Jay Johnson and LSU Baseball are BUILT TO RETURN to the National Championship

And the man of the hour who dominated the weekend did a great job and had a great show last night. Our guy, Jason Armstrong from Inside LSU Baseball. Jason, good morning. How are you, sir? Hey, man. I'm doing great. How about y'all? Oh, are you talking LSU Baseball yet? No, we waited until right now. Well, we didn't get to talk about it in Omaha, so this is our coming out party again. Heck yeah, man. But how was the weekend for you, sir? How did the draft days play out for you? I think the first surprise for me was seeing Kuriel taken as early as he was, but then obviously everything that transpired after. How did the last 48 hours go for you, my friend? It was awesome. My wife was actually enjoying getting her husband back because since baseball ended, it's like I'm a big family guy. But it's a lot. It's an investment to keep up with LSU Baseball. We love our baseball. Since the World Series ended, we've been going on hikes and walking the dogs and doing picnic, all this fun stuff. Well, then this weekend, I came to a freaking halt. Day one was a shorter one, but then yesterday was an all-day thing. She jokes with me that I think I'm over there saving the world. I've got the monotone robot announcement, pick by pick on the TV. I've got a little stool there with my computer open. I'm working Twitter like it's my job. But it was nuts, man. It was nuts. It was a lot of fun, a lot more fun than last year, that's for sure. No, 1,000 percent. It was great work. We kept up with everything you had going on. It kept all of us up to date on everything that was happening, and we appreciate your hard work. I'll start with an overarching question. Very rarely do I get surprised anymore in college athletics. I've seen everything play out. There aren't really many surprises left. How surprised were you in the moment of how everything was playing out over the weekend? I was very surprised. You can step back and play devil's advocate and say, if you really look at this thing, LSU didn't have slam-dunk first-rounders. They didn't have three guys like Conor Griffin. They didn't have these players that you knew were going to go in the first 30, 35 picks. It was a ton of guys in that fourth-round range. However, there's a difference between being first-round draft pro prospect and the best players in high school baseball. These are the best high school players in the country. You can look back and say, well, this guy's a first baseman profile, so they typically don't go super high. This guy's a good pitcher, but he's short. However, all of the buzz and the steam that's been around these players for the last couple of weeks, everything indicated they were going to get paid, and they were going to get a lot of money, and they were going to go pro. The other thing is that Jay really coached these guys. I've been in communication with a lot of them in high school. Their asking numbers are very high. I don't know if MLB teams called their bluff. The whole draft just went different this year, but seeing this class, that many guys still on the board and getting to school, it was unbelievable. I was very, very surprised. Even going back to the Nate Davis, him pulling out of the draft, that's somebody that you would think, hey, I'm going to see how the first round or so goes, to Lucas Narocki. Everything about this year has been very, very surprising. One of the guys that we were huge fans of throughout his high school season, and then we pulled up a clip from the MLB Combine, watching him swing the bat, was Dominic Santorelli. We were watching him a couple weeks back, just watching him swing, going, man, it'd be nice if he could make it to Baton Rouge, but that's never going to happen. Then it does. He's headed to Baton Rouge. He's going to be a part of this LSU baseball roster. How did that play out, and how did LSU get Santorelli to become a Tiger? Yeah, that's a kid who, he knew the buzz surrounding him, and he understood, I'm different. He went crazy at the Combine. He had a big asking number. From what I know, he was asking for end of the first round money, like multiple millions. He then came back and was like, lowered that asking to middle second round, like a million dollars less. But that is just, for whatever reason, that's one where he is a left-handed hitter, which is a plus, but he is a first baseman, most likely. Could he play outfield? I guess. I know he's fast and all that, that's what pro teams saw him as. This is a first baseman from Wisconsin, and so there's risk. There's swing and miss risk, but there's also tremendous upside that you cannot teach somebody. You can't teach people to hit the ball that hard. For whatever reason, he had his number, which it was a lot, and he stuck to it. That's a guy that looked like, if you were to ask me, rank the most unlikely