Florida baseball is back! The Gators open the year with a home series against Air Force on February 14-16.
Head coach Kevin O’Sullivan, who is entering his 18th season at UF, met with the media on Tuesday to preview Florida’s 2025 season. Gator Country provides our UF baseball notebook, which provides intel and analysis on the starting rotation, key returners, impact freshman, and more.
Starting weekend rotation
Friday: So. RHP Liam Peterson
Saturday: R-So. RHP Jake Clemente
Sunday: R-Jr. LHP Pierce Coppola
Analysis
Florida returns two of their weekend starters from last season in Liam Peterson and Pierce Coppola while Jake Clemente takes the Saturday spot after an impressive offseason.
– It’s no secret that Peterson is one of the more talented arms on the team. After struggling at the beginning of last season, Peterson settled down and gave Florida quality innings in the last 30 games, earning a 4.79 ERA during that stretch. While Florida’s staff has tweaked his delivery this offseason in hopes to improve his command, perhaps the biggest hurdle for the right hander is mental. Peterson needs to stay away from allowing the big inning. Damage control is crucial in this league.
“He’s earned the right to be our Friday night guy and he’ll continue to make those strides mentally,” O’Sullivan said on Peterson. “In all fairness to him, he was thrusted into a role last year that he may not have been ready for, but we made a conscious decision that we were gonna stick with it. And we got to a certain point where he was arguably, other than Brandon, our most talented pitcher, even though he didn’t have the experience. But he had a chance to play for the USA team this summer and he had a really good fall. I mean, everything is there for him to be one of the better Friday night pitchers in our league. And now we just gotta go out and do it and he’s gotta learn. He’s gotta be able to stay away from the big inning. He can’t let one thing snowball and affect the next inning or the next hitter. And that’s all part of the maturity process, and hopefully he’ll take that next step.”
– Pierce Coppola has made tremendous strides in his first healthy offseason at UF, particularly in the last few weeks. The tall left hander has found a recent spike in velocity and is commanding the ball at a higher rate, which is a promising sign with the season just around the corner.
“His last two outings he’s thrown more strikes than he did in the fall and the early part of the spring,” O’Sullivan said on Coppola. “That was really, really encouraging. His misses have been smaller. He’s worked awfully hard on the other aspects, holding runners. He’s missed two years so there’s a lot of things that went into this but I’ve been really encouraged the way he’s thrown the ball the last two times out…I know he’s excited about it. He’s worked awfully hard. I’m looking forward to seeing him on Sunday compete.”
– Jake Clemente has put together a fairly consistent offseason starting with an impressive summer in the Cape Cod league. Pitching for the Brewster Whitecaps in the Cape Cod Summer League, Clemente earned an East All-Star selection after posting a 3.00 ERA in 27 innings pitched. He also earned player of the week from July 13-19, tossing seven shutout, one-hit innings to power Brewster to a 7-0 victory over Harwich on July 17. He fanned six and did not issue a walk. If Clemente is finding the zone and hitting his spots, he has a fastball, slider, changeup combo that can create plenty of swing and miss.
Key returners
– Player retention can be just as valuable in today’s world of college sports than high school or transfer portal recruiting. Florida brought back five starting offensive players and two weekend starters from last years College World Series squad, four of which were draft eligible (Coppola, Heyman, Shelton, Evans).
“It was really important,” O’Sullivan said on the return of his draft eligible players. “I think that the whole tide turned right around July 4th, about a week and a half out from the draft or so. And in talking with Colby and with Ty and with Pierce and with Luke, started to get some indication that they would really entertain the idea of going back to school. And you know how the portal works, it’s just, it’s a totally different aspect in recruiting right now. And, you know, it comes down to resources, you know, with NIL and that type of thing. And it really sometimes determines how successful you are in recruiting out of the portal. So getting those guys back was huge for us, from not just, you know, all their experience, but their leadership. And over the years, there’s really three things that probably factor into having success throughout the whole year. One’s, you know, you have to have talent. Number two, you have to have leadership, and all four of those guys are giving that to us right now, along with some other guys. And then experience, we’ve got a bunch of guys on the roster who have been to Omaha, if not once, twice.”
