Where LSU baseball transfers, departures, have ended up

LSU has been one of the most aggressive and successful teams in the country this offseason, bringing in several talented players to help replenish a roster that fell short last year, but also lost a lot of its top talent. Some players left to the MLB Draft, while others entered the transfer portal looking for a new home. Either way, LSU was antsy to rebuild.

Head coach Jay Johnson talked about how he was eager to shift his approach this offseason to finding high-quality immediate contributors, as opposed to players who potentially are more projects or younger. In today’s landscape, it’s about finding the top guys and getting them on campus for a season or two.

Here, we’re running down the list of players drafted and players who entered the transfer portal from LSU this offseason. We’ll get into all of the additions in a story coming soon.

Drafted LSU players

IF Tommy White – No. 40 overall (Oakland Athletics)

RHP Luke Holman – No. 71 overall (Cincinnati Reds)

LHP Gage Jump – No. 73 overall (Oakland Athletics)

RHP Thatcher Hurd- No. 87 overall (New York Yankees)

LHP Griffin Herring – No. 181 overall (New York Yankees)

RHP Fidel Ulloa – No. 198 overall (Colorado Rockies)

LHP Nate Ackenhausen – No. 287 overall (Kansas City Royals)

RHP Christian Little – No. 333 overall (Seattle Mariners)

LHP Justin Loer – No. 387 overall (Colorado Rockies)

*Graduates Alex Milazzo, Hayden Travinski, Mac Bingham, and Ben Nipolt were not drafted.

It’s a sizable draft haul from this year’s team but that is going to be the case every year at LSU. Having 8+ players drafted is the standard under Jay Johnson and it will put the Tigers in a rebuild situation every season. White, Hurd, and Jump are the three top names here and were LSU’s three best players in 2024 and leave with a year remaining to head to the MLB. Losing Herring, Hurd, and Ulloa further puts the Tigers in rebuild mode on the mound, but Johnson has been aggressive and is prepared to build a high-level staff this year.

Drafted high school prospects

SS/OF Konnor Griffin – No. 9 overall (Pittsburgh Pirates)

LHP Cam Caminiti – No. 24 overall (Atlanta Braves)

LHP Boston Bateman – No. 52 overall (San Diego Padres)

3B Kale Fountain – No. 151 overall (San Diego Padres)

We’ll talk about the high school prospects LSU stole from the MLB in another story soon, but these are the four who the Tigers lost to the draft. No big surprises here. It’s a quality group of players that LSU had committed and in this sport, you have to take the wins with some losses because that’s just how it works with the high school players. Overall, I’d say Jay Johnson left the draft feeling great about getting guys like Jared Jones and Michael Braswell to return, then he also got several top-100 prospect onto campus, setting the Tigers up for the future.

Portal departures

Brady Neal –> Alabama

Cam Johnson –> Oklahoma

Aiden Moffett –> Texas

Paxton Kling –> Penn State

Sam Dutton –> Auburn

Micah Bucknam –> Dallas Baptist

Zeb Ruddel –> Louisiana Tech

Austin Roelig –> Utah

Javen Coleman

Derrick Mitchell

Nic Bronzini

MJ Seo

Ryan Kucherak

The biggest name here is Brady Neal who is headed to Alabama for year three in his college career. Johnson obviously has a ton of potential with his size and velocity, but was not able to show a ton of flashes at LSU in his one year and now goes to Oklahoma to remain in the SEC. Moffett and Dutton are the other two players who will be in the SEC in 2025 and potentially playing LSU.

It’s not a painful transfer portal list for the Tigers, though. Almost all of the top players went to the draft or are back for another season, setting up nicely for 2025.