Nick Mingione Talks Juggling Transfer Portal, Recruiting

The Wildcats skipper brought in 12 players via the transfer portal for the 2023 season. While it's a luxury, Mingione is still looking to tackle the recruiting trail as well.

The transfer portal has altered the collegiate sports landscape. 

For better or for worse? Well, that's still to be determined.  

With every NCAA athlete essentially getting a free pass to transition from one program to another, the turnover that schools and teams are experiencing is unlike anything that has ever been seen before. 

Following the conclusion of the 2022 football season, the sports world got a good look at the power that the portal now yields. Thousands of names entered, seeking for a new destination to play at, or a new name, image and likeness goldmine to dig into. The focus of the portal has obviously been centered around the money-making sports like football and basketball, but every program has or will experience it soon enough. 

College baseball is another prime example of the new era in the NCAA. Baseball teams are one of the couple programs on a campus that has the numbers capable of somewhat rivaling a football roster. 

For Kentucky, it hit the portal rather hard, adding 12 players to the 2023 roster while losing just three to other schools. 

Incoming

• 1B Hunter Gilliam (Longwood)
• SS Grant Smith (Incarnate Word)
• SS Isiah Byars (North Florida)
• INF Patrick Herrera (Northwestern)
• C Chase Stanke (Minnesota)
• OF Kendal Ewell (Eastern Kentucky)
• OF Jackson Gray (Western Kentucky)
• UTL Ryan Waldschmidt (Charleston Southern)
• RHP Ryder Giles (East Carolina)
• RHP Logan Martin (University of The South)
• RHP Seth Chavez (East Tennessee State)
• RHP Zach Hise (Missouri)

Outgoing

• INF Michael Dallas (Jacksonville State)
• RHP Wyatt Hudepohl (Charlotte)
• C / OF Kirk Liebert (Western Kentucky)

The new Wildcats are a part of an overhauled roster for head coach Nick Mingione. Kentucky was a team with plenty of experience a season ago, so graduation actually took a much bigger toll on the roster than the portal. 

All nine of Kentucky's position players who played in 30 or more games last season are gone. Those former Cats accounted for: 

• 1,740 plate appearances — 86.8 percent of the team's total
• 486 hits — 87.7 percent 
• 299 RBI — 87.4 percent
• 54 home runs — 91.5 percent 

On the mound, three of the four pitchers who threw the most innings for UK are also gone. Sean Harney, Tyler Guilfoil and Daniel Harper earned 12 of the Cats' 33 wins a year ago. 

Those three pitchers along with starter Cole Stupp, as well as infielders Ryan Ritter and Chase Estep all heard their names called in the 2022 MLB Draft, the third most of any team in the Mingione Era. 

In an interview with Chris Lee of Southeastern 14, Mingione spoke about roster turnover as well as the challenges that come with the transfer portal: 

"We had lost quite a few guys to either graduation — and a bunch of those guys signed professionally, which is really neat as a coach, to help them get an opportunity to go chase their dreams and goals of playing the major leagues. But with that came a lot of new faces," he said. 

"The portal has provided us with an opportunity to just maybe not be young all the time. We've spent a lot of time this offseason talking about the guys in the portal, but we also have some guys in our program that have gotten dramatically better as well."

The starting lineup will be filled with new faces. Gilliam will likely man the 1B spot, while Waldschmidt and Ewell are sure to bring a new spark in the outfield at Kentucky Proud Park. 

Mingione touched on his offseason normally consisting of road trips to seek out the best talent at the high school level, often being away from Lexington for multiple weeks at a time. He says that now his recruiting often times consists of watching tape and spending much more time looking at screens, scouring and sifting through the bevy of options in the portal.

Kentucky is welcoming six freshmen to the roster:

• RHP Drew Lafferty
• LHP Hayden Smith 
• LHP Aaron Blum
• OF Lukas Schramm
• INF / RHP Carson Applegate 
• C / INF Austin Fawley

"You have seen baseball coaches become athletic directors, because you're doing a lot of the same stuff," Mingione said. "You want to talk about managing budgets, having a vision and a plan — looking forward, having to get the right people in the right spots, having difficult conversations ... it's definitely a job where it's forever-changing and you've got to keep adjusting."

While it is a new era, the now-seventh-year skipper of the Wildcats is still looking to stay true to old-fashioned high school recruiting, securing talent for the future. However, just like Mark Stoops and John Calipari, Mingione has to find the balance of working the trail while also finding the diamonds in the rough at other programs. 

"Our ultimate goal always is to be bringing in the high-profile high school players," he said. "Any time you can have guys in your program for two, three, four years ... to me, that is where the base and the core of our recruiting should start. But the portal does add opportunities for guys — sometimes you don't know and you can't see the future and you don't know two, three, four years in advance of those areas of where you might need to address are until the season is over and you go through it."

Kentucky's season will open at Latham Park in Elon, N.C. for a three-game series against the Elon Phoenix. First pitch is set for 4 p.m. EST on Friday, Feb. 17. 

Wildcats Today will have coverage of Kentucky baseball during the 2023 campaign.

More on Kentucky's transfer portal additions HERE.

Kentucky's schedule is projected to be one of the toughest in the SEC. More HERE.

You can find Kentucky's entire 2023 schedule here. 

Want the latest on national football and basketball recruiting, including Cats targets? Head over to SI All-American for the latest news, blogs, and updates about the nation's best prospects.

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