Prior to the last two seasons, Kentucky’s baseball success had been fleeting. There were moments—the Wildcats shared an SEC title in 2006 under John Cohen, and shared an SEC East title under Gary Henderson in 2014.
But the Wildcats had been to back-to-back NCAA tournaments just once (1949-1950). They’d never been to a College World Series, and had participated in just one super regional
That all went out the window last year. The Wildcats followed a 2023 super regional loss to eventual national champions LSU with a College World Series appearance, during which they won their first game there.
Raising interest in baseball has always been a challenge at Kentucky. But the 2024 Wildcats played in a way that resonated with fans. The Wildcats set Kentucky attendance records on back-to-back days of the Tennessee series in April, and then topped that in June in a super regional game with Oregon State.
In January, coach Nick Mingione reflected on how success has changed the climate around the program.
“We’ve gotten a lot of great attention and the baseball world has definitely noticed,” he says. “So that’s helped in recruiting. The fan base—for our super regional game, we packed the house out. Literally, the fire Marshall said ‘No more people!’ at our super regional. We’re able to do that and set all kinds of attendance records. … It’s helped with recruiting, it’s helped with the fan base, I’m doing a lot more of these (media opportunities) so it’s all definitely been positive.”
Sustaining success in the brutally-tough SEC might be even harder. But weeks after Kentucky’s run to Omaha ended came another sign of progress for the ‘Cats. Getting a player with a slot value of $1,260,000 through the draft is tough even for college baseball’s blue-blood programs, but Mingione’s staff pulled it off when shortstop Tyler Bell (picked 66th by the Rays) declined the money to come to Lexington.
“He made it really clear in the recruiting process that Kentucky was his dream school,” Mingione says.
Bell will be one of the few well-known names on Mingione’s roster. For the third-straight year, Kentucky has reloaded with 15 transfers who played elsewhere last year, only one of whom (Kansas State’s Raphael Pelletier) played on a Power 4 school
last season.
Between that, and a number of home-grown returnees, Mingione’s team will be what it’s been the last two seasons: old. As of late-January, seven players on the roster finished high school in 2020 and nine more finished in 2021.
“We do have some age and experience, much like the ’23 team,” Mingione said. “We had a lot of new positional players and we had a lot of guys step up that had been in our program, but they had experience in college baseball.”
THE LINEUP
Perhaps no offense in the country could beat opponents in as many ways as Kentucky’s did last year. Mingione says that’s by design.
“Our offense is a whatever-it-takes-type-
Kentucky will have a new hitting coach in Chase Sloan, who comes from Wright State. Mingione first got to know Sloan when he a kid attending baseball camps at Mississippi State, where Mingione was once an assistant.
“Just to watch his success has been neat and then for him to step right in and get in with our guys, we have a lot of new players, we have a lot of returning players, to watch him interact with them, it’s been pretty neat,” Mingione says. “And for him to learn our system but then to bring things he can add value to us, it’s been a good transition.”
Mingione—whose Wildcats fielded .980 last year—has also placed a premium on defense. That opens the door for Bell, whose scouting grades rated his glove ahead of his bat, to play immediately at short, or perhaps second.
“This guy has tremendous belief in himself,” Mingione says. “So when the draft didn’t work out the way he wanted, he had no problems saying ‘hey, I’m going to come to Kentucky.’
He and transfer Luke Lawrence, who hit .332/392/.467 over 95 games in two years at Illinois State, will likely be the opening-day starters in the middle infield.
“Luke Lawrence brings a level of toughness and skill level that we love,” Mingione says. “His ability to run the bases, lay down a bunt, ram a ball in the gap, leave the yard, he does a lot of those things.”
Kentucky will also return a three-year starter at catcher in Devin Burkes, who’s hit .275/.41.458, mashed 15 home runs and stolen 30 bases in his three Wildcat seasons.
“He can lay down a bunt if he has to,” Mingione says of Burkes. “He can steal a base if he has to. Two years ago, I think he hits eight home runs and last year I think we’re all waiting for him to hit double-digit home runs and get to that spot. It didn’t happen for him. He’s fully capable of doing that. So he’s a great representation of our offense.”
Campbell transfer Dylan Koontz, a left-handed hitter, or switch-hitting returnee James McCoy could man first.
“(He) had as good a fall as anybody offensively,” Mingione says of Koontz, who hit .267/.393/.430 over two seasons at Campbell, with 160 of his 208 plate appearances coming last season. He’s played first, second, third, left and right between collegiate and summer ball the past two seasons.
McCoy, who’s started parts of two seasons in Lexington, is a career .223/.360/.409 hitter with 11 home runs. He manned the corner outfield spots for Kentucky last season.
Third base could to to either of sophomore returnees Ethan Hindle or Kyuss Gargett.
Hindle played seven games last year but has shown plate discipline as well as on-base and stolen-base ability in his last two years of summer ball. Hindle walked 19 times to 18 strikeouts in his 2023 stint in the South Florida Collegiate League and then posted a .421 on-base percentage with 14 steals in the Northwoods League last summer.
Gargett briefly filled as a starter at shortstop last year when Grant Smith was injured. Gargett’s bio at Kentucky’s official website notes that he held the world deadlift record as a 10-year-old.
Kentucky’s starting outfield will likely be manned by three transfers who finished high school in 2020.
