Kentucky Baseball receives MASSIVE return commitments in 2026

Kentucky was forced to replace 85 percent of at-bats and 75 percent of innings pitched coming off the program’s first College World Series in 2024 — Nick Mingione dealing with just short of a total rebuild in 2025. Still, though, the Bat Cats managed to return to the NCAA Tournament and made a push to the Regional Final before losing to West Virginia in a 13-12 heartbreaker.

The 12 one-run losses hurt, but plenty to build off of — assuming you could keep your up-and-coming talent going into 2026. All eyes were on the transfer portal, which opened on Monday, June 2 with a 30-day window running through July 1.

Kentucky lost some talent with James McCoy — a starter on the 2024 CWS team — being the biggest name to leave the program. Today, though, the Bat Cats received massive news regarding most of the other players to watch.

According to Jacob Rudner of Baseball America, standouts Tyler Bell, Ben Cleaver, Ryan Schwartz and Nate Harris will all return to Lexington, keeping the majority of star talent home going into 2026.

“UK Baseball’s impressive core group will stay intact. All four guys would have been commodities,” he wrote.

That was the first run of good news on Friday, followed immediately by another report from Derek Terry of Bat Cats Central indicating second baseman Luke Lawrence would also return next season.

“Not listed among the names above, but second baseman Luke Lawrence is also returning next season after playing in 57 games this year,” he said. “Lawrence ended up hitting .306 by the end of the year and was really trending up. Very experienced college player.”

Lawrence, eligible for the draft, is expected to turn down the pros and other options in the portal to start at second base for Kentucky next season.

“I’m really excited about next year’s team,” Mingione said to wrap up the season. “I think if guys continue to grow and develop and we bring all of this back. Depending on what happens with the draft, if you told me we were a preseason Top 10 team in the country, I could believe it. That’s how highly I think about the guys we have coming back offensively. I really believe, depending on how all of this works with the portal, we have a chance to be special next year.”

Lawrence was second on the team with a .306 batting average while Bell was second with 10 home runs while batting .296. Schwartz also hit .317 and knocked in 15 runs in 23 games. Cleaver was 6-3 with a 3.25 ERA with 92 strikeouts in 83 innings. Harris finished 5-2 with a 4.70 ERA and was the winning pitcher in the NCAA Regional win over No. 11 Clemson.

Now, all five are back for 2026.

On3’s 2025 live transfer portal tracker is monitoring all developments across college baseball with Pete Nakos singling out entries by team, the Bat Cats up to 14 total as of Friday.

Kentucky
Landon Franklin, 6-foot, 185 pounds, INF, Redshirt freshman
Cooper Robinson, 6-foot-5, 220 pounds, RHP, Senior
Hayden Mains, 6-foot-1, 185 pounds, Utility, Freshman -> Morehead State
Eli Small, 6-foot-1, 190 pounds, OF, Sophomore
Aidan Larkin, 6-foot, 185 pounds, INF, Freshman
Nolan Belcher, 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, C, Freshman
James McCoy, 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, OF/RHP, Redshirt Junior
Bradley Ferrell, 6-foot-3, 185 pounds, RHP, Freshman
Griffin Cameron, 6-foot-1, 180 pounds, OF, Sophomore
Zak Spurrier, 6-foot-2, 220 pounds, RHP, Freshman
Hayden Smith, 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, LHP, Redshirt Sophomore
Kyuss Gargett, 6-foot-1, 190 pounds, INF, Sophomore
Dylan Koontz, 6-foot, 215 pounds, INF, Grad transfer
Logan Grubb, 6-foot, 170 pounds, LHP, Freshman

Let’s hope that first list continues to grow and the second list slows down before the portal window closes on July 1.

Until then, we celebrate some MASSIVE return commitments for the Bat Cats.