To help end NCAA Tournament drought, UK baseball went heavy on transfer portal additions

When the 2023 Kentucky baseball team assembled for the first time after the start of the fall semester, name tags were likely needed.

Coach Nick Mingione had welcomed 18 newcomers to the roster. Eight of the Wildcats’ nine regular starting position players last season were gone, as were a host of key pitchers led by All-America reliever Tyler Guilfoil. Of the 18 newcomers, 12 had arrived as transfers from other four-year colleges.

“It feels kind of like a summer ball aspect at first because you have so many new guys from different schools,” said senior left-handed pitcher Tyler Bosma, referring to the annual showcase wooden bat leagues where college baseball’s best players team up with each other for a few weeks. “... But being able to have a bunch of new guys that are joining together and then realize we all have the same goal, we’re all on the same team, let’s just have fun and win for Kentucky. It’s a bunch of different people coming from different areas, but we all have the same goal.”

Mingione is far from alone in mining the transfer portal to build the bulk of his roster since the NCAA changed its rules to allow most players to transfer once without sitting out a season.

Arkansas, Mississippi State, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas A&M also welcomed double-digit transfers to campus this year in the SEC. Texas A&M followed that blueprint a year ago in the first year under head coach Jim Schlossnagle to go from a 9-21 SEC record in 2021 to the College World Series a year later.

Now, Mingione will hope for a similar outcome as the pressure mounts to end Kentucky’s five-year NCAA Tournament drought.

“For us, it was just sitting there and trying to address some of those needs and making sure some of those guys that were in our program are ready to play,” Mingione said. “There’s no question positionally whether it’s through the draft, graduation or guys signing pro contracts those were areas we had to address.”

Recruiting in college baseball has always been difficult since all high school graduates are automatically eligible for the MLB Draft and coaches must spread 11.7 total athletic scholarships among the team, but the move of the draft from June to July further complicated roster building by preventing coaches from knowing which veterans would return to the team and which high school signees would actually make it to campus until later in the summer.

Kentucky signed one of its transfers, former Missouri right-handed pitcher Zach Hise just weeks before the fall semester started. His addition capped a class that Baseball America ranked as the sixth-best set of incoming transfers in the country.

The group is led by former Sewanee right-handed pitcher Logan Martin, who could serve as the Wildcats’ Friday starter. First baseman Hunter Gilliam (Longwood), shortstop Grant Smith (Incarnate Word), third baseman Isaiah Byars (North Florida), designated hitter Chase Stanke (Minnesota) and outfielders Ryan Waldschmidt (Charleston Southern) and Kendal Ewell (Eastern Kentucky) are all listed as projected starters in Kentucky’s opening weekend game notes.

“We have some older guys that we brought in out of the portal that some have won and some maybe haven’t won as much,” Mingione said. “They understand this could be, ‘my last ride.’ … I think our dugout is going to bring some energy, and I think there will be times I’ll probably have to pull the reins back a little bit. But it’s not going to be because of a lack of passion.”

Kentucky’s incoming transfers will not be able to carry the load alone.

Sophomore catcher Devin Burkes, the team’s most experienced returning position player, will need to build on a late-season surge that saw him land on the All-SEC Tournament Team in 2022. Bosma, who returned from injury to hold LSU to one hit in an elimination game in the SEC Tournament in his final 2022 appearance then shined in the prestigious Cape Cod League last summer, will probably be counted on in a weekend rotation spot. Right-handed pitcher Darren Williams, arguably Kentucky’s best pitcher when healthy last season, could start or come out of the bullpen as he works his way back from Tommy John surgery.

The group of returning Wildcats point to the team’s strong showing in May that included wins in two of the final three regular season series plus an improbable deep run in the SEC Tournament as the No. 12 seed as evidence the program is ready to take another step forward.

“At the end of the season, we were just trying to win,” Burkes said. “It might sound repetitive, but that’s all we were trying to do. We were trying to win every single game. I feel like that’s the key. If we try to win every game, no matter who we’re playing — midweek, weekend series — just try to win, full on win, everybody committed to it, we’ll be good.”

