The Kansas City Royals continued their active offseason by acquiring a 2025 College World Series champion on Friday. Former LSU Tigers third baseman Michael Braswell III announced via his Instagram that he signed with the team.

Braswell specifically signed a minor-league deal, per Just Baseball's Jared Perkins.

"Per his IG, Michael Braswell has signed a minor league deal w/ the Kansas City Royals," he reported. "He was the 3B for the LSU Tigers last year & a huge part of their national championship run. Recently transitioned to the mound where he’s been in the mid-90s."

Braswell played 65 games (48 starts) as a senior with the Tigers in 2025, logging six doubled, two homers, 18 RBIs and 20 runs. He also committed just three errors in 93 chances.

Braswell will now convert to a right-handed pitcher. He notched one win and three saves as a reliever as a freshman for South Carolina in 2022.

It's hard enough for anyone to make it in professional baseball, but it's even harder for a collegiate position player to succeed as a pitcher at the next level. However, several players have done it successfully.

An example is Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman, who notched 601 saves, a 2.87 ERA, and a 1.06 WHIP in his career. He opened up about what the transition was like after \struggling as a shortstop in his first two minor-league seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, via Baseball America's Everett Merrill.

“I wasn’t hitting and was making some errors,” Hoffman said. “I got behind some other shortstops in the Reds’ system and some guys they drafted the next year. The Reds asked me about giving pitching a shot."

The Reds drafted Hoffman as a shortstop out of the University of Arizona in 1989, but he recorded 55 errors and hit just .227 over two seasons in Rookie League and Low-A.

“The answer wasn’t hard for me to reach," he said. "As a shortstop, I could already see the writing on the wall. I wasn’t going anywhere. I kind of looked at the shortstop-to-pitcher move as a positive. I felt like with [a] good arm, this could be an opportunity.”

Jacob deGrom, Sean Doolittle, and Kenley Jansen are other examples of former position player who have thrived as pitchers in the big leagues. deGrom is a two-time NL Cy Young Award-winner, Jansen is MLB's active saves leader, and Doolittle was a two-time All-Star before becoming a Washington Nationals coach.

Those success stories don't guarantee anything for Braswell, but it shows what's possible.