2026 baseball roster thread

Just from listening to commentators seemed like Duke was punching above it's weight with the guy now at UVA. Their stadium seemed weird, like very little bleacher seating almost everyone had to stand. There's obviously the private school factor and obviously their big donors are all in on hoops.

 

Yes that stadium is indeed ready for a major upgrade. I get that some teams deserve a chance to host based on their merit of wins and losses, but watching those games on TV from Jack Coombs Field made me wonder what the selection committee must be thinking about going back there again if Duke were to host a regional. Give Duke credit for winning their regional at Georgia, thank you very much, but I assume they have better facilities than Murray State. I also get more schools are going to all turf fields the further north you go, but to me its a double negative when you don't have a good enough stadium to take away the lack of real grass to play on. In the future I hope the committee puts more thought into the facilities, fan interactions, and field conditions.

 

Murray State's stadium seats around 800.

 

D1Bsb has a series on transfers to SEC teams. The writer had good things to say about the new Gators. For example...

Reeth a three-year contributor for Notre Dame, but last season was his best. He works with a fastball that was up to 96 mph during the 2025 season and he has two swing-and-miss offspeed pitches in a low-80s slider and a low-80s changeup.

Sandefer He has big-time arm strength, with a fastball that reached 99 mph last season, but he also has a couple of putaway pitches in a low-80s slider that had a 47% whiff rate and a low-80s changeup that had a 49% whiff rate, and he’ll also show a high-80s cutter.

Bastian For the second year in a row, Florida landed one of the most dynamic outfielders at the mid-major level.

 

With that selection of pitches Reeth is going to get drafted somewhere. Slider seems a bit slow but it is like real estate: location, location, location.

Sandefer sounds like a guy I want. Is he a starter? If so even more so. With that kind of fastball I can live with a slider that is just a different change-up.

Bastian sounds like a guy that can play.

 

Sandefer reportedly worked his way into the weekend rotation in his last 6 appearances and was arguably UCF's most effective starter at year's end.

 

Saw a post that we are in play for Virginia Shortstop Eric Becker.

 

In the words of @Gatorgal04 — let’s make it interesting!

 

Or in this climate - intere$ting

 

The front page says we got a commitment from Hawaii RHP Cooper Walls. The stats are pretty unimpressive, but hey, you can't accuse O'Sullivan of not searching everywhere for talent.

 

Aloha...

 

He was named Freshman Big West Pitcher of the Year.
Cooper Walls - Baseball - University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics

 

This years portal pitchers are pretty much the sort of guys Sully got in the past few years, of whom Waldrop excelled, Barlow contributed and the UCLA guy never showed up. I'm OK that he has multiple guys of that ilk and hope all three perform near the Waldrop level. The portal position players have varied as well, but as a group, have played better than pitching transferred.

 

Wasn’t Waldrep a projected first rounder before he even transferred to us?

 

The Big West is one of the better mid-major conferences in my opinion. And Hawaii was a pretty solid team despite not making the tournament. I caught a few of their games earlier in the year.

 

0 3B allowed, may be something going on here.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Apologies that this strays a bit, but not too much. Gator website has an interview with Stricklin on several House issues. Football dominated the Q&A, but there's an interesting comment about the move from the Mac. Here's a link and the comment that caught my eye.

https://floridagators.com/news/2025...-topics-as-revenue-sharing-era-kicks-off.aspx

Q: How do you raise money to revamp Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in an era when you now are starting to pay student-athletes more than $20 million per year?
A: That's part of the trick. There's no easy solutions. There is a demand for what is provided when people come to a football game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. And that demand continues seemingly to grow. I think it's going to have a chance there to be a multiplier off that just because I think our program is now in a position of where it's going to be a lot of fun – even more fun coming to the Swamp than it has been. We've got to be really creative and aggressive and also come up with a really good plan. The fact of the matter is, if it's the right mix of premium inventory and fan amenities, people will pay for that. And they'll pay for it willingly. We saw that at the Condron Ballpark. Our game day revenue from the last year at McKethan to last year at the ballpark was 7x. A lot more people are coming out, but they're willing to pay more. It just drives more revenue. That's why it's really important that you just don't slap paint on this thing, and you have a plan that keeps what's special about the Swamp but extends the useful livelihood of this facility for another 50 years, so multiple generations of Gators can keep coming and experience that.​

 

It makes sense when you consider the food prices seem 7X higher...