players that get to school, I would have said, number one is Lucas Narocki, number two, I think it would probably be Santorelli. He's in there, top three. That was very surprising to me. And then one of the other names, which I'm sure is also in that top three, is Washington, Amalekah Washington, and him making it to campus. How did that play out? How did that lead up to his announcement that he's going to be headed to Baton Rouge? As I'm watching this draft, here's how this thing went. You kind of knew that nobody's going to get called in the first, most likely, 35 picks. You started getting into Logan Schmidt, Hirschhorn, Jake Brown territory, once you started getting to pick 40-ish, 45, things like that. Once those guys were off the board, it was like, okay, if these guys don't go day one, which is the first couple of rounds, most likely they're going to regroup, they're going to come back Sunday, and in that fifth round, they're going to start picking these players. Just like last year, after they regrouped. Last year was the first three rounds, though, and then day two, they started round four. And you saw our players going off the board right away. Briggs McKenzie, Miguel Cime, they started landing high, started flying off the board in the fourth round. That's what I expected this year when Sunday started. These guys aren't getting picked. So the longer it goes, it's like, wow. Then what I was told is, these teams are saving money, buckle up because the 11th round is going to be where it happens. So I'm looking, I'm like, okay, 11th round, here it comes. And you start seeing Will Adams go. You start seeing Spencer Evans go. And so once it got through the 13th round, it was pretty clear he was coming. And what he told me, he had a big number, man. He was getting contacted to go in the second round, all right? But he had a very big number, over two million. And that's the thing. Now, I've been told if he hit left-handed, he's gone. There's no chance he's coming to school. You know, somebody kind of said, he's kind of like a Dylan Cruz, where like the reason Dylan Cruz got to school just because of like, maybe size and they didn't know about how much power. But like, just an unbelievable player. Unbelievable high school player. Same thing with Malachi Walsh. This is one of the most accomplished high school players. You know, 6A Parkview in Georgia, win multiple state championships. As a junior, he was the max preps. Underclassman of the year. He hit 15 or 16 home runs in 37 games. You know, this year again, he goes on the showcase circuit. He's going crazy. This is just an incredibly good high school player that, you know, I was just very surprised. And it's like this. I'm looking like, is this dude going to announce? So I like shoot him a message. I'm like, hey dude, we doing this? And he just casually is like, something like, let's do it, man. I'm like, wait, what? Can I say this? He's like, go ahead, man. I'm like, all right. There it is. So yeah, that was pretty neat, man. That was a really good one because, you know, I think at the end you had a couple of guys get drafted and you wondered like, you know, what does this mean when they get drafted kind of at the end like that? But, you know, it felt good once I got the confirmation from him and I knew he's coming. It's a big deal, man. That's a really good player. Yeah, no, that's for sure. One of the other names, Anthony Murphy, he goes in the 16th round. Obviously, there's some thoughts about, of course, he gets drafted in 16th round. Does he, if he doesn't go to the pros, does he end up in Baton Rouge? Does he end up somewhere else? What are your thoughts on that situation with Anthony Murphy? I would not expect, look, I might be wrong again. I don't expect Anthony Murphy to be in Baton Rouge, OK? What I expect, and I know some people saw that, you know, like, oh, that's an insurance pick. This, the difference is, like, as a, as a, Anthony Murphy never looked like an LSU baseball player. Like, he just, he doesn't behave like one. Like, you know, I interact with these guys, you know, have interaction with them on social media. This is a kid who has kind of had his mindset. He played on a high school that was nothing but pro players. The 2025 Corona High School team had Brady Ebel, who went in the first round. Billy Carson, who went in the first round, the shortstop. You had Seth Hernandez go in the first round. He was the pitcher that went to, I think, the Pirates. This year, Brady Ebel's little brother, Trey Ebel, goes in the first round. Like, it was nothing but stars. These are all pro players. And he led their team in hitting as a junior. I mean, he's a very good player. Very toolsy. Like, most power out of all the outfielders in the class. Maybe the strongest arm. But, like, that kid was not going to play. Like, he, he's not going to come into the SEC and hit right