Returning player spotlight: Hudson Brown

The college baseball calendar has reached a slowdown. For the first time since games began in the middle of February, there's not a lot going on. The season ended in early June, but the roster-building stage of the transfer portal carried us until the MLB draft in July. Now that the MLB draft deadline has passed and most summer leagues are over, we're in a holding pattern until fall practice begins in September.

So with that in mind, the returning player spotlight series is back for another year. The Wildcats have 17 players back from last year's team, though some of those players will all be wrapped into one article at the end of the series since they were either injured, redshirted, or just didn't play a big enough role last year to come up with enough for their own story.

There's only one change to the format for this year. Last year's series looked at a "biggest career moment" for a player. This year's format will look at their fall depth chart projection. Some players had several big moments in their careers, but some of the choices for other players felt like a bit of a stretch. While the depth chart projections will be an educated guess on my part, it will at least be something that can be applied to every player in the series.

Just like last year, there is no set order for how the players are chosen. It's just whoever I want to write about that day. Redshirt sophomore first baseman Hudson Brown is up first.

Background

One of four members from the 2023 recruiting class still at Kentucky, Brown won a state championship his senior season at Northpoint Christian in Mississippi. He redshirted his freshman season at Kentucky, but performed well in the Pacific Empire League that summer. He hit .337 with eight doubles, one home run and 19 RBI.

Brown had a lingering hamstring issue that kept him out for part of the fall, which was reaggravated during the Wildcats' fall scrimmage against Morehead State, and led to him beginning the 2025 season in a backup role. He received his first collegiate plate appearance on Feb. 23 against Belmont and doubled in his only at-bat. His first career home run came in a 10-5 win over Texas A&M, helping secure the road series for the Wildcats.

In all, Brown played in 43 games in 2025 and made 29 starts. He ended the season on a five-game hitting streak and received Clemson All-Regional Team honors after collecting four hits, one home run and eight RBI over three games. Following a win over USC Upstate in the Clemson Regional, Brown told Bat Cats Central that he believed his mentality had been where he improved the most over the season.