With the MLB Draft a month away, much remains to be determined about the 2025 Kansas baseball roster.
The Jayhawks have to evaluate which of their current players with remaining eligibility, as well as their planned arrivals from the high school and junior-college ranks, will get selected in the draft — and which among those will actually choose to go pro as opposed to attending to KU.
They then have to use those evaluations to guide their ongoing activity in the NCAA transfer portal as they look to calibrate a functional roster ahead of the start of the fall semester.
Even with so much left to be determined, the KU baseball staff has managed to add several players in the portal, particularly with an eye toward replenishing its pitching staff. As a reminder, seniors on last year’s team included prominent pitchers like Hunter Cranton, Kolby Dougan and Reese Dutton, and in the field, Collier Cranford, Jake English and John Nett.
Here’s a look at some of the recently added new faces who will enter to help replace them. These are among the latest additions to an incoming group that already featured a slew of high school and JUCO signees.
Jake Cubbler
Cubbler, a native of Mullica Hill, New Jersey, joins KU from the same school at which Dutton played prior to his move to Lawrence, USC Upstate.
The right-handed pitcher has had a bit of an up-and-down career arc, as his redshirt sophomore season in 2023, saw him earn second-team all-conference honors after he posted a 1.51 ERA with four wins, six saves and an opponent batting average of just .191. However, in 2024, he saw that ERA more than quadruple as he allowed 22 more hits in just 7 2/3 additional innings.
Cubbler had his moments as a redshirt junior, such as when he tossed five shutout innings in relief against Kentucky, or earned his conference’s relief pitcher of the week honor by locking down UNC Asheville on consecutive days.
Pitching coach Brandon Scott and the KU coaching staff will be charged with helping Cubbler regain his consistency in his final year of collegiate eligibility.
South Alabama’s Eric Lin pitches during a game against Louisiana on Saturday, May 18, 2024, in Lafayette, La.
Eric Lin
Lin has been more consistent, even if his stats haven’t always been exceptional. Another righty, he has a career ERA of 5.38 from which he didn’t deviate much in three seasons at South Alabama. His greatest workload actually came as a freshman in 2022, when he pitched 34 1/3 innings; he has pitched 39 1/3 combined in the two seasons since.
Lin is currently pitching for the Rockford Rivets in the Northwoods League, a summer collegiate wood-bat league that has been home to many KU players over the years, and in which KU coach Dan Fitzgerald once managed a team. Lin pitched a pair of scoreless innings to help the Rivets beat the Kenosha Kingfish on Sunday in his second appearance of the summer.
Connor Maggi of Gardner-Webb celebrates during a game against Manhattan on Saturday, March 9, 2024, in Boiling Springs, N.C.
Connor Maggi
Maggi, a third right-handed pitcher, may be the headliner of KU’s offseason so far. During his 2024 campaign at Gardner-Webb, Maggi did not start a single game but led the Runnin’ Bulldogs with 60 innings pitched across 29 separate appearances. (For comparison, Cooper Moore was the only KU pitcher to appear in as many games for KU this season.) On the year, he tallied a 3.00 ERA and allowed more than two runs in just one appearance.
He was particularly effective in nonconference play and at one point early in the conference schedule brought his ERA as low as 1.11 after going eight straight appearances without an earned run.
Maggi is originally from Forest, Virginia, and is yet another player with one final year to play. He has been used heavily in all three seasons at Gardner-Webb, with 78 career games to his name, and has seen his production steadily improve each year, after he cut his earned runs allowed practically in half from 2022 to 2023. He struck out 73 batters while issuing just 15 walks in his junior campaign and was one of two Bulldogs selected to the all-conference first team.
64 Analytics recently ranked Maggi in its top 100 transfers, at No. 95.
Sawyer Smith of St. Cloud State bats during a game against Augustana on Friday, March 15, 2024, in St. Cloud, Minn.
Sawyer Smith
The first offseason commitment for the Jayhawks, Smith announced his decision to come to KU just three days after the conference-tournament loss to Oklahoma that concluded the Jayhawks’ season.
He follows Ethan Lanthier and John Nett as another transfer from Division II St. Cloud State to make the move to Lawrence, and like those two he could have a chance for immediate playing time.
The 6-foot-4, 210-pound Smith, who is originally from Somers, Wisconsin, is an intriguing prospect as a two-way standout who pitches right-handed and bats left-handed as a shortstop. On the mound as a junior in 2024, he pitched 21 innings with a 3.86 ERA, the first time St. Cloud State had used him extensively as a reliever. Meanwhile, as the everyday shortstop, he started all 51 games for the Huskies in the field, batting .376 with 11 home runs and 58 RBIs and placing himself in the school’s all-time top 10 for several statistical categories.
Smith is also currently participating in the Northwoods League with the St. Cloud Rox as a teammate of fellow future Jayhawk Jackson Hauge, a transfer from Minnesota State Mankato who committed back in March.
Creighton pitcher Malakai Vetock (16) throws during an NCAA baseball game against Coppin State, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024, in Hanover, Md.
Malakai Vetock
The fourth right-handed pitcher (fifth, if Smith counts) among KU’s recent crop of transfers, Vetock comes from a familiar school in Creighton and actually pitched a scoreless inning against the Jayhawks at Hoglund Ballpark in 2023.
Vetock’s ERA remained nearly identical from 2023 to 2024, as it improved one hundredth of a point from 5.23 to 5.22, but he also made his first five career starts, pitched 19 additional innings, and kept his walk numbers similar while increasing his strikeouts. While he allowed more hits overall, including nine home runs, the Elkhorn, Nebraska, native did show some measures of improvement.
AP Photo/Sean Rayford
Courtney West/South Alabama Athletics
Gardner-Webb Athletics
Kaitlyn Zuehl / SCSU Athletics
AP Photo/Daniel Kucin Jr.