away, I don't think. I think he's got, you know, he's one of those guys that's going to take a second to get ramped up. And he's draft eligible in two years. I just, I expect if he doesn't sign, all right, and I know he's probably not happy about going to the 16th round because he, he was a fourth round projected player. But because of some of those reasons I talked about with the hitting, he slid, and I don't think he had a huge number, to be honest with you. I think that that's a player that, if he doesn't sign, we hear ends up, like, out west. Like a CJ Weinstein, you know, at UCLA, USA, something like that. I would be very, very, very surprised if Anthony Murphy gets to LSU. And if he does, I need you to erase the things I said bad about him just now. We got you. The biggest question, I think, now that everything's played out and the draft is over and you've got these guys coming to campus is the roster itself. We showed your tweet this morning when we opened up the show and we talked about it. And when you said about right after you finished recording or doing last night's episode, you got that phone call. And we kind of walked away from it going, hey, if that's what Jay says, that's what Jay says. I believe him. I trust him. Even though I've got no idea how it gets pulled off. How do you think this plays out from a roster standpoint? So I just got finished answering questions about it. And my understanding, I had a few people that I was communicating with during the whole day. That aren't my buddy Joey that's a LSU fan. These are people at the draft. They're people in major league stuff. And there's a point where like, all right, Jay's going to have to probably get rid of four and then it was three and then it was two. So I'm on the live last night going, I think maybe two players, something like that. I said, but I think more than anything, it might not be a deal where he has to cut people. I think there's going to be players that go, I don't think I can play and ask for their release. The second I entered the live, my phone rings and it's like, all right, you want to scoop? I was like, yeah. He's like, all right, basically. And I was like, dude, are you sure? I don't want to say this and sound dumb. He said, basically for what I understand, well, the main thing is that he talked to Jay and Jay said, no, we're good. I don't have to get rid of anybody. Okay. Now, if Jay comes on the radio today and says something different, I'm firing this guy from being a source for me. But he is like being one of the guys that has gotten a lot right. And he really is. He's connected. He's a good dude. But basically, he was telling me that last year, any freshman was considered a DSA, the designated student athlete. That goes for a guy like Landon Hood that transferred in after his freshman year. That goes for a guy like Diego Velasquez, who came in from USC. So like you add up the freshmen on last year, that's Omar Serna. That is Mason Braun. It doesn't matter how much they played. And those freshmen transferred in after their freshman year. And what he's wearing by is like all those guys are DSAs. And so that's how you're going to be able to get. Now, does Jay want to carry 41 players? I don't know. I don't know how that works. I don't know if it's a matter where there's going to be guys like, look, man. I love you. But you know, you're a junior now. And you still haven't. You don't have a starting role carved out. Probably be better. You know, like, I don't know if those conversations are going to happen. But I'm sitting here going, man, Jay's going to have to have like, you know, get rid of some guys and tell some of these players, hey, man, you might want to go somewhere else. But from what I'm told, he's not going to have to do that. Maybe it takes care of himself. But I do think if it was a situation where Jay would have to have a talk and send somebody off and his two choices are a guy who's been in the program three years, as much as we love these guys and loyalty and all that, a three-year guy who's still not cracked the starting lineup and a freaking freshman that has no business getting through. You know what I mean? Like, I think maybe we could see a couple of existing players on the roster as for their release. Maybe not. But I wouldn't be surprised if that happens. I wouldn't even really be surprised if there's like one, maybe one high school commit that does the same. But like, I don't have any information on like a high school player doing that. That's my thought. But from what I understand, like, we're good. The roster's fine without having to tell somebody, hey, you can't come anymore. Yeah. My last question for you is, overarching the whole weekend behind us, what's the biggest surprise from the weekend for you? Draft, whether it's high school guys, whether it's Curiel going fifth, overall, the number one biggest surprise