The Kansas baseball roster was not, as head coach Dan Fitzgerald would put it, decimated by the 2025 MLB Draft in the same way it had been the previous summer.
KU did have a pair of key players forgo their senior seasons to sign professional contracts. Alex Breckheimer, the Jayhawks’ closer in 2024, was a 16th-round selection of the St. Louis Cardinals, and center fielder Derek Cerda went to the Chicago White Sox with the first pick of the 17th. Both could have played key roles in 2025 as well, and Fitzgerald had mentioned Breckheimer as a potential candidate for the starting rotation.
However, taken as a whole, the player movement didn’t necessitate the sort of dramatic pivot KU had to undertake last year, when six Jayhawks with remaining eligibility had opted to turn pro.
That has made for a somewhat quieter late July and early August, but KU has nevertheless continued to build, securing several significant additions to its next roster as the summer draws on.
Here’s a deeper look at what has taken place since the MLB Draft concluded on July 14.
Right-handed pitcher Daniel Lopez is photographed on a recent visit to KU.
July 16: Daniel Lopez commits to KU, later picks Jayhawks over Orioles
KU secured a major recruiting victory when Lopez, a right-handed pitcher from El Paso, Texas, whose fastball has touched 98 mph, first committed to the Jayhawks and then announced about a week later that he was going to stay in college instead of signing a professional deal. He had been a 12th-round selection of the Baltimore Orioles after a lone year at Odessa College in which he went 6-2 with a 4.89 ERA and 81 strikeouts.
July 16: Cooper Moore announces transfer to LSU
Moore was one of KU’s top pitchers during the 2025 season as the Jayhawks’ Saturday night starter, a role in which he earned a second-team all-conference selection. After a last-minute entry into the transfer portal, Moore was not selected in the draft — he was eligible as a 21-year-old sophomore — and visited schools such as LSU, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Tennessee before ultimately choosing the Tigers, winners of two of the last three national championships (and Fitzgerald’s former team).
July 22: Emerson McKnight joins as late high school addition
KU has not brought in a lot of high school signees during Fitzgerald’s tenure — they started out a bit behind in the first couple recruiting classes when he came in, and found a lot of success at the JUCO ranks in the ensuing years. But some of the Jayhawks’ top players, like back-to-back freshmen of the year Kodey Shojinaga and Dominic Voegele, came out of high school. Now, in McKnight, KU gets another lefty arm, of which it didn’t have many in 2025, and another summertime high school pitcher addition after Madden Seidl (Emporia) and Sawyer Cooney (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.). McKnight was previously committed to Howard College.
July 31: Colin Guerra joins JUCO class
An Olathe South product, Guerra is headed back to the Sunflower State after a year at Chipola College in Florida. The shortstop hit .311 there with 35 RBIs and 16 stolen bases, and has had a strong summer playing for the Bluefield Ridge Runners of the Appalachian League.
Aug. 4: Max Soliz Jr. announces return
Among a variety of peripheral players from the 2025 season who entered the transfer portal, Soliz had been one of the more notable losses. Fitzgerald had said he expected the 6-foot-5 catcher to “make a big splash” entering 2025, but Soliz struggled at the plate early in the year outside of a lone home run (in a string of five straight batters who hit homers against Minnesota on March 12) and spent most of the season on the bench. The Houston native entered the portal and was at one point committed to Hawaii but reversed course to return to KU on Aug. 4. He recently became the career home run leader for the Wausau Woodchucks of the Northwoods League (a team that has also included future Jayhawks Cade Baldridge and Dylan Schlotterback over the course of the summer).
Aug. 5: Anthony Mazza returns to Hutchinson Community College
As it brought back one catcher, KU lost another. Mazza, who is from Prairie Village, had signed with the Jayhawks in May after one year in Hutchinson — in which he hit .424 — but announced last Tuesday that he would instead return to junior college for the 2026 season. Even without Mazza in the ranks, catcher will be a crowded position for KU next season, with players like Soliz, Jordan Bach, Augusto Mungarrieta, Frankie Santiago and Gavyn Schlotterback all experienced behind the plate.
Updates from the professional ranks
In addition to the signings of the two players who could have returned to college in Breckheimer and Cerda, recent graduate Brady Counsell went to the Arizona Diamondbacks as a 10th-round pick, and Michael Brooks signed with the Athletics as an undrafted free agent.
There has also been movement elsewhere in the minor leagues. Hunter Cranton, a third-round pick of the Seattle Mariners in 2024, missed several months of action early in the season after he was hit in the head by a line drive during spring training. He had returned and was pitching well for the High-A Everett AquaSox before Seattle traded him to the Arizona Diamondbacks as part of a deal that sent third baseman Eugenio Suárez to the Mariners. Cranton has been assigned to the Double-A Amarillo Sod Poodles.
Pitcher Collin Baumgartner, whom Fitzgerald and pitching coach Brandon Scott had forecasted was drawing close to a major-league call-up, got one step closer on July 31 when the Colorado Rockies moved him from Double-A Hartford to Triple-A Albuquerque. He did not allow a run in any of his first three appearances for the Isotopes. In addition, Kodey Shojinaga earned a promotion to High-A Jersey Shore within the Philadelphia Phillies’ organization, and Ben Hartl went up to High-A with the Texas Rangers’ affiliate in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Power-hitting right fielder Jackson Hauge, who recorded 20 home runs and 70 RBIs in his lone season with the Jayhawks, received his first professional opportunity with the Florence Y’alls of the Frontier League. He signed last Tuesday and debuted on Wednesday as the starting designated hitter, hitting a double in the Y’alls’ 5-3 victory over Schaumburg. Former KU shortstop Sawyer Smith did one better with his own first career hit in the Frontier League on Thursday, as his walk-off double with two outs and two strikes lifted the Gateway Grizzlies to a win of their own.
Former KU pitcher Blake Weiman was released by the Houston Astros from Triple-A Sugar Land on Aug. 4. He had struggled early in the year, but allowed just three runs in 12 innings across 12 appearances since returning to action on June 27. Catcher Jaxx Groshans was also released on Wednesday after going 4-for-32 in 10 appearances with the Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas, and he rejoined the Cleburne Railroaders of the American Association soon afterward.
Courtesy of Daniel Lopez