Transfer portal pickups power Aggies to No. 3

Trio of top hitters joined team from other universities

COLLEGE STATION — New Texas A&M football coach Mike Elko was discussing recruiting and the transfer portal this week when he cited another program on campus as ideal in its approach to bringing players onboard.

“Evaluation is critical,” Elko said. “Everybody talks about what is the right path in the transfer portal, is it to take guys from big schools, small schools, little schools, whatever. The path is to pick the right players.”

That’s when Elko turned his attention to the nation’s No. 3 baseball team that goes about its business under thirdyear coach Jim Schlossnagle across Wellborn Road from Elko and the football program.

“If you look at our baseball team, we have a really talented, high-level transfer, and we have transfers from Penn and Columbia,” Elko said of the Aggies (29-4, 8-4 SEC), who host No. 5 Vanderbilt (26-7, 8-4) in a three-game series starting Friday night at Blue Bell Park. “All three are a reason why we’re the thirdranked team in the country.

“The reality is (the Aggies) evaluated well, and they took the right three.”

The high-level transfer, outfielder Braden Montgomery from Stanford, leads the Aggies with a .389 batting average and 17 home runs. Montgomery projects as a top-10 selection in this summer’s baseball draft. Catcher Jackson Appel, a former Memorial High standout, transferred from Penn of the Ivy League and is second on the team with a .358 batting average.

Designated hitter Hayden Schott from Columbia, another Ivy League transfer, checks in at third on the Aggies with a .326 batting average. Schlossnagle’s program has easily been the most successful of late among the “big three” sports at A&M among football, basketball and baseball, making the final four two years ago at the College World Series.

“You build and maintain your program with high school players,” Schlossnagle said Thursday of his ideal approach to competing for a national title. “And then we’ll cherry-pick the portal for the need that we have in that moment.”

Pro baseball’s ability to draft players right out of high school makes college baseball recruiting a bit trickier than football, which is why baseball programs also often wind up more active in the portal leading to a new school year.

“You just don’t really ever know in our sport because of the major league draft, but in terms of the portal, I do understand (the process),” Schlossnagle said. “It’s, ‘We need two lefties, boom, so go get ’em.’ But with high school players it’s hard to do that because you recruit them so early, and you don’t know what they’re going to do with the draft.”

No matter their selections and sorting, the Aggies are on a roll entering their biggest series of the season to date, having won three consecutive SEC series, including a home sweep of Auburn, after opening league play by losing two of three at Florida — half their losses the entire season.

“They do everything well,” South Carolina coach Mark Kingston said of the Aggies after his No 25 Gamecocks lost two of three at home to A&M last weekend. “They pitch really well, they’re really tough to pitch to and on top of that, defensively they take runs away because they’re so good out there.”

A&M’s pitching ranks second in the SEC to topranked Arkansas with a 3.23 ERA, and Schlossnagle said this week he plans to go with the same weekend rotation of Ryan Prager on Friday, Tanner Jones on Saturday and Justin Lamkin on Sunday. Vanderbilt’s pitching ranks fourth in the SEC with a 3.71 ERA.

“They’re super athletic, and they can run,” Schlossnagle said of the Commodores, who won two of three at reigning national champion LSU last weekend. “… Most offenses don’t bloody you with five straight hits, they bloody you with free bases and free bases and then a big hit, and Vanderbilt is no different than that.

“The difference is their pitching … it’s going to be a challenge for us.”