LSU's pitching talent shines as two arms crack Baseball America's elite 2027 draft prospects list, showcasing future MLB potential.
The LSU Tigers were expected to be much better this season than they have been, but struggling after winning a championship is not uncommon. They lost some crucial offensive talent and their top three pitchers, after all.
Though they were handing the ball to new pitchers, there were some expectations of it being ok because of the amount of talent in the arms they were turning to. Two of their new starters were recently included in Baseball America's Top 10 2027 MLB college draft prospects:
No. 6 RHP Casan Evans
Evans is the third-ranked right-handed pitcher on the list, behind top overall player Dax Whitney out of Oregon State and Chris Levonas out of Wake Forest. He has not made any headway in cutting into their leads this season, either. They have been lights out, and he has simply not.
The Tigers star holds a 4.97 ERA through 41.2 innings of work with a 1.272 WHIP and 12.7 K/9. When his stuff has been on, he's shown that same elite potential that he did as a freshman. The problem is that he has been inconsistent.
A lot of his early struggles had been attributed to bad luck, and that may be the case, but he's remained all over the place through eight starts now. He has only had one appearance without allowing an earned run this season, when he completely dominated the Oklahoma Sooners with 15 strikeouts and just three hits allowed through 7.2 innings.
The stuff is clearly there, and even if the production continues to be up-and-down, some MLB will be intrigued enough to take him early. Until that happens, LSU won't complain about having him.
No. 7 RHP William Schmidt
Schmidt would have likely been a first-round pick had he gone to the leagues out of high school. Instead, the Baton Rouge native chose to come play for the Tigers and got a College World Series championship out of it.
He's been upgraded to a weekend starter as a sophomore, Saturdays now that Cooper Moore is injured, and has looked good doing it. His 2.63 ERA is second on the team, only to reliever Grant Fontenot's 1.50. He has also struck out 56 batters with just 14 walks in 41 innings.
The 20-year-old is getting better with every start and could be a major riser in this class as time goes on. Either way, it doesn't look like it was a bad decision to come to college.