Kendall Rogers, the managing editor for D1Baseball, took a trip to Baton Rouge to check out the defending national champions to see how they are looking going into 2024. After leaving the bayou, Rogers gave his thoughts on what he saw.
Great chat as usual with @LSUbaseball HC Jay Johnson. #LSU seems very confident in a likely rotation of Hurd-Holman-Jump w/ Cam Johnson/Justin Loer in big backend roles. Freshman standout Jake Brown nailed down a starting job in the OF + Josh Pearson making the move to 2B.
— Kendall Rogers (@KendallRogers) December 4, 2023
A few interesting thoughts on this. Talk about a strong starting rotation. [autotag]Thatcher Hurd[/autotag], [autotag]Luke Holman[/autotag] and [autotag]Gage Jump[/autotag] are about as good of a three-man rotation as you will find anywhere in the NCAA. Don’t sleep on [autotag]Cam Johnson[/autotag] either. He is just a freshman but he has the talent to be a Friday night starter already. [autotag]Justin Loer[/autotag], the transfer from Xavier is also a top-tier pitcher. What a rotation.
Another thing, it seems that true freshman [autotag]Jake Brown[/autotag] has earned his spot on the roster as a starter in the outfield. To complement that, it seems [autotag]Jay Johnson[/autotag] will slide [autotag]Josh Pearson[/autotag] down to second base. Pearson has spent the last two years as a corner outfielder for the Tigers but now he will take the place of [autotag]Gavin Dugas[/autotag] and [autotag]Jordan Thompson[/autotag].
OF – Bingham, Kling, Brown
3B – Tanks, SS – Braswell, 2B – Pearson (or Brady Neal), 1B – Jones, C – Milazzo/Trav DH – Trav/Frey— Kendall Rogers (@KendallRogers) December 4, 2023
Rogers was even kind enough to give us a possible starting nine for the Tigers. It looks like the outfield will consist of [autotag]Mac Bingham[/autotag] (Arizona transfer), [autotag]Paxton Kling[/autotag] and Jake Brown. In the infield, it will be [autotag]Tommy White[/autotag] at third base, [autotag]Michael Braswell III[/autotag] (South Carolina transfer) at shortstop, Pearson/[autotag]Brady Neal[/autotag] at second base, [autotag]Jared Jones[/autotag] at first base, [autotag]Alex Millazo[/autotag]/[autotag]Hayden Travinski[/autotag] at catcher, and Travinski/[autotag]Ethan Frey[/autotag] as the designated hitter.
LSU will start its title defense on Feb. 16 against VMI.
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