Determining exactly how the pieces fit together is always a process for the Kansas baseball team.
The proof is in head coach Dan Fitzgerald’s office, where mounted on the wall is the lineup card from his first victory at Kansas: a 5-1 win over Valparaiso on Feb. 17, 2023.
“(Kodey) Shojinaga was on the bench,” Fitzgerald said — he finished that season as the conference’s freshman of the year. “(Longtime starting catcher) Jake English was on the bench for that first weekend. I think the season evolves and lineups change and guys win jobs. Yeah, it’s an evolution.”
The Jayhawks may be in for another year of evolution, with precious few returnees — albeit some very good ones — from the 2025 campaign that broke numerous records, enthralled a resurgent fan base at Hoglund Ballpark and brought KU back to the postseason for the first time in 11 years.
But while the newcomers are plentiful, any discussion of the 2026 KU roster has to begin with the pair of foundational players whom Fitzgerald highlighted last July, amid a time of roster uncertainty: “The good news for the Jayhawks is that Dom Voegele and Brady Ballinger are not draft-eligible.”
They will be after this season, and they’ll certainly have the eyes of professional scouts as they attempt to string together their best seasons yet.
Ballinger was an immediate star last year as a sophomore out of the College of Southern Nevada. He batted .353 with 16 home runs and 56 RBIs while also leading the Big 12 in walks and was a core leader of the team that made a run to the NCAA Tournament.
“Brady Ballinger has never had a single moment in his life as an impostor,” Fitzgerald told the Journal-World. “He’s just a super genuine, authentic, comfortable-in-his-own-skin guy … and then you meet his parents and you understand why. They have thanked us as a staff no less than 1,000 times for recruiting Brady. And so he’s just a real, genuine guy, and he has so much joy in playing baseball.”
The expectations for the Las Vegas native are even higher this season as he has received preseason first-team All-American honors from multiple publications and is MLB.com’s No. 59 prospect for the 2026 draft, which gives him a chance to be the highest-drafted Jayhawk position player in history.
He’ll be working at a new position, left field, this season after primarily playing first base in his first year in Lawrence. As Fitzgerald puts it, “the run tool is way better than it looks” for Ballinger.
“He’s very big, he’s physical, he’s barrel-chested and has a very particular gait as he walks to the plate, but he runs way better than you think,” Fitzgerald said. “And you know, that’s all stuff that we can measure. We’ve got every ounce of technology you could possibly have that measures routes and all that stuff, and he’s super efficient in all those things.”
The other returning headliner is Voegele, a former Big 12 freshman of the year in 2024 whose first season as the Jayhawks’ ace was a mixed bag. The Columbia, Illinois, native posted memorable performances in which he lived up to billing — 8 2/3 shutout innings against Utah, seven shutout innings against league-leading West Virginia — but got hit hard unusually often, including in both of his postseason starts, and finished the year with a 5.70 ERA.
He’ll return as the Jayhawks’ Friday night starter for a second straight year. Beyond that, KU has a number of options with Kannon Carr (who got 10 starts last year), Mason Cook (a sophomore righty who tallied a 4.68 ERA with 54 strikeouts in 57 2/3 innings at McLennan Community College last year), Mathis Nayral (a French JUCO transfer from Cochise College), Riane Ritter (who started as a freshman at St. Thomas) and Madden Seidl, a true freshman from Emporia.
Nayral and Seidl earned the Saturday and Sunday starts, respectively, for this weekend’s season-opening series at UTRGV. Fitzgerald had previously said the battles would essentially come down to who was more valuable as a reliever and who was more valuable in the rotation. All the players in question have sufficiently wide-ranging arsenals of pitches to start games in theory.
Relief roles will look dramatically different in 2026, especially with breakout closer Alex Breckheimer drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals last summer.
“I think Boede Rahe has very clearly separated himself as one of the guys that can get the last three outs of the game,” Fitzgerald said. “You take those four guys that — whoever isn’t in Friday and Saturday, take those four guys, and all four of those guys are capable of getting the last three outs of the game too.”
Rahe is a 6-foot-6 righty, a redshirt junior from Kirkwood Community College who compiled a 2.83 ERA and 1.09 WHIP in 24 appearances, 15 starts, last year. Fitzgerald likes the depth he’s compiled with arms like Aiden Cline (Midland College), Carter Fink (a grad transfer who was a starter at East Tennessee State) and Toby Scheidt (a sidearm pitcher from Columbia, Missouri, who transferred from Bryant). The Jayhawks also bring back Manning West among several returning relief pitchers. Blake O’Brien, a redshirt freshman from Overland Park, will miss the season with an arm injury.
That’s the lay of the land when it comes to pitching, where things are largely quite new for KU. In the field, there’s at least a little more familiarity. The biggest returning contributor beyond Ballinger is Dariel Osoria, last year’s designated hitter — .324 with nine home runs and 47 RBIs, a second-team all-conference pick — and this year’s second baseman.
Fitzgerald said Osoria worked every day of last season to play in the field, but KU had an exceptional defense in place in the infield with the likes of Michael Brooks, Brady Counsell and Sawyer Smith.
“He was just kind of the odd man out,” Fitzgerald said, “but we needed his bat in the lineup, and honestly, we needed his bat in the lineup for all nine innings, and he wasn’t a guy that we could play defensively and then have to defensively substitute a Counsell or a Brooks or whatever late.”
Osoria went to Fitzgerald after the season, asked what he needed to do to get on the field on defense, and was told, “You need to keep working and doing what you’re doing and trust the process, and you need to do it at third base and second base.”
Fitzgerald saw that work firsthand from up in his office over the summer.
“It was 10,000 degrees outside, and we had a youth tournament going on out on our field, and I was looking out the window,” he recalled. “And in between games, he had one of his teammates hitting ground balls to him in July, and he did that every single day of the summer once he got back. So I haven’t had to do anything with him, other than just encourage him on what a fantastic job he’s done. He’s an incredibly self-started kid.”
Joining him on the left side of the new-look infield will be third baseman Dylan Schlotterback, who came in from Paris Junior College with his younger brother Gavyn, and shortstop Tyson LeBlanc from LSU Eunice, both of whom staked strong claims to significant roles.
“I think the thing that stands out with LeBlanc (is) how he checks the boxes on all five tools,” Fitzgerald said. “He can really run, he can hit, he can hit for power. He can pick up the ball and he can throw it. And it’s so rare to find a guy that’s very balanced in his tools like that.”
Catcher is one of the strengths of the team with numerous options including fall standout Augusto Mungarrieta (Northwest Florida State College) and returnee Max Soliz Jr., who was last year’s original starter behind the plate. Soliz saw his role dwindle throughout the season, entered the portal and was set to transfer to Hawaii before reversing course amid a dominant summer in the Northwoods League.
KU has another catcher option in the versatile Jordan Bach, who can also play in the outfield. Bach, a graduate transfer from Southern Illinois, hit .309 with 11 home runs and 41 RBIs for the Salukis and also lit up the Northwoods with the Thunder Bay Border Cats. Fitzgerald characterized him as one of several “stars” of the fall along with Ballinger, Osoria and Soliz. He could be a candidate in right field, as could Josh Dykhoff, although Dykhoff, a veteran transfer from Minnesota Crookston (and therefore the most direct analogue to last year’s home-run hitter Jackson Hauge), might end up on first base.
The Jayhawks have a lot of other pieces at their disposal. Cade Baldridge, from Cowley College, provides a strong arm in center field. Landen Lozier, a late-summer last-minute addition who played sparingly at Michigan State and Minnesota, brings defensive versatility.
Lozier’s spot presented itself when KU lost a catcher who decommitted upon Soliz’s return. The Jayhawks, in an ideal world, wanted a guy who could play center field and a shortstop and hit left-handed.
“And you’re like, ‘Well, it’s a unicorn,'” Fitzgerald said. “And (recruiting coordinator Jon) Coyne, and I don’t know how Jon does this, but next thing you know, he’s like, ‘I found him. He’s played shortstop, center field and is a left-handed hitter and has the makeup and is a great teammate and Dariel vouches for him.'”
Indeed, the pair had been summer-league teammates in years past, and so the Jayhawks picked up one more key asset late. Across the board, they have plenty.
“We all bond over being JUCO transfers,” Osoria told reporters recently.
The process of figuring it all out begins Friday in Edinburg, Texas, as KU opens a road series at UTRGV.
“As a team last year we obviously started off pretty hot, so hopefully looking forward to doing the same thing this year,” Voegele said.
The Jayhawks will be in Texas, in Louisiana and indoors in Minnesota before they play at home for the first time against St. Thomas beginning on March 5. Then comes a midweek matchup with TCU and a Big 12 weekend series at Texas Tech.
Conference play lasts until mid-May, then comes the Big 12 tournament — and then, who knows?
“Obviously going 0-2 in the regional doesn’t sit very well,” Voegele said, referencing KU’s consecutive losses to Creighton and North Dakota State in Fayetteville, Arkansas. “I’d say that pushes us to play even harder this year and make it further.”
Kansas’ Brady Ballinger takes off running during a fall exhibition against Bradley on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, at Hoglund Ballpark.
Kansas’ Dariel Osoria tosses his bat during a fall exhibition against Bradley on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, at Hoglund Ballpark.
Kansas pitcher Dominic Voegele pitches during a fall baseball game against Bradley on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, in Lawrence.
Kansas’ Mathis Nayral delivers during a fall exhibition against Bradley on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, at Hoglund Ballpark.
Kansas’ Boede Rahe delivers during a fall exhibition against Bradley on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, at Hoglund Ballpark.
Kansas’ Jordan Bach swings during the fall exhibition game against Bradley on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, at Hoglund Ballpark.
Kansas’ Dylan Schlotterback reaches third base during a fall exhibition against Bradley on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, at Hoglund Ballpark.
Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics
Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics
Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics
Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics
Kansas Athletics
Kansas Athletics
Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics
Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics