Kentucky Baseball 2026 Season Preview: Predictions & Players To Watch

Southeastern 16’s Graham Doty and Chris Lee preview Kentucky baseball for the 2026 season. Topics include: The way that coach Nick Mingione built this team feels quite similar to how he built his 2024 College World Series squad. The Wildcats return Tyler Bell, a potential National Player of the Year candidate if his bat takes a step up. The 'Cats return Luke Lawrence, Hudson Brown. Ethan Hindle, Ryan Schwartz, Carson Hanson and Will Marcy as hitters from lsat season and to that add transfers Tyler Cerny, Alex Duffey, Scott Campbell Jr. ajd Jayce Tharnish, pus talented freshman Owen Jenkins, Caden Cloud and Ben Van Cleave. Kentucky has an ace in lefty Ben Cleaver, who really knows how to pitch. Mingione will mix and match with a bunch of players who threw a lot of college innings last seaon, including Jack Bennett, Bryson Treichel, Nate Harris, Ryan Mullan, Burkley Bounds, Jaxon Jelkin, Connor Mattison, Jackson Soucie, Ira Austin IV and others, plus, Chase Alderman, who sat out last year with injury. &COLLAR Stretchy. Wrinkle-proof. Built to look sharp. Welcome to Workleisure. Use promo code SEC16 for 16% off! https://andcollar.com/ ROKFORM Use promo code SEC25 for 25% off! The world's strongest magnetic phone case! https://www.rokform.com/ JOIN OUR MEMBERSHIP Join the "It Just Means More" tier for bonus videos and live streams! Join Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv1w_TRbiB0yHCEb7r2IrBg/join FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA Twitter: https://twitter.com/16Southeastern ADVERTISE WITH SOUTHEASTERN 16 Reach out to [email protected] to find out how your product or service can be seen by over 200,000 unique viewers each month! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.