– Junior Cade Kurland is one player in particular I’m excited about in 2025. After hitting .297 with 17 home runs as a true freshman in 2023, Kurland suffered a hand injury last season that really affected his play down the stretch. Kurland has all the tools to be an elite hitter at the collegiate level.
“He’s always hit,” O’Sullivan said on Kurland. “I felt bad for him last year, he was hurt the entire year. When you hurt your hand or break your finger and you’re still playing, like, the expectation level I thought was extremely unfair for him last year to be honest with you. To try to do anything with a broken finger, discomfort, I mean literally he couldn’t hold a bat last year for most of the year to be quite honest with you, and it’s taking some time, but he’s been swinging the bat really good.”
Replacing Jac Caglianone
– One of the bigger storylines from this season will be replacing the production of former Gators superstar Jac Caglianone, who played a critical role in Florida making it to the CWS last season. The short answer is; you can’t. At least not with one individual player. The hope is that Florida can create plenty of offensive production from their five returning starters and transfer portal additions.
“You’re not gonna be able to replace Jac with one person,” O’Sullivan said. “Hopefully as a collective group, our offense will look differently and we put an emphasis on that in the recruiting aspects of things.”
Florida had a balanced approach in the transfer portal, adding guys with speed, power, contact, and position versatility. These additions give Florida a tremendous amount of depth in 2025.
– The Gators projected leadoff hitter, Kyle Jones, provides Florida with speed, elite defense, and plenty of contact. Jones was one of the hardest hitters to strikeout with Stetson a year ago while maintaining a .355 batting average.
“I’m a big fan. We’re pretty deep in the outfield. We got about five guys that we really trust and you’ll see when we put the lineups together, we’ll mix and match. But going back to Kyle, it’s not like he’s just a singles hitter and can’t drive the ball. He’s got some gap-to-gap power and plays a terrific centerfield. I think he stole 23 bases last year. So, yeah, he is your prototypical leadoff hitter, but he can do some things offensively with the bat. He’s hopefully gonna be a really good player for us.”
Impact freshman
– There are two freshmen you should keep an eye on in 2025: INF Brendan Lawson and RHP Aidan King.
Lawson has impressed the staff with his bat through preseason. The infielder has power, strength, and quick hands through the zone. Gator Country is projecting him to start at 1st base this season in an effort to get his bat in the lineup.
“Brendan Lawson has been swinging the bat really good, you’ll see, he’s just an advanced bat,” O’Sullivan said on Lawson. “We didn’t play him a whole lot at first in the fall because quite frankly we didn’t know if he was gonna stay on the left side and play third or first. He’s really taken to first base; he’s going to end his career over on the left side of the infield, but in order to get his bat in the lineup, we had to get creative with him. He’s been great. He’s going to be a really good hitter.”
King, a RHP from Jacksonville, has the physical and mental tools to pitch on the weekend as a true freshman. Whether that’s as a starter, mid reliever, or closer is to be determined. But King will pitch in big time innings this season.
“He’s extremely talented. He’s mature. He’s handled everything we’ve thrown at him,” O’Sullivan said on King. “I’m trying to be careful with my words because I think about this quite a bit. You don’t want to put too much expectations on somebody who hasn’t even played their first college game, but he’s been good. He’s been good. If everything were to go the way it’s supposed to go – I mean, our weekend rotation is set right now – but in any other year, if he had to start on a Sunday, I would have no issues at all. I would not lose any sleep. Now, where does he fit? Does he start midweek? Does he throw leverage innings on the weekend? Does he end up being your guy that’s the stopper at the end? I don’t know. I don’t know. I do know that he’s going to throw a lot for us, but I don’t want to put too much on him because he is a freshman. He’ll have some anxiety as well I’m sure, but boy, he’s done everything we’ve asked him to do. He is extremely mature. He’s calm. He’s confident. Yeah, if he keeps doing what he’s doing he’s going to have a chance to have a really good freshman year for us for sure.”
Follow along at Gator County for more coverage of Florida baseball throughout the 2025 season.