When Augie Garrido talked, Jay Johnson listened.
Why not? The legendary coach nearly won 2,000 games and was a College World Series champion five times over. He, Rod Dedeaux and Skip Bertman are college baseball royalty.
Garrido’s belief was that left-handed hitting and pitching should form the foundation of any great baseball team. Left-handed hitters handle right-handed pitching which is prevalent at the collegiate level. Left-handed pitchers are hard to find.
Johnson found them in this freshman class.
Logan Schmidt’s decision to play for LSU over three seasons cemented a stellar group of rookie southpaws that figure to impact 2026 and beyond in Baton Rouge. He joins Braxton Beaty, Lucas Nawrocki and Bradyn Cupit on a roster that brings back Ethan Plog, Danny Lachenmayer, Cooper Williams and Jonah Aase.
Schmidt is the highest profile arm in LSU’s reloaded left-handed stable. He’s been clocked at 97 mph and is projectable enough for the Cleveland Guardians to take him in the second round. His 6-foot-4 frame is ideal, and his delivery is clean. The radar readings catch the eye, but his ability to throw strikes is his best quality.
He will impact the 2027 team, but keep in mind that freshmen rarely show up ready to dominate college hitters. Alex Lange did so in 2015 when he went 12-0 with a 1.97 ERA as a freshman on a College World Series team. He’s the outlier.
In the Johnson era, Kade Anderson, Cam Johnson and William Schmidt are probably the three biggest high school talents to reach campus from a pitching perspective. Anderson was coming off Tommy John surgery and posted an SEC ERA of 27.00 in 2024. Johnson never harnessed his stuff at the college level over two stops, and Schmidt walked 11 in two SEC innings as a freshman.
Johnson has consistently spoken about how rare it is for freshmen to stick in a weekend rotation in the SEC. Drew Beam at Tennessee is the name he recalls often. I’d add Florida’s Liam Peterson to that list. He started 15 weekend games as a freshman in 2024 and posted an ERA of 6.43. Coincidentally, he was Cleveland’s pick in front of Schmidt last month, going 19th overall.
Of course, Oklahoma was spurred by a pair of freshman hurlers in Omaha this summer. Cord Rager and Xander Mercurius were stellar in the Sooners’ title run. Schmidt won’t be asked to fill that role in February.
Casan Evans, who was exceptional in his first season, Schmidt and Cooper Moore return in 2027 to form LSU’s projected starting rotation. Landon Hood comes over from Gonzaga where he showed big time talent and could vie for a rotation spot or become LSU’s highest leverage reliever. Johnson will always use one of his best arms at the back end.
That quartet also has one thing in common — they’re all right-handed.
Schmidt and Nawrocki really ramp up LSU’s talent level from the left side. It was easily conceivable as of June 1 that neither would make it to LSU’s campus. Both did. Nawrocki features a devastating slider from a fast arm. Schmidt lights up the radar run and fills up the zone.
LSU’s ERA finished 15th in a 16-team SEC last season. This summer went a long way toward changing that.
Schmidt’s addition to the program is a big one. Three years of that kind of talent could be massive. Because LSU returns such a veteran stable of starters, he’s likely to be eased in. If he blossoms quickly into a star, he’ll be used accordingly like Evans in 2025 or Oklahoma’s freshmen. If he needs time, he can be eased in like Anderson and William Schmidt were.
It’s an ideal landing spot for a team that needs a huge pitching turnaround in 2027.
On to fall ball.
