Jay Johnson is full steam ahead this offseason rebuilding LSU’s roster for the 2025 season after falling short in 2024. As he continues to raid the transfer portal, there are lingering decisions that have to be made by his players for the coming season as it relates to the MLB Draft.
Johnson has 12 draft eligible sophomores and juniors that could depart and head to the pros, potentially swinging how aggressive Johnson needs to be in building his roster. Names like Tommy White, Gage Jump, and Luke Holman are certainly going to be drafted and collect a nice check going high in the draft, but what about the others?
“We’ll have as few as five and as many as 11 probably that could get drafted from this roster,” Johnson said. “I would guess the time the 2024 draft ends, we’ll have the most players drafted in the country over the last two years. We’re here to develop guys for professional baseball and no one does that better. There are some guys between pro baseball and coming back. All of those guys will be welcome back and have a place on our roster, but even with that, we have a lot of work to do to have the team we want to have.”
Along with the three aforementioned names, Gavin Guidry, Justin Loer, Michael Braswell, Josh Pearson, Jared Jones (sophomore), Fidel Ulloa, Griffin Herring (sophomore), and Javen Coleman are all eligible to enter their name into the draft which takes place on July 14-16.
“It is an open lane for any one of those guys to return here and be a part of what we’re doing because they are 1000 percent bought into this and they’re really good players too,” Johnson said. “This time in these guys’ lives, you don’t notice it all the time, but it’s the best baseball they’re going to play. You could bring some of those 2023 guys back, and they’re having great success in professional baseball, and if you said all things equal, what would you choose? They would choose this all the time. None of them are in a hurry to get out of here and I think they know their value here is strong. Someone is going to have to value them highly to get them to move on.”
Johnson has already had exit meetings with every player on the roster, including the conversations with these players about potentially staying or going to the MLB. It has now been a week since those meetings and now Johnson awaits their decisions.
The two draft-eligible sophomores particularly have Johnson’s focus early on.
“They were incredibly positive and that’s why they all have an open door here,” Johnson said. “It’s not rocket science. Draft-eligible sophomores, Herring and Jones, I’m not sure how they’re viewed. I don’t spend a lot of time looking at that stuff. I know their value to LSU baseball and their value to me, and the value they could create for themselves next year is really high. They have a platform here to do that. In both of their cases, if they were to return for a third year, they could leave as two of the best players to play here.”
Here’s what Johnson said about five of the players with decisions on their hands. He also mentioned Justin Loer, but did not give any additional thoughts on the left-handed pitcher.
1B Jared Jones
“Jared won a national championship as a freshman with 14 home runs, then this year hits 26 home runs, and next year it would be his lineup and if he does that again, now you’re talking a completely different value for himself.”
LHP Griffin Herring
“Griffin, we don’t win the national championship without Griffin, lights out reliever this year, then he’s going to pitch on the weekend next year. I have no problem saying that. Now, it’s about seeing if a team jumps to take them as top 50 picks and I would support them to go, but if they don’t I’d love to have them back.”
SS Michael Braswell
“Braswell had a great season with his improvement offensively. There’s a lot of good places, there’s only one LSU in terms of development for pro baseball, you don’t have to look far to see wow look how much that guy improved in a season. Even look beyond the numbers, look at his play in the SEC Tournament and the regional. I’m super proud of Michael. He was so geared into the team.”
OF Josh Pearson
“What a tough guy. Wouldn’t surprise me if he had hit a game winning home run [in Chapel Hill] and we walked it off and he hit it right on the nose. That’s who he is. He’s welcome back”
RHP Fidel Ulloa
“Fidel Ulloa, great fastball, great slider. I think he can do more as well and I’m super proud of him.”
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