Mingione led Kentucky to its only NCAA Tournament Super Regional appearance in his first season as coach in 2017 but has failed to lead the Wildcats to postseason play since.

Included in that stretch were multiple near misses — like last season — where Kentucky was one of the final teams left out of the field, but now five years since unveiling the $49 million Kentucky Proud Park expectations are higher than simply being in the tournament bubble conversation.

“We’ve talked about we were a couple wins short these last three or four years of getting in the tournament,” UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said in June. “Well, let’s not talk about two wins. Let’s talk about let’s go get six wins and leave no doubt. That’s what I told (Mingione).”

Mingione echoed that sentiment during UK’s preseason media day this month. To help change the narrative, he met with RPI experts in the offseason to learn how he could tweak the Wildcats’ schedule in a way to improve the computer metrics for its NCAA Tournament resume.

That schedule opens Friday with a three-game series at Elon. With non-conference weekend series against Elon, Wright State, Indiana State and Southern Illinois, Mingione should have time to find the best roles for the plethora of new faces before SEC play starts on March 17 against Mississippi State.

Then the true test begins for Mingione, whose contract runs through the 2025 season but can be terminated after this season with UK just paying one more year of his $575,000 annual salary.

“Two of the last three years, we’ve been one or two wins away,” Mingione said. “Quite frankly, I’m tired of that. I’m ready to get to the spot where let’s be five or six games up. Like we were in 17, and we’re sitting here talking about are we going to be a national seed or a regional seed? That’s the goal.”

This weekend

Kentucky at Elon

What: Three-game series to open the 2023 college baseball season

Where: Latham Park in Elon, N.C.

When: Friday through Sunday (4, 2, 1 p.m.)

Live streaming (Friday and Saturday games only): Flobaseball.tv (subscription required)

Kentucky’s 2023 baseball schedule

Home games in all capital letters

Feb. 17-19: At Elon (4, 2, 1 p.m.)

Feb. 21: EVANSVILLE (4 p.m.)

Feb. 24-26: WRIGHT STATE (4, 1, 1 p.m.)

Feb. 28: MOREHEAD STATE (4 p.m.)

March 3-5: INDIANA STATE (4, 1, 1 p.m.)

March 7: MURRAY STATE (4 p.m.)

March 8: OHIO (4 p.m.)

March 10-12: At Southern Illinois (7, 3, 2 p.m.)

March 14: INDIANA (6:30 p.m.)

March 17-19: MISSISSIPPI STATE (2, 12, 6:30 p.m.)

March 21: EASTERN KENTUCKY (6:30 p.m.)

March 24-26: At Alabama (7, 3, 3 p.m.)

March 28: At Western Kentucky (6 p.m.)

March 31-April 2: MISSOURI (2, 12, 6:30 p.m.)

April 4: DAYTON (6:30 p.m.)

April 7-9: At Georgia (6, 2, 12 p.m.)

April 11: At Louisville (6 p.m.)

April 13-15: At LSU (7, 7:30, 2 p.m.)

April 18: XAVIER (6:30 p.m.)

April 21-23: TEXAS A&M (6:30, 2, 1 p.m.)

April 25: LOUISVILLE (7 p.m.)

April 28-30: At Vanderbilt (7, 3, 3 p.m.)

May 5-7: SOUTH CAROLINA (6:30, 2, 2 p.m.)

May 9: TENNESSEE TECH (6:30 p.m.)

May 12-14: At Tennessee (6:30, 12, 1 p.m.)

May 18-20: FLORIDA (6:30, 6:30, 2 p.m.)

May 23-28: SEC Tournament at Hoover, Ala.

SEC will feature 10 new OCs in 2023. Did Kentucky make the best hire with Liam Coen?

Star catcher Kayla Kowalik is key to Kentucky softball in more than the batter’s box

Where Kentucky football’s 2023 recruiting class finished in national, SEC rankings

Before they were Kentucky Wildcats, transfers had awkward moments with new teammates

Where Kentucky football’s 2023 recruiting class finished in national, SEC rankings