The baseball transfer portal is closed, but there’s still plenty of work to be done. Here’s a final update of where things stand around the SEC.
By the Numbers
In total, 2,614 players entered their name in the transfer portal in the June window. Those numbers are from D1 Baseball and don’t look much different than the numbers we’ve seen in football and baseball over the past few cycles, as both had over 2,400 players enter. What was different was the amount of players that found new homes. Just 1,128 (or 43.1 percent) of the players who entered the portal were able to find a new home as of Monday July 6.
LSU loads up
You want to use the age old adage that LSU doesn’t rebuild; they reload. However, this year that’s not entirely true considering the talent that they brought in a season ago didn’t yield the results that anyone expected. That happens sometimes in a sport like baseball. Still, it would be unimaginable if it happened two years in a row at a place like LSU.
Jay Johnson wasn’t playing around this year. It started when the school pledged what is rumored to be $1 million in NIL funds to retain shortstop Steven Milam. He already had the No. 1 ranked high school recruiting class, but Johnson went out and got the No. 1 ranked portal class for good measure. Similar to Lane Kiffin’s football portal haul, Johnson didn’t just go out and sign the best class and add a bunch of bodies. He added some absolute dudes.
He got the No. 1 position player in Bino Watters, the No. 1 pitcher in Landon Hood, and added the No. 6 overall player, Angel Laya from Oregon, in the final week. LSU is loaded with talent for next year and should see one of the biggest year over year turnarounds in the entire country.
Kevin Schnall finishes with a bang
Maybe “finishes” is a bit premature, as there are still a lot of available players in the portal. Still, what Schnall did in such a short amount of time was remarkable. He brought in 24 players from the portal which was much needed after the Gamecocks lost 23. He also brought in the most top 250 players (according to 64 Analytics) than any other team in the country with ten.
All of that was already a huge win for the South Carolina program. The cherry on top was getting a commitment from Texas Tech transfer shortstop Connor Shouse. Shouse was the highest ranked player still on the board for several weeks and is coming off a season where he hit .353, ten home runs, and 66 RBIs.
The addition of Shouse, and the nine other top 250 players, was enough to give South Carolina the No. 3 ranked portal class according to 64 analytics. On paper this year’s portal haul looks eerily similar to last year’s. Last year’s class had 25 players and was ranked fourth in the country while this year’s brought in one less player but is ranked one spot higher. Now the question becomes can Kevin Schnall have a season that isn’t eerily similar to Paul Mainieri’s this year.
Class Rankings via 64 Analytics
The updated portal rankings as of Monday, July 6 are out, and there’s one noticeable surprise. It’s not that the SEC is oppressively dominant in these rankings as they are in most things related to college baseball. The league did have 15 of their 16 teams rank inside the top 25 including an absurd ten in the top 11. The one team that wasn’t ranked? Texas. That’s the first time they’ve been outside the top 25 in anything outside of humility in recent memory.
No. 1 LSU
No. 2 Georgia
No. 3 South Carolina
No. 4 Tennessee
No. 5 Arkansas
No. 6 Mississippi State
No. 7 Vanderbilt
No. 9 Texas A&M
No. 10 Kentucky
No. 11 Oklahoma
No. 14 Ole Miss
No. 15 Florida
No. 19 Missouri
No. 20 Alabama
No. 23 Auburn
