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PALMER: Change in portal approach has paid off for LSU

Apr 9, 2025 | 11:13 AM

(Photo credit @LSUbaseball on X)

By Hunt Palmer

Program Building Out, Team Building In

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The era of program building has faded. Team building has taken over.

With no restrictions in the transfer portal, college baseball players, like athletes in other sports, are now nomadic. When they bypassed the MLB Draft to come to LSU, Paxton Kling, Brady Neal and Cam Johnson were thought to be pillars of the 2025 Tigers.

They play elsewhere.

The Portal’s Push and Pull

But what the transfer portal taketh away, it also giveth. LSU’s baseball program has been among the most benefitted by the new rules governing collegiate athletics.

That has remained the case with this 2025 team that has sprinted out to a 31-3 start. It’s just come via a different approach.

Power Program Pipeline

Over his first three seasons at the helm at LSU, Jay Johnson leaned heavily on transfers from the power conferences.

Jacob Berry and Tommy White were the national freshmen of the year at Arizona and North Carolina State. Riley Cooper, Thatcher Hurd and Gage Jump played in the PAC-12. Luke Holman became a Friday night starter in the SEC. Chrisitan Little was a big-time talent at Vanderbilt. Same for Bryce Collins at Arizona. Mac Bingham and Michael Braswell were everyday players at Arizona and South Carolina. Even shortstops Carter Young (Vanderbilt) and Jack Pineda (Baylor), who signed with professional organizations after committing to LSU in the portal, were power league guys.

Exceptions to the Rule

Of course, there were exceptions. One huge one from Air Force comes to mind.

Players like Nate Ackenhausen and Brayden Jobert from junior college played pivotal roles on the title team. Depth pieces like Ben Nippolt, Justin Loer and Fidel Ulloa have helped, some more than others. Who could forget Paul Gervase and Eric Reyzelman rescuing the 2022 bullpen?

But the bulk of LSU’s transfer production post-2022 outside of Paul Skenes has come from big time programs.

Until 2025.

This year Johnson and his staff changed the approach. Maybe it was necessary. Maybe it was intentional. Maybe it was coincidental. Either way, it’s worked.

Mid-Major Bats Making Noise

Luis Hernandez and Daniel Dickinson were brought in from Indiana State and Utah Valley.

Dickinson got six hits in a weekend set at Bushnell last season. Two weeks later he got five against Utah Tech. I’m going to do exactly zero research on the topic, but I’m guessing neither of those programs featured an arm like Kyson Witherspoon from Oklahoma or Pico Kohn from Mississippi State.

Dickinson is hitting .302 through 12 SEC games with a pair of homers and nine runs driven in while playing a stellar second base.

Hernandez is sizzling through his first SEC season after bashing 23 home runs against the likes of Illinois-Chicago and Valparaiso last year. The Puerto Rico native is hitting .340 against SEC pitching with a team-best four long balls.

Eyanson’s Elevation

On the mound, instead of Hurd, Holman or Jump from the rotations of big-time programs, LSU took Anthony Eyanson from UC-San Diego

Quick, name UC-San Diego’s mascot!…

To be fair to the Tritons, they have made the NCAA Tournament 13 times since 2002 and were the College World Series runner-up in 2017.

In Division II. (I think you’re all familiar with the D-1 2017 runners up)

Last season Eyanson’s last start was a seven-strikeout effort against Cal Poly. He was particularly sharp in an April start at Cal State Bakerfield. He got a win against UC-Irvine, too.

This year’s opponents hail from differing school systems and don’t have the directional descriptors on the score bugs. But Eyanson is still throwing the ball well. He’s 2-0 in league starts with 31 strikeouts in 18.2 innings. LSU is 3-1 in his SEC outings.

Cowan’s Dominance

And while those guys have been very good, Zac Cowan has been dominant.

The former Wofford ace may be the best reliever in the SEC. In 14.2 SEC innings, Cowan has allowed just one earned run on six hits. His strikeout to walk ratio is 21::3, and his batting average against is .116. That’s over .100 points better than Kade Anderson (.227).

The Known Quantities

Entering the season, Jared Jones, Steven Milam, Josh Pearson and Michael Braswell were proven commodities that figured to make LSU a very solid team at the very least. Anderson had shown flashes of an SEC ace. Chase Shores was an immense talent.

LSU was going to be good. How good was largely going to depend on mid-major skills translating on college baseball’s biggest regular season stage.

Nearing the halfway point in league play, LSU is 10-2 because they have.

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