BEASTS OF THE SOUTHEAST

A top the right field bleachers at Alex Box Stadium stands “The Intimidator,” a full-size billboard that looms over the outfield. A snarling tiger head dominates the right half of the sign, while the rest is emblazoned by the all-caps “NATIONAL CHAMPIONS” and the six years the Tigers won the College World Series: 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2009.
The Intimidator symbolizes many things at once. It stands as a monument to Louisiana State’s dominant position in the sport. Only Southern California has won more national titles than LSU, and only one of its 12 titles (1998) has come since the Tigers won their first. It is what its name suggests, an intimidating force for LSU’s opponents, letting them know that they have entered the home of college baseball royalty. It is also perhaps unwittingly an ever-present reminder to the Tigers of what is expected.
At LSU, Omaha is not the goal, it is an expectation, and national championships are the standard by which the program is measured.
Into this cauldron step the 2023 Tigers and second-year coach Jay Johnson. They are the top-ranked team in the Preseason Top 25 and represent the program’s best chance in the last five years of adding to its championship haul.
LSU’s collection of talent is dizzying. It features a trio of players who were All-Americans a year ago: outfielder Dylan Crews, the 2022 co-Southeastern Conference player of the year and the early favorite to be the No. 1 draft pick this summer; two-way standout Paul Skenes, a two-time All-American; and third baseman Tommy White, the 2022 Freshman of the Year. First baseman Tre’ Morgan is a Preseason All-American and a two-time member of the all-SEC defensive team.
The Tigers’ traditional recruiting class ranked No. 1 in the nation after they brought in more top-500 draft prospects than any other team, and their class of transfers— headlined by Skenes and White—also ranked No. 1 nationally.
LSU is also a team uniquely of this moment in college sports. Last year, the Tigers were a 40-win team that fell one win shy of a super regional appearance. They were slated to return Crews, Morgan and a handful of other regulars from a team that played well and overcame some bad injury luck in Johnson’s first season in Baton Rouge. That core, plus a typically strong recruiting class, would have made for a highly compelling 2023 season.
“Over the summer Jay did a lot in the transfer portal,” Skenes said. “Even if none of us came, this team would still have a lot of hype because of Dylan and Tre’ and some of the arms that we have.”
But all the changes that have hit college baseball in the last few years—the influx of money into the game, the extra year of eligibility for players who were affected by the cancellation of the 2020 season due to the pandemic, the one-time transfer exception making player movement easier, and the rule changes allowing players to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL) rights while in college—helped make it possible for LSU to build this roster loaded with premium talent.
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The hype surrounding the Tigers has been building for more than seven months now, driven by a confluence of factors—the superstar talent, the excitement of transactions previously only seen in professional free agency and a No. 1 recruiting class all coming together at one of the sport’s bluest bloods. The result is perhaps the most anticipated team and season of college baseball.
So, how did the Tigers get to this point? How did Johnson win the offseason and assemble the nation’s most talented roster?
Dylan Crews was just a freshman at Lake Mary (Fla.) High in the fall of 2016 when Matt Gerber, who ran the travel-ball Orlando Scorpions, called Nolan Cain, then LSU's newly promoted recruiting coordinator. Gerber told Cain that Crews was the best player he'd ever had. That conversation was the start of LSU's involvement with Crews. He visited LSU later that school year and committed in 2017.
But securing the commitment of an elite player like Crews is only the starting point in baseball. For some time, it looked like Crews would never make it to campus. He spent much of his prep career ranked as one of the top players in the 2020 class. He was still seen as a potential first-round pick in the fall of his senior year. But coming off an unimpressive summer on the showcase circuit, Crews faced more questions than ever. He might have answered them with a strong spring, but the pandemic cut the season short.
A week before the 2020 draft, Crews formally opted out of the event. He wanted to play for the Tigers, wanted to develop in college and prove himself. He called coach Paul Mainieri to tell him he was coming to campus, a phone call that sparked celebrations in Baton Rouge.
Much has changed in the six years since the ball first got rolling on Crews’ college recruitment. Gerber has moved on from the Scorpions. Mainieri retired in 2021 and Cain left his alma mater that year to take over as recruiting coordinator at Texas A&M. But that fateful phone call, Crews’ recruitment and his eventual arrival in Baton Rouge serve as a cornerstone for the 2023 Tigers.
Crews was the headliner of LSU’s 2020 recruiting class, which ranked No. 2 in the nation. The class also included righthander Ty Floyd, one of the top prep pitchers to make it to college; Morgan, a relatively unknown prospect from New Orleans; and shortstop Jordan Thompson, a hard-nosed player from California.
For all the fanfare about this year’s newcomers, that class remains LSU’s core. Crews and Morgan are Preseason All-Americans and rank as top 50 draft prospects. Floyd projects to be in LSU’s rotation and Thompson is back for a third season at shortstop.
Those players, now juniors, have been at the heart of everything LSU has done since they arrived at LSU. They stepped right into the mix for the Tigers as freshmen and have kept producing, even while the program has gone through extensive turnover. Johnson has been able to build around them while planning and recruiting since he took the job in June 2021, following Mainieri’s retirement.
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The end of May is a hectic time in college baseball. For the 64 teams that remain on the road to Omaha following Selection Monday, preparations for the postseason get underway immediately and in earnest. But for the nearly 250 other teams in Division I, the season has come to an end, and exit interviews are quickly conducted before players head to summer ball and coaches turn the page to recruiting and planning for next season. At the same time, the coaching market gets supercharged, as programs start making moves.