Versatile Will Marcy, who’s played at North Carolina State and Memphis, has seen time at every spot on the diamond except pitcher and catcher between summer and collegiate stops. A career .297/.395/.407 hitter, Marcy will likely open the season in center.
“WIll Marcy’s fall was incredible,” Mingione says.
Columbia transfer Cole Hage, who’ll likely start in left, has probably put up the best career collegiate numbers (.331/.455/.577 in 598 plate appearances) of any player on the roster. He was a first-team All-Ivy League player in each of his three seasons.
“The speed, the power, the strength is undeniable,” Mingione says.
San Diego State transfer Shaun Montoya, a potential right-field starter, hit .306/.389/.410 over 631 plate appearances there and was a second-team all-Mountain West pick last year.
Kentucky
Fourth-year veteran Patrick Herrera’s hit .322/.468/444 in 82 games between Northwestern and Kentucky while playing second, third, short and both corner outfield spots. He’ll play a utility role for the ‘Cats again this year.
Kentucky adds veteran catcher Raphael Pelletier from Kansas State, where he was the starter for a super regional team. He hit .237/.349/.398 over 506 plate appearances there.
Returnee Griffin Cameron, a sophomore, could see some outfield time, while freshman Nolan Belcher projects as the third catcher.
THE PITCHING
The Wildcats used a deep staff of strike-throwers to find pitching success last year and Mingione plans to do the same this season.
“What makes us different, you talk about the architecture of our pitching staff, almost every one of our guys is gonna have a change-up,” Mingione says. “We’ve got a couple of guys with (splitters). They’re gonna be three-, four-, five-pitch guys.”
Seventh-year righty Nic McCay started his career at South Dakota State in 2019, didn’t play in 2020, ’21 or ’23. When McCay’s played, he’s been good—a freshman all-American by Collegiate Baseball in 2019 and a second-team All-Summit pick that year, a second-team all-Summit pick in 2022 and a first-team all-league selection last season. He’s thrown 219 1/3 collegiate innings with a 4.47 ERA.
Ethan Walker transfers in from Longwood, where he had a 4.25 ERA with 110 strikeouts in 84 2/3 innings there. He figures to be part of Kentucky’s weekend rotation.
“Left-hander, up to mid-90s, just super-talented,” Mingione says.
Scott Rouse spent two years at Ohio Dominican before two at Radford. He’s also likely to start on the weekend.
“Low-three-quarter arm slot with a really good slider and a really good change-up,” Mingione says.
Lefty Ben Cleaver, a highly-regarded recruit out of high school in 2023, could also start. Cleaver struck out 42% of the hitters he faced in his 6 1/3 innings last year.
Veterans Robert Hogan (67 2/3 career innings, 4.97 ERA) Jackson Nove (5.95, 65) and Evan Byers (47 2/3, 4.15) return as big parts of the bullpen. Hogan, who pitched in short spurts over 31 appearances at Texas A&M, had a breakout season last year and allowed just 5.5 hits per nine innings.
Hogan’s talented enough to be trusted in in-game situations, but the Wildcats also landed righty Simon Gregersen and lefty Cole Hentschel, who closed at Indiana State and Richmond, respectively, last season. They’ve got 17 career saves between them.
Newcomer Chase Alderman redshirted coming off Tommy John surgery at Eastern Kentucky. He was an all-Atlantic Sun freshman in 2023, striking out 43 hitters in 44 2/3 innings while limiting hitters to a .235 average and is expected to be healthy enough to contribute.
Mingione says that Leighton Harris, one of the top pitching prospects in Kentucky last year, “had a great fall” and should contribute this year.
JUCO transfer Nile Adcock threw 139 2/3 innings with 165 strikeouts at Kaskaskia Community College the last two years, starting 26 games. He figures to contribute out of the bullpen.
A pair of freshmen, righty Hayden Smith and lefty Nate Harris, could contribute out of the bullpen. So could highly-regarded Arkansas transfer Adam Hachman, a lefty, if he’s healthy.
McCoy, who’s thrown six career innings at Kentucky, is also a candidate to pitch.
Transfers Oliver Boone (Cal) and Jaxon Jelkin (Houston) will miss the season with injuries.
POTENTIAL STRENGTHS
The Wildcats are old again and seemed to be well-stocked with players, which has worked well for Mingione the past two years. Kentucky is generally hard to defend with its offensive versatility and its ability to put pressure on defenses. Burkes, Lawrence and Bell could give Kentucky good defense up the middle. An experienced bullpen figures to be a strength and pitching coach Dan Roszel has shown he knows how to handle arms. Program culture seems to be a strength as is Mingione, who’s figured out a way to win differently than just about everyone else in the league.
POTENTIAL CONCERNS
While it hasn’t mattered the last two years, there’s not a lot of obvious star power unless Hage can replicate what he did at Columbia, or Bell can become one right away. None of the arms have meaningful SEC starting experience. Hage is the only projected impact bat who smacked double-figure homers last season.
FINAL ANALYSIS
On paper, the Wildcats would be easy to dismiss within a league that could be as strong as it’s ever been. They won’t be ranked by most pollsters entering 2025 (Baseball America did rank Kentucky 20th). Guess what? The same could be said of Mingione’s last two teams, and though Kentucky’s 2024 outfit (outside first-round pick Ryan Waldschmidt) didn’t have the top-end talent that much of the league had and still finished 22-8 and made Omaha. That makes the Wildcats perhaps the league’s biggest wild card heading into 2025.