Monitoring the offseason in college baseball is an entirely different sort of enterprise than keeping track of what’s going on in basketball and football.
Even with the sport’s ongoing growth, player movement receives substantially less coverage. Prospects announced as signees in the fall sometimes never make it to campus; others commit in the final days of the summer without fanfare. Much of this activity never becomes apparent to anyone outside of the programs themselves. And that’s all even at the Division I high-major level.
That makes it difficult to project a potential lineup for the Kansas baseball team at any stage of the offseason. But with the draft and presumably the vast majority of the Jayhawks’ offseason activity in the rearview mirror, the picture is as clear as it has been at any point since the conclusion of the Lawrence Super Regional.
It is especially clear because in addition to the retention of young contributors who weren’t yet eligible for the draft like pitchers Mason Cook and Riane Ritter and outfielder Tyson Owens, KU now gets to bring back a quintet of undrafted upperclassmen in pitchers Boede Rahe and Manning West, second baseman Cade Baldridge, catcher Augusto Mungarrieta and third baseman Dylan Schlotterback.
With that in mind — and while acknowledging that even with more continuity than usual, KU is still bringing in about two dozen transfers — let’s take an unbelievably early look at how the Jayhawks might line up next season.
To begin, the pitching rotation shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out at all, even with Mathis Nayral selected by the Blue Jays in this year’s draft.
In his sophomore season, and first at KU out of McLennan College, right-hander Mason Cook grew into a consistent Saturday starter for the Jayhawks. He finished the year 5-2 with a 4.81 ERA. While he doesn’t eat up nearly as many innings as someone like Dominic Voegele — he never went more than 6 1/3 all year — he also maintained an exceptional level of consistency, particularly in the late stages of the season when he gave up three or fewer earned runs in six straight starts. That included the Big 12 title clincher, conference tournament semifinal and Lawrence Regional semifinal.
Cook is a lock for next season’s weekend rotation along with Ritter, a former St. Thomas transfer who developed into an incredibly high-usage reliever — he made 38 appearances with 74 strikeouts to 24 walks — with impressive velocity, whom head coach Dan Fitzgerald has already discussed as a potential key weekend starter.
The third spot is wide open. In terms of returning contenders, evidently KU has always felt a high level of confidence in Emporia native Madden Seidl, enough to recruit him late in the 2025 cycle and start him as a true freshman — but he had a bit of an uneven first season at the collegiate level. The veterans Rahe and West have shown the capability to start — West did so when he first arrived at KU for the 2024 season, and Rahe had a brief stint in the rotation before establishing himself as an all-conference closer late last year — but they might be most valuable in high-leverage bullpen roles.
The Jayhawks brought in Logan Harrell, a veteran from Division II Trevecca Nazarene who spent his sophomore year in the bullpen and started with a 3.48 ERA, 97 strikeouts and 20 walks as a junior; they are adding a number of prospective starters from the junior-college level as well. Those include Grady Hoke (Cowley College), Aiden Lieser (Iowa Western Community College) and Ian Swanson (Gulf Coast State College), among others.
Among all the various possibilities, it’s difficult to pick just one, and of course KU will need other starters for midweek games and likely won’t have one set rotation for the entire season. For now, let’s opt for Lieser. His strikeout numbers aren’t dazzling, but it’s hard to argue with power-conference pedigree (he began his career at Nebraska) and a 2.20 ERA for a highly successful JUCO team.
Beyond those listed so far, Riley Lile (Cowley) and Collin Smith (Cochise College) seem like candidates for prominent relief roles. Keep an eye on returning sophomore Emerson McKnight, who is having a strong summer in the Northwoods League for the St. Cloud Rox and is one of precious few lefties the Jayhawks will have available.
Now comes the somewhat more challenging task of projecting how KU will line up in the field.
One salient issue is the shortstop position. The Jayhawks had a commitment from Jake Berkland, a transfer from Division II Minnesota State who seemed poised to slide in and replace Tyson LeBlanc. But Berkland was drafted in the 19th round and signed with the Chicago White Sox.