for you? I'll give you two answers, two different ways. Obviously, it's the number that got through and how the whole draft went. Because there's other schools that got a lot of good prospects through. I think that just the Lucas Narocki thing is shocking to me. Like, he is so good. And when I mean he's so good, like, everybody just talks about him as a pitch. Oh, he's 5'11". That's why he didn't get drafted. This dude could have gotten a million and five as an outfielder. Like, he is so good. And to withdraw like that, like, I just, that's one, like, you look at his social media and it's the draft and this and that, you know what I mean? It's like having a picture of him and the, like, the commissioner AI generated up on stage. Like, no, this dude is not coming to LSD, no way. And so, like, that surprised me a lot. I think another angle is this, of this draft. You got a minute? Yeah, yeah, feel free. I'm fired up, man. All right, you never, you never want to lose a recruit, okay, ever in the draft. But after the two pitchers who were your biggest prospects, so you're talking about Logan Schmidt and Jason Hirschhorn, that everybody thought would go early. Like, that's not a surprise. You lost an outfielder in Wesley Roberson who wasn't, I'm a big fan, but he wasn't ranked in MLB Pipeline's top 250. He would have stepped on campus as probably your seventh best outfielder. You lost a right-handed pitcher who, again, was unranked by MLB Pipeline. He's a guy who put up good numbers in New Mexico. He would have been buried at LSU. A lefty reliever with control issues in Spencer Evans, very talented, like, day one type of stuff. But again, the control, he's a relieverist. We have a ton of relief, like, we have a ton of left-handed arms going into next year, right? Will Adams, he goes in the 11th round. He's a really good hitter, okay? He's a first baseman. You've got Mason Braun, Dominic Santorelli, and then I love Dylan Manatee, like, he's like a pure swinging, good defensive first baseman out of Elk Grove, California. Like, that's three first basemen. Lastly, Anthony Murphy, who never struck me as a tiger. I talked about it. He's always, I think, been set on pro ball. And then on top of that, he would have probably been the biggest project of the outfield bunch, ultra-tooled, talented, all that stuff. Anyway, so that's what you lost, okay? I'm not saying you want to lose guys, but I'll take that any day. Compare it to last year, where you had your top seven recruits get picked off by MLB teams in the top four rounds. Two premium infielders got drafted. You think we could have used those guys last year? You lost two corner outfielders who both could have gotten playing time, especially now that you look at the injuries we had. You lost a closer who's throwing 102 miles an hour, and a surefire left-handed, probably a guy who competes for starting role in the fourth round with Bruce McKenzie. It was a bloodbath last year, not only because of the number of casualties, but because of where they wouldn't fit in in last year's team. You look at what I just went over, you still lost guys, but the guys that got drafted, I'm like, hey, you don't want to lose anybody, but we're still really, really in good shape, along with landing. All the guys that were drafted get all the attention, but Noah, there were guys in his class that, you know, Braden Cupid, the lefty out in West Monroe, the dude's going to pitch. He's really good. Luke Tucker was a real, like, I talked to him. He had a good number, and if somebody would have given it to him, he would have signed, and it was close. That's a left-handed hitting 6'4", 215-pound kid, probably not a shortstop in college, maybe a third baseman, DH type of guy. I mean, I could go on and on, and we didn't talk about it. You know, you land Holt and Brady. Cooper Saunders was the highest-ranked pro prospect that made it to school in your class. You can take all the major services. He is consistently from, you know, pick 100 to 120, and he's going to be here for three years, all right? You know, Colby Stringer, I know this. I know people said this, but I know specifically, like, he was offered, I think, $1.2 million, and then the Reds called him back, offered him a million. Like, he's coming. So it's just like, it's nuts. It's nuts. I was joking with somebody. I said, dude, they're going to be, like, the tickets are going to be sold out to, like, fall interstate games. A hundred percent. I mean, I can't even imagine. I might have to fly in just to watch some of these. We have to form a JV team, man. You know what? I'm going to stop, because I said stuff like this last year, and look at me. But it is crazy going between what they did in the transfer portal, then you see the draft go the way that it does. It's not, I know I'm in the same boat. Look, I was the one that asked Jay, I was like, is this the deepest