Jared Jones, Cade Arrambide and Omar Serna have that ability, too. Brown grew into that as a junior. Watters is a pure hitter that has some pop. OverSlot actually has his pull side air percentage at the bottom of the sport. He’s hit some titanic blasts to right field, but it’s rare. He lets the ball travel and has no problem driving the ball deep in the zone.
He’s also left-handed which LSU desperately needed to stack around Arrambide and Serna who hit from the right side.
From his handedness, to his hitting style to his positional tools, Watters is the perfect fit for this LSU lineup.
HUNT’S PROJECTION
I think Watters is the right fielder if a freshman or Braun plays left. He’s the left fielder if there is another strong portal outfield addition. He’s not a bad outfielder, but he’s not a premium defender either. He’s a bat with average speed.
Pencil him in second, third or fourth in the Opening Day lineup right around Serna and Arrambide, and he’ll hit. I project Watters as a .330 to .355 hitter with 12-to-15 homers. He’ll be among the best bats on the team.
If the national projections are right and Watters blossoms into a first round pick. You’re looking at an addition like Jacob Berry, Tommy White or someone like Chris Hacopian from Texas A&M.
Wednesday’s commitment was no small thing.
