As good as Kansas was at the plate last season — and the Jayhawks both got on base and hit for power as well as anyone in their conference — they were noticeably lacking in a particular area on offense, one that head coach Dan Fitzgerald mentioned during the year and he said continued to bother him all through the summer.
“We won at a really high level last year,” he told the Journal-World. “But in order to take the next step, you have to be able to do it in every facet. And I thought that over the past three years, we’ve addressed the defense to where, like last year, we played really, really good defense. And we’ve upgraded the bullpen, and we’ve done those things, but we just haven’t been able to tap into being a threat to steal bases.”
KU stole 24 bases last season. That total tied for 292nd out of 299 teams in Division I.
It’s not so much that Fitzgerald wants the Jayhawks to actually attempt to steal on a regular basis. He describes it as the “highest-risk, lowest-reward thing you can do in baseball.” But it’s simply the threat of being able to do so that puts pressure on opponents. For example, KU had to prepare extensively for the baserunning of teams like Cincinnati, TCU and West Virginia, only for that element to play a minimal role in those three series.
“It was not anything consequential, but you spent half the week preparing for it,” Fitzgerald said. “Because if you let it get out of hand, every base hit turns into a double. Every walk turns into a double, hit by pitch turns into a double, dropped third strike turns into a double. So we’ve addressed it more this fall than any other year in terms of working on it. And I think a big chunk of that is we have the personnel to do it. We’ve got some guys that can actually run.”
It remains to be seen who will take the lead in this realm for KU — last season Derek Cerda, draftee of the Chicago White Sox paced the Jayhawks with a whopping 10 stolen bases — but there are some promising candidates. Infielder Tyson LeBlanc swiped 39 bags at LSU Eunice last season and 17 more in the Northwoods League, fellow infielder Cade Baldridge stole 23 at Cowley College, outfielder Tyson Owens 21 at Cochise College and so on.
It wasn’t so much that KU made a concerted effort to target players with this particular tool at their disposal. Instead, the Jayhawks tried to make sure that when they didn’t acquire players with elite power, those athletes had good speed as something of a consolation.
“So hopefully it becomes more of an asset, certainly has so far this fall, we’ve been way more intentional about it,” Fitzgerald said. “And someone asked me the other day … if we thought we’d steal more bases. And I said, ‘Well, it’d be impossible to steal less.’ Safest answer of all time is yes, because you can’t possibly steal less than we did.”
Kansas catcher Max Soliz Jr. swings during a fall baseball game against Bradley on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, in Lawrence.
Depth behind the plate
One of the more interesting offseason storylines for KU was the departure, then return, of catcher Max Soliz Jr.
The Houston native began the 2025 season as the Jayhawks’ starting catcher and one of the team’s more promising hitters, but struggled with inconsistency early in the year and lost the role to Ian Francis. Fitzgerald said it was understandable when Soliz, frustrated that he didn’t play more, entered the portal after the season.
“I watched every at-bat that he had this summer,” Fitzgerald said. “Every night I would go back and watch, I would fast-forward through the Northwoods League game and watch his at-bats. And I kept looking and he kept getting better and better and better, and really started, approach-wise, just fine-tuning it.”
Soliz dazzled for the Wausau Woodchucks, finishing the summer with 13 home runs and 65 RBIs on a 1.037 OPS.
Fitzgerald and Soliz texted every now and then, but it wasn’t until mid-July that the coach decided to ask the catcher if he wanted to come back to Lawrence.
“And so we kind of talked through that, and I was really candid and honest, and so was he, and it was kind of trending in a great direction,” Fitzgerald said. “And then he called and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to go to Hawaii.’ I said, ‘I get it,’ because in the back of my mind, I’m like, it’s hard to go back sometimes. And so he commits to Hawaii. And then I did think for a minute, you know, if you’re going to spend a year of your life somewhere, it’s not a bad spot.”
That aside, Fitzgerald regretted losing Soliz and wondered in the aftermath if he should have re-recruited him harder.
“But also, I give these kids and their parents my word that when they get on this campus, I’ll treat them the exact same way that I would have treated one of my sons,” he said. “And I thought, I try to let my kids — I try not to force them into decisions. And I want them to have some say in things.
“Anyway, long story short, Max called a few days later and said, ‘Hey, I think I need to be at Kansas.’ I said, ‘I think you’re right.’ And so I said, ‘Tweet it out and let’s get going.'”
