Finding the right players within the chaos of the transfer portal is the key to success in almost every college sports program. It has fueled Nick Mingione’s turnaround at Kentucky, where the baseball program appeared to be in a rut, only to be rejuvenated with unprecedented success over the past three seasons.

Kentucky won back-to-back regional championships, culminating with a run to the 2024 College World Series. The Wildcats followed that up with an appearance in the 2025 Regional Championship, the first time the program has ever advanced to three straight NCAA Tournaments.

Advanced Metrics in the Transfer Portal

Kentucky is looking to build on that momentum this offseason by adding talented players from the transfer portal. It’s a vast space with over 5,000 players. The Bat Cats’ 2026 roster is not a finished product, but they currently have a top-five transfer portal class, according to 64Analytics. Mingione shared with BBN Tonight how his staff navigates the talent pool in the transfer portal.

“There is so much video. There’s also so much data that we can capture,” said Mingione. “We’ve created our own little system that we just plug in and crunch the numbers and see how these people do against all of these different things and metrics that we feel are important.”

Kentucky isn’t just looking for players with a good batting average. They’re examining how well players hit the ball against the fastest pitches they faced and how well they hit against certain types of pitches. Additionally, they are just looking at the highlights. They want to see where mistakes were made and if they’re correctable.

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How Players Fit In at Kentucky

That’s just one part of the equation. You heard Mark Stoops talk about finding “the right fit.” Mingione wants players who fit the Kentucky baseball culture and are willing to buy in.

“We put a ton of stock into the phone conversations. It’s one thing to be able to watch the video, to be able to see that they meet the metrics, but are they who we are? Are they going to thrive in this environment? And do they value the things we value, like being a family? Are they committed to winning in all areas of life? Are they into the development piece? There’s so many levels to this, so we put a lot of stock into phone calls. If things go well, then the background checks.”

This isn’t a background check where they run a name through a system. Mingione and his staff are calling coaches and scouts who have been around these players to get a feel for how they are in the clubhouse.

“It takes a lot of phone calls, because it’s one thing to figure out what someone can do skill-wise, but it’s hard to find out what’s in their heart. How do we find that? That’s where I feel like we’ve done a good job of not only having talented players, but the right players,” said the Kentucky baseball coach.

Kentucky Baseball 2026 Transfer Class

The death penalty in college athletics refers to the NCAA’s power to ban a school from a specific sport for one or more years. There have been multiple instances of this occurring throughout the NCAA’s history.

In 1952, the Kentucky men’s basketball team was handed down the death penalty for allegedly shaving points. Southwestern Louisiana was slapped with it in 1973. While several other instances have taking place over the years, the death penalty is most often connected to SMU‘s football program and how in 1987 the program was found out to have been paying its players.

Decades later, institutes may now pay their athletes directly and outside NIL earnings can help compensate them even further. With this in mind, former college football coach Urban Meyer explained the death penalty would be hard to impose within the current state of college athletics.

“No, not with the litigation, the amount of money that’s — think about the 70s. Now, you didn’t litigate back then,” Meyer said. “I don’t believe you did. Once again, I’m not an expert. I wasn’t around much, certainly not to the level of now. Back in the 70s, I mean, team could barely, you didn’t have a training table. Now, you’re talking about NIL and budgets and coaches making millions of dollars, players making money. So it was a much different animal back then.”

While Meyer believes it is much more difficult for imposing a death penalty in the modern age, it’s not impossible. Over 70 years later, the 1952 UK basketball team’s point shaving scandal is still worthy of such a punishment. With gambling becoming a commonplace among sports fans in recent years, there have been several instances of college and professional athletes getting suspended, dismissed or released due to their ties to gambling.

So far, there has been one instance of the death penalty being handed down to a school in the NIL era. In 2024, Notre Dame suspended its men’s swimming team for the entire athletic year for allegedly placing wagers among themselves regarding the results from their competitions. Athletes only bet in-house and only during their swimming meets. In addition, a group chat containing derogatory messages saw members fail to “treat one another with dignity and respect.”

There has been speculation that college athletics may move away from the NCAA in favor of adopting a governing body more equipped to handle its current landscape. What that means for the death penalty in college athletics, just like almost everything else in the ever-changing industry, remains to be seen.

Nick Mingione has landed another high-profile prospect out of the transfer portal.

On Thursday afternoon, On3’s Pete Nakos reported USC Upstate transfer outfielder Scott Campbell has committed to play for the Bat Cats. Campbell, who was named First-Team Big South in 2025, becomes the 10th portal addition — and third position player — for Kentucky so far this offseason as Mingione reloads his roster ahead of the 2026 campaign.

“I think Kentucky plays a very gritty, fast-paced style of baseball,” Campbell told Derek Terry of Bat Cats Central. “They like guys that can do it all, whether that’s speed, defense, little bit of power, but that’s right up my alley. I think it gives me the best opportunity to not only fit in a program, but a program and coaching staff that kinda fits to what I need to be coached to.”

Campbell began his post-high school career at Chattanooga State Community College (2022-23) before moving to Charleston Southern in 2024 and then USC Upstate in 2025. The Macon, GA native started 45 games for the Spartans this past season, hitting for a .388 batting average with 11 doubles, 11 home runs, 54 RBI, a .622 SLG%, and a .498 OBP%.