baseball team you've ever had? He's like, no, I don't think so. It's like, I don't even want to talk about where we are right now. They had just won 11 straight, and I was on the high horse of anybody can play anywhere on this baseball team. They were everywhere. So I've been there, too. But what they did from the transfer portal aspect to now in the draft, now it seems like you're set up not only for next year, but to have these guys be able to stay on campus for the next three years, assuming nobody really hits the portal, this is like the first, it feels like, real deal recruiting class that Jay Johnson's really been able to sink his teeth into. So maybe last year, we have to take one kind of bite the bullet for one time to be able to set up what Jay Johnson could have, because I don't know if Major League Baseball is going to change after this. I think this might be the way forward. Yeah, I don't know. Or next year, they'll go, hey, man, these guys are really have a good option to go to college. So maybe, you know, we need to stop calling their bluff and meet their number. You know what I mean? So I don't know. But I do another thing that I like so much is like last year, you did still have, I'll give you like a William Patrick that gets that you knew he was going to be a project. He was extremely raw, you know, so like, that's great to get to campus. I don't see a lot of that, like the players that there are some, but like, especially the ones that were draft risk. These are not like guys that, you know, you're wondering, hey, man, well, if he can just make contact, these are really, really, really good players. Something that's interesting to this year, I thought it was really baseball America. I don't know if y'all saw this. They came out with this new ranking system. All right. And basically what they did to kind of, it's similar to football, but not is they took like the top high school prospects and they had like five star, four star, three star, and they ranked like the top 500. So what they say, a five star prospect or elite blue chip players often become high MLB draft picks out of high school. They represent the very best of the top tier high school prospects. They project as elite, all American type of players. If they make it to school and they say, most likely five stars are not going to make it to college baseball because they had the talent to go within the first three rounds of the MLB draft. But when they do, they are the types who project to be the most valuable players in college baseball. And they said maybe only 15 of these players will get to college. It gave examples of players like Dylan Cruz, Rochelowski, Dax Whitney, Kumar Rocker. You just landed three, five stars. Lucas Naraki, Cooper Sides, and Malachi Washington are all five stars. So I mean, when you ask me, am I surprised? Yeah, I'm a real surprise. Well, no, I mean, that's the thing, because you're the person we trust the most on all these things. And we talked to you on Thursday and my next question, this is my last one. Have you ever been happier to be wrong? Oh, no, I always wanted to be wrong. OK, but here's the thing. It would have been easy for me to go, eh, it's a 50-50 guy, right? But I wanted to put like, OK, here's my pick. I thought we were going to lose nine, OK? And there were a couple where I thought mine could go either way. I thought that we would get Spencer Evans and lose Colton Brady, their teammates in high school. And it flipped, OK? But so we wound up losing seven. I'm not counting, you know, I know they got drafted. But we lost seven to the draft. I thought we would lose nine, OK? Because clearly, I didn't think, you know, I was very wrong about it. But I'm OK. I'm completely OK. And I was basing that on just everything I've seen over the last year. And then gathering it from other people. So like, hey, what are you hearing at the compound? This, that, you know, what's going on? I just put, man, these dudes, you can just, you know, forget it. This dude won't step foot on campus. I'm like, all right, well, guess he did. So we're all wrong, I guess. Yeah, no, that's for sure. And it's a great day to be wrong in Baton Rouge, without a doubt. And we appreciate you make some time for us. Great work over the weekend. And hopefully you can get back to some hiking and walking the dogs after the MLB draft wrapped up. We'll see. We appreciate you. We'll talk to you again. You've got to build out this lineup. Yeah, I know. All right. We'll talk to you again soon. See you guys. Later. There he is, Jason Armstrong. It's like Christmas for him. This is like Christmas weekend, you know, for a child. But it's great work. He did great work over the weekend. That is the page that I was checking nonstop throughout the entirety of the draft. Was our guy Jason Armstrong with Inside LSU Baseball. Make sure you go and follow that account on Twitter.