South Carolina weighing out all options at catcher in fall ball

As soon as Paul Mainieri accepted the head coaching job at South Carolina, he knew his work would be cut out for him to put together a solid roster.

There were plenty of areas needing to be addressed. At the forefront, catcher was his first concern.

After the 2024 season, the Gamecocks lost their starting and backup catchers in Cole Messina and Dalton Reeves. Messina, who was already safe bet to turn pro, was drafted and signed by the Colorado Rockies. Reeves ran out of eligibility and signed a pro ball deal with the Lincoln SaltDogs.

Needless to say, Mainieri’s options behind the plate weren’t exactly glamorous. Moves needed to happen.

“The only catcher we had returning was (Ryan) Bakes, and he had 21 at bats,” he said. “We had a freshman coming in (Gavin Braland) who I’d never seen play that the previous staff had recruited. So that was the first point of concern to just get a little depth there.”

[Join GamecockCentral for great coverage, great community]

To address this need, South Carolina attacked the transfer portal and landed Max Kaufer, a backstop with two years of SEC experience at Texas A&M. Kaufer was the Aggies’ primary starting catcher in 2023 but struggled at the plate and hit just .183 with one homer and 12 RBI.

Then with the emergence of transfer Jackson Appel, who turned into an All-SEC catcher, Kaufer’s role was minimal in 2024. He hit .250 with one homer and five RBI in 20 at-bats, making it apparent it was time for a change of scenery.

“He played up in Cape Cod this summer and did fairly well. I went up and watched him play one game,” Mainieri said. “He kind of fits the profile of what we needed to know that we have a good defensive catcher on our staff.”

As the fall baseball season begins, Kaufer figures to be right in the mix for the starting catcher job. Bakes and Braland will certainly be a part of that competition as well. But Mainieri expects another player to also compete in this battle.

In his fourth year at South Carolina, Talmadge LeCroy will be converting to catcher, Mainieri said. It may come as a surprise, but LeCroy was originally a catcher coming out of high school. In fact, he was the No. 2 catcher in South Carolina by Perfect Game in the class of 2021.

Over the course of his college career, LeCroy has caught 17 games, 15 of which came back in 2022. Since Messina emerged as the starter in 2023, most of LeCroy’s playing time has come at third base in the last two seasons.

[Win two tickets to the South Carolina-Ole Miss football game]

But in the summer, LeCroy went up to the Cape and caught five games behind the plate. It’s a small sample size, but Mainieri, who went up to watch him play, liked what he saw.

“Quite frankly, the game that I watched, which included Ethan Petry and Will Tippett, and another good ball club on the other side of the field, I thought Talmadge LeCroy was the best player on the field that night,” he said. “He really swung the bat great. He caught very, very well. He made a terrific tag play at the plate on an outfielder’s throw, tagging a runner out at the plate.”

LeCroy is coming off a down year in which he hit .242 with three homers and 28 RBI in 62 games. His fielding percentage was up from .907 to .942, but he also made nine errors.

As he continues to work on his defense, though, Mainieri is fully confident this switch will be for the better. And that might just be what is needed.

“I think he’s going to be right there in the hunt to be our number one catcher,” Mainieri said. “I don’t know if you’ve seen him lately, but he shaved off his beard. It’s kind of the new Talmadge LeCroy. He’s ready to make his senior year his very best year.”

Discuss South Carolina baseball on The Insiders Forum!