Mailbag: What does UK need to do to make the NCAA Tournament?
This week's mailbag looks at player retention, adding in the portal and the 2025 high school recruiting class.
The first mailbag of 2025 arrives just before the end of the regular season. I received some excellent questions that should set the stage for some storylines to follow in the coming weeks and months, so let’s get right to it.
What does this team need to do at this point to potentially get on the other side of the NCAAT bubble and make a run? — Tiffany
This might not have been a question had this mailbag been written last week, which shows how quickly things can change with a bad week in college baseball. With just seven games left, the Kentucky baseball team is 25-20 overall and 10-14 in the Southeastern Conference.
With an RPI at 41 and strength of schedule at No. 9, the Wildcats are a true bubble team whose postseason fate will be determined over the next six SEC games. If Kentucky wins the next two series and finishes at least 14-16 in the league, it should absolutely be in the tournament. As it stands now, that would be 13 RPI Quad 1 wins and an RPI that would certainly move back up into a safe range. But winning both series won’t be easy. Oklahoma — led by Friday night starter and potential top 10 pick Kyson Witherspoon — is 32-14 this season and No. 22 in the RPI. Vanderbilt is 34-15 and No. 4 in the RPI. It’s a great opportunity to build the resume if Kentucky can get those wins. The SEC Tournament will provide at least one more chance to pad the resume but it could be a tense selection day on May 26 if the Wildcats have just 12 or 13 SEC victories.
How does the recruiting class look next season? What are the odds we get Jenkins and Essenburg to campus next year — Gene
Kentucky’s 2025 class currently has 13 commitments. Using Prep Baseball Report and Perfect Game, four prospects are ranked in the top 150 by one of the services: C Owen Jenkins, LHP/1B Conor Essenburg, RHP Joshua Flores and INF Caeden Cloud. Braxton Van Cleave was ranked No. 58 at PBR prior to a season-ending injury, and he now sits at No. 155. Check out the Bat Cats Central recruiting page to learn more about each commit.
Regarding your question on Jenkins and Essenburg, it seems that Essenburg might be the biggest draft risk in the class at this point. Essenburg was a First-Team All-State selection by PBR for the 2024 season, and he’s followed that up with an excellent senior season to this point. One of the highlights of his season was homering off likely first-round pick Jack Bauer in a game in April. He also struck out 11 batters in that game. He’s also been in the USA Baseball development program, so Essenburg will be well known to MLB scouts.
Jenkins, a local prospect from Lexington Catholic High School, was a long-time Louisville commit who flipped to Kentucky in September. He’s dealt with an injury this spring and has only played in six games according to the KHSAA website, but he’s 10-18 (.556) with four walks and five stolen bases. While he’s listed as a catching prospect, there’s some thought that he might not stick behind the plate and could eventually end up in the outfield. His limited availability this spring means scouts likely won’t have much, if any, new information on him in their decision-making. Things might still change since the draft is still a few months away, but Jenkins could be the next highly-touted prospect who makes it to campus.
Can we keep Tyler Bell? Feel like other SEC teams unload serious NIL for him. — Anthony
I plan to write a little bit more about this topic once the season is over, but this question from Anthony is inevitable in the modern college game. Long gone are the days when coaches and fans could assume a player would spend the duration of their career in one place. The rules now support player movement, and everyone is more or less a free agent once the season ends.
Freshman shortstop Tyler Bell was a big-name prospect in high school and surprised everyone when he decided not to sign with the Tampa Bay Rays after being selected with the No. 66 pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. He’s proven himself as one of the top freshmen in the SEC and is slashing .324/.405/.562 in conference games with 11 doubles, one triple and four homers. Throw in his defensive ability at one of the most valued positions on the diamond, and Bell is tracking as one of the most valued players in college baseball for the 2026 season.
Again, I want to dive into this topic more later on, but one thing that stands out about Bell is his decision to even come to Kentucky in the first place. I don’t know the exact numbers of what he was offered by the Rays last summer, but in the math I’d done at the time, they could’ve offered around $1.5 million with what was left in their bonus pool. That’s a significant number to turn down to play college baseball. Considering how well he’s played this season — and the fact that he will be drafted in 2026 — I would think the Wildcats have an excellent chance to bring him back for his sophomore season.
Based on current roster, pre portal, what should be the floor for the 26 team, and what positions do they need to hit hard in the portal to have Omaha potential — Carter
Thoughts on who returns next year for the ‘26 squad? — Nick
These questions are similar, so I’ll answer them together.
To start, I think expectations, as of now, should be high for next year’s team, but it’s hard to say for sure until we see what the roster looks like in August. We also need to know how this season plays out. If Kentucky reaches the postseason and makes another run, it will obviously raise expectations even more. But reaching the NCAA Tournament is a safe expectation in 2026, and there’s potential to think beyond that. But that will be a story for later on.
One of the interesting parts of next year’s team is how many players are already projected to be on the roster. Twelve players on this year’s team are out of eligibility. That leaves 30 players on the 2025 team, plus the 13 commitments from high school, who could be on next year’s roster. That’s 43 players before getting into portal additions.
Of course, it won’t play out that way. Maybe a player or two gets drafted and signs. Maybe a few more high schoolers will choose a different path once transfer additions start rolling in. We’ve seen that in college basketball this cycle, including in Kentucky’s case with four-star point guard Acaden Lewis backing out of his commitment for a bigger role at Villanova. And there will be players who transfer out of Kentucky looking for a better opportunity elsewhere.
But the broader point is that, unlike in many of Kentucky’s recent seasons, much of this team can return. You could even create a lineup of everyday players without including anyone from the portal. This is not a projection but rather illustrates what could be returning.
C - Nolan Belcher (Ryan Schwartz could be listed here, but I’ll keep him in the outfield for now)
1B - Dylan Koontz or Hudson Brown
2B - Luke Lawrence
SS - Tyler Bell
3B - Ethan Hindle or Kyuss Gargett
LF - Ryan Schwartz
CF - Griffin Cameron
RF - Carson Hansen
There’s also a chance that Will Marcy could return after sustaining a season-ending injury early in the season. And on the mound, weekend starters Nate Harris and Ben Cleaver would form a strong 1-2 punch. There are a lot of young arms in the program that should take on bigger roles next season. And since you can never have too much pitching, I’d like to see a couple more veteran arms in the bullpen brought in from the portal.
In other seasons, it was obvious that Kentucky needed the portal to be competitive for the upcoming season. The conversation now is evaluating the internal options and deciding who to build around versus trying to find upgrades in other areas. That’s what good teams do, and I think it’s encouraging that Kentucky has reached this point in its roster-building. The popular way to think of roster construction is solid retention + transfer additions + impact high school additions. A good mix of all three is in play for the Wildcats next season.
I should've had this as a mailbag question. But what's your take on Jaxon Jelkin? Think he will get drafted again coming off of injury or possibly pitch for the Cats next year?