The return is off to a promising start with what Fitzgerald called an “unbelievable fall.” Soliz is leading the Jayhawks in home runs, went 4-for-8 with two doubles and a triple in a fall game against Bradley and will see time at catcher, first base and designated hitter.
“It’s a great story, and I’m super proud of him,” Fitzgerald said. “And I went out to breakfast with him a couple weeks after he got back, and you know, we kind of talked through the whole thing. The maturity in which he echoed his thoughts was really refreshing.”
KU has a crowded group of catchers this year. That’s largely by design.
‘We could never have Ben Hartl DH when Jake English was catching (in 2024),” Fitzgerald said. “We could never have Jake English DH when Ben Hartl was catching, because if one of those guys got hurt, you’re bringing your DH out of game and then you’re doing your coach’s worst nightmare: You have a pitcher hitting.”
The depth behind the plate wasn’t much better in 2025, and Fitzgerald said that catching the same player “30 straight games” contributed to the fact that KU “very much ran out of gas at the end” (losing its second Big 12 tournament game and then getting knocked out of its NCAA regional without a win).
Catcher options won’t be an issue this year, between Soliz, Augusto Mungarrieta (Northwest Florida State College) and Jordan Bach (Southern Illinois). Bach can and will also play in the outfield — Fitzgerald sees him as KU’s starting right fielder right now — but the staff determined over the summer that he is a legitimate option behind the plate.
Some of these players could see time at first base, but Fitzgerald pointed out that it’ll be difficult to move Josh Dykhoff, a transfer from Minnesota Crookston, off that spot — and if they needed to, they can bring returning star Brady Ballinger in from left field, where he’s expected to see much more time this year.
Dykhoff, by the way, is a bona fide two-way player, but as of Oct. 13 KU decided to have him focus primarily on hitting for the rest of the fall, where Fitzgerald sees his future at the pro level — even though the staff still thinks he’ll have the ability to provide “a quality start against anyone we play” in the spring.
Kansas infielder David Hogg II looks to make a catch during a fall baseball game against Bradley on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, in Lawrence.
Another reunion
During his stint as a recruiting coordinator for LSU, Fitzgerald secured the commitment of David Hogg II, one of the top shortstops in the country, for the class of 2024. Now he has Hogg playing for him at KU.
That’s a fun and tidy full-circle story on its own, but the connection between the two goes back a lot longer.
In the early days of the pandemic, when Fitzgerald was still at Dallas Baptist, he used to go for a run every day with his dog along the same route in the Metroplex suburb of Mansfield, Texas, and he’d always see a father throwing his son batting practice in a park.
“I hadn’t been able to recruit or watch any baseball,” Fitzgerald said. “I’ve been throwing wiffle balls to my kids in the backyard. My kids were tiny. This is a long time ago. And so I’d run past, I’d see this kid swinging. I’m like, ‘Dang, he’s pretty good.’ And then I was like, well, he might just be OK, because I’m just throwing wiffle balls to my kids, and they’re little, but I saw him every day.”
The worst of the pandemic passed and Fitzgerald was back on the road for DBU recruiting from the Houston Banditos club team, which featured Hogg, a promising young player from Mansfield, Texas, who was then committed to Oklahoma for both baseball and football.
He decommitted and Fitzgerald recruited him, and well, you can see where this is going.
“In the process of recruiting him, I said, ‘David, where in Mansfield do you live?'” Fitzgerald recalled. “And he said, ‘Man, we live right off of Broad Street and England Parkway,’ and that’s right where we lived. I said, ‘Hey, man, is there any chance during the pandemic, you guys…’ They were like, ‘Yes.’ And then they said, ‘Is there any chance you used to run by a lot with a black dog?’ I said, ‘Unbelievable.'”
Fast forward to 2025 and Hogg spent his freshman year at LSU sitting behind some of the best players in the nation at his two spots: middle infield and center field. The Tigers won a title, Hogg went in the portal and there was Fitzgerald again.
“He’s leading our team in walks this fall, his swing decisions are fantastic,” Fitzgerald said. “I think he’s like every other kid that goes to college, where there’s an adjustment period to a new culture and a new coaching staff and all that. So he’s certainly had some growing pains. And I’m sure at times he likes me, and at times I’m not his favorite person in the world. But I think he’s got a huge future here, and he’s a really good player, he’s an awesome teammate, and I think he’s going to be big for us.”
Kansas Athletics
Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics
Kansas Athletics