Fortunately for KU, Baldridge has plenty of experience at shortstop and flashed exceptional defensive acumen in his first year as a Jayhawk. (He was also one of the team’s top hitters by average and finished second-team all-conference, and his absence was certainly felt late in the postseason when he battled injury.)
It will be particularly advantageous for him to slide over because two of KU’s best offseason acquisitions are second basemen. Aidan Mouton batted a whopping .429 with 14 home runs, 75 RBIs and 38 stolen bases for the same LSU Eunice program that produced LeBlanc. Carson Zagryn hit .399 with 14 homers of his own for Gulf Coast State College. (His twin brother Aiden, a third baseman, is also headed to KU.)
Now, it is worth noting that Mouton has spent much of his summer in St. Cloud playing in the outfield. That could indicate he is preparing for a similar role with the Jayhawks, so let’s pencil in Carson Zagryn at second. Then we can complete the infield with the returning third baseman Schlotterback and new first baseman Ryan Chase from Santa Fe College, a Northwoods all-star with the Wausau Woodchucks.
Putting Mouton in the outfield creates a bit of a logjam. Placing him in left field is consistent with where he began the summer playing for St. Cloud, and it fills the hole left by Brady Ballinger. East Tennessee State transfer Jamie Palmese, who is currently playing in the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League, is a multi-time all-conference honoree who will look to combine the power of his sophomore year with the consistency of his junior season when he joins KU. As one of the Jayhawks’ highest-level and most experienced transfers, Palmese seems likely to start in center field, which can allow Owens, a regular starter with some massive single-game showings in his first year as a Jayhawk, to slide over to right field, where he did appear at some points in 2025.
The Mouton-Palmese-Owens outfield unfortunately boxes out some considerable talent in the form of players like Bradon Durfee (Pasco-Hernando State College) and Joey Nicholson (Gaston College). Let’s slot in Nicholson, a right fielder by trade who hit north of .400 for one of the best JUCOs in the country, as the designated hitter.
Placing Nicholson there does exclude some of the catchers who will likely be kept on the bench by the return of Mungarrieta, like Holden Groebl (Cowley), Jake Overstreet (Weatherford College) and Gavyn Schlotterback, who is making his return after open heart surgery last fall. Don’t forget about the younger Schlotterback next year, as he is having a strong summer for the Badlands Big Sticks after redshirting in 2026.
As for the elder Schlotterback, whom I already placed at third base, he’s likely to face some considerable competition. Besides Aiden Zagryn, KU is also adding some formidable bats at the hot corner in Colton Rother (Western Oklahoma State College) and Hutch Russell (Seminole State College). But for the sake of this projected lineup, we won’t bench any returning starters.
Here’s what we have in the field to complement the Ritter-Cook-Lieser rotation:
Catcher: Augusto Mungarrieta
First baseman: Ryan Chase
Second baseman: Carson Zagryn
Third baseman: Dylan Schlotterback
Shortstop: Cade Baldridge
Left fielder: Aidan Mouton
Center fielder: Jamie Palmese
Right fielder: Tyson Owens
Designated hitter: Joey Nicholson
Needless to say, there are plenty of additional possible permutations — and even in late July, KU might not be done adding, as evidenced by the recent commitment of French lefty Ben Couvreur. But this should provide at least a realistic picture of what the Jayhawks might look like in the spring of 2027.
Gulf Coast State College’s Carson Zagryn connects with the ball during a game against Northwest Florida State College on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, in Panama City, Fla.
Playing for the St. Cloud Rox, Aidan Mouton connects with the ball during a game against the Willmar Stingers on Saturday, June 13, 2026, in St. Cloud, Minn.
East Tennessee outfielder Jamie Palmese (1) plays Tennessee in an NCAA baseball game on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Knoxville, Tenn.
Gaston’s Joey Nicholson bats in a fall baseball game on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Gastonia, N.C.
Gulf Coast State College
St. Cloud Rox
AP Photo/John Amis
Gaston College