Aside from all of the playoff football at both the professional and college level, January is, to me, the single worst month of the year. Why? Because it’s the last hurdle before the baseball season begins.
Well friends, we have officially cleared that hurdle. We’re onto February and that means First Pitch is officially less than a fortnight away. Jay Johnson and his defending national champion Tigers will take to Alex Box Stadium next Friday afternoon against Milwaukee—again: not the Brewers—and
their quest to repeat begins from there.
The longer I write for this here site, the more college baseball becomes a favorite sport of mine. It’s pretty much equal to football at this point, and as such I’m going to try and start giving baseball as much attention as football. With that in mind, let’s start by previewing the 2026 season position by position. First up—catcher.
Cade Arrambide was LSU’s best player over the course of fall ball. Those aren’t my words, those