With the rule change two years ago that eliminated the requirement for baseball players—as well as football, men’s and women’s basketball and hockey players, bringing those sports into alignment with every other sport under the NCAA umbrella—to sit out a year after transferring, that part of the calendar has only gotten busier. Now, every player can consider entering the transfer portal and make a move knowing they can make an immediate impact at their new school, and every coach constantly is monitoring the portal for new entrants.
When North Carolina State was surprisingly left out of the NCAA Tournament field last year, the Wolfpack moved into offseason mode. Later that week, star freshman Tommy White entered the transfer portal.
White’s decision to transfer was college baseball’s most surprising move yet under the new rule. He had just broken the Division I freshman record for home runs (27) and would later be named Freshman of the Year. He said the decision to leave North Carolina State was the hardest he’s ever made.
“It wasn’t just baseball,” he said. “I love (coach) Elliott (Avent), (assistant coach Chris) Hart, all the players—I have so much love for them. School was great. I just felt like I needed something new, I guess you could say.”
When White hit the portal, LSU was in Hattiesburg, Miss., getting ready to open the postseason against Kennesaw State. The Tigers knew they would be losing Jacob Berry and Cade Doughty, who ranked second and third on the team in OPS, to the draft, and Johnson could think of no better replacement than White. That day, the LSU staff got White’s phone number and Johnson made an initial contact.
The following week, Johnson went to White’s home in Florida to meet with the slugger. His pitch to White focused on being a part of a strong, close-knit team and on the opportunity to develop as both a hitter and defender. The success of Berry, who like White had mostly been a DH as a freshman before becoming LSU’s everyday third baseman as a sophomore, was a useful example for Johnson to deploy. White agreed to take a visit to Baton Rouge.
“(Johnson) came to the house and he said everything I wanted to hear and more,” White said. “So, I took a visit here to LSU and met some of the guys like Gavin Dugas and Alex Milazzo and felt like this could be a good home for me.”
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White committed to LSU on June 24, three weeks after he had entered the portal. On the same day, the Tigers also landed righthander Christian Little (Vanderbilt). Shortstop Carter Young (Vanderbilt) committed June 27. LSU added righthander Thatcher Hurd (UCLA), whom Johnson had recruited to Arizona, on June 29.
LSU and Johnson weren’t done. All-American righthander/catcher Paul Skenes hit the portal in the aftermath of Air Force’s loss in the Austin Regional. Johnson had moved quickly to contact him, initially reaching out to Skenes in the aftermath of LSU’s own season-ending loss to Southern Mississippi in the Hattiesburg Regional final.
“We were crushed. We gave it everything we had, (but) we fell a little short,” Johnson said. “I thought, ‘The only way I’ll feel better from this is to try to do something to make us better,’ so I picked up the phone and called (Skenes).”
Skenes in some respects was another shocking portal entrant because two-time All-Americans don’t typically transfer. But his situation at Air Force and with MLB ultimately forced his hand. Military academy rules stipulate that once a student begins a third year in school, they are required to uphold the five-year military commitment that comes with their education. Meanwhile, to be eligible for the MLB draft, a player at a four-year school must either be 21 years old or three years out of high school. Skenes, who will turn 21 in May, met neither requirement.
That left Skenes with a choice between transferring to allow him to more freely pursue a baseball career or staying at the Academy and likely giving up several seasons of baseball to serve in the Air Force.
“I didn’t want to leave Air Force, to be honest,” Skenes said. “If I were a sophomore draft guy, this wouldn’t even be an issue.
“I made the decision that I needed to transfer and go somewhere else to give myself the best opportunity to play professional baseball.”
Skenes’ recruitment played out much slower than LSU’s other transfers. He hadn’t been a prominent recruit in high school and had wanted to go to serve in the military anyway, so he was focused on attending Air Force or Navy. Now given the opportunity to more thoroughly explore his options, he did so with diligence, making an initial list of five schools that continued to expand during the summer. He also played for USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team, which included a trip to the Netherlands for a tournament, further slowing his process.
In the end, LSU won Skenes over and he committed on July 28. He was impressed by how Johnson and the rest of the staff cared for players and had the best environment for him to develop as a player.
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Work on LSU’s 2022 recruiting class began years ago, really picking up steam in the summer and fall of 2019 when the players were going into their sophomore years of high school. During that period, the Tigers picked up commitments from players like catchers Jared Jones and Brady Neal (then a 2023 graduate), righthander Michael Kennedy, outfielder Paxton Kling and infielder Tucker Toman.
Some of those players had grown up dreaming of playing in Alex Box Stadium. Others were just looking for the best fit for the next level.
Kling, a Pennsylvania native, said he was first introduced to LSU baseball by his father, who remembered watching the great Tigers teams in the 1990s. Kling was quickly taken by the program himself and committed.
“I was just trying to play whatever game I can, just be a kid,” Kling said. “One thing that got me into LSU was my dad. He saw the ’90s teams and everything. He knew LSU is a great place to be, so he always pushed LSU to me, so I was like, ‘I’ll trust that.’ I came to visit when I was a sophomore and then I loved it.”
By the time Mainieri announced his retirement in 2021, LSU had assembled a strong recruiting class. But the staff change meant that the commits lost the bonds and trust that had been built during the recruiting process. Now, Johnson and his staff had to build their own relationships, while also evaluating the class to see what it still needed and how it might fare in the draft.
Some players decommitted, wanting to fully evaluate their options as they got to know the new staff. Kling was among the decommitments, calling Johnson to let him know he would reopen his recruitment about a week after he had been hired. Johnson told Kling he understood and wished him good luck before calling him back a few minutes later to tell him he was still interested and would work to get him back to LSU.
A few months later, Kling returned to Baton Rouge for a visit and again found himself struck...