The Kansas baseball team is about to get a little more clarity about what its roster will look like next season — just over a month before the start of the fall semester.
The MLB Draft begins Sunday night at 6 p.m. at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas, with the first 74 selections, including 30 to be televised on both ESPN and MLB Network. This year’s event is taking place in conjunction with MLB All-Star Week festivities in nearby Arlington; rounds three through 10 are set for Monday afternoon, and the final 10 will occur the following day.
Like any college program this time of year, KU is subject to plenty of uncertainty about which players with remaining eligibility could choose to turn pro. Whatever happens, though, head coach Dan Fitzgerald has said the team will still be in good shape even if it gets “decimated” by the draft — and since he made that declaration on his “Hawk Talk” radio show in late June, the Jayhawks have continued to load up with transfer talent for next year, like former Youngstown State catcher Ian Francis and East Tennessee State outfielder Tommy Barth.
There’s a chance that KU’s first player off the board, however, could be one who has already expended his collegiate eligibility. Right-handed pitcher Hunter Cranton, who spent two seasons at the junior-college level with Saddleback College, one at San Diego State and one as a starter for KU, found his groove in the bullpen in 2024 and tallied seven saves with a 2.16 ERA and 38 strikeouts to just nine walks.
MLB.com ranks Cranton as its No. 213 prospect, which would put him in contention for a Monday selection. Baseball America has him in its top 100 targets for a “senior sign,” i.e., a player who has already finished playing college baseball and so might sign for less than the expected value of a given draft-pick slot.
Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo cited Cranton’s high-velocity fastball and slider combination and wrote: “Cranton has some moving parts in his delivery, including an overhead windup and a long and inverted arm stroke, but he’s done a solid job filling the zone with his two-pitch mix and has enough power stuff to intrigue teams on day three or as a money-saving senior target.” Cranton’s MLB scouting report praises his “untouchable fastball” that “ranked in the top 1 percent among college pitchers this spring in terms of chase rate (32 percent), swing-and-miss rate (38 percent) and in-zone swing-and-miss rate (30 percent).”
Cranton is the only current Jayhawk in MLB’s top 250, but with more than 600 potential selections across the three-day event, plenty more have a chance to get picked and potentially sign.
The headliner is infielder Kodey Shojinaga, a Honolulu native who played primarily second base during two seasons at KU (he is a draft-eligible sophomore at 21 years old) but could project as a catcher at the next level. Shojinaga is ranked No. 413 overall by Perfect Game.
During the 2024 season, he was one of the Jayhawks’ top hitters, batting .335 with 46 RBIs while starting all 54 games.
Along with pitcher Tegan Cain, who could have another year left to play after two seasons at Barton Community College and one at KU, Shojinaga was invited to the MLB Draft Combine. He hit a ball one of the longest distances of any player while he was there, at 415.9 feet.
Other players whose names Fitzgerald has mentioned in previous conversations about the draft, some already graduated and some with more collegiate years to play if they so choose, include Michael Brooks (hampered by a late-season injury), Collier Cranford, Reese Dutton, J’Briell Easley (who has announced his intention to transfer away from KU), Jake English, Ben Hartl (currently playing in the prestigious summer Cape Cod Baseball League), Ethan Lanthier and Evan Shaw.
Of note, the Jayhawks might not see their highly touted 2024 signing class go unscathed, either. In fact, last year Dominic Voegele got picked in the final round, but KU was able to get him on campus, where he ended up earning freshman All-American honors from several publications.
In all, KU has not had a current player selected in the MLB Draft since Jaxx Groshans and Ryan Zeferjahn went to the Boston Red Sox in 2019. Four players, including Collin Baumgartner and Cole Elvis last year, have signed contracts as undrafted free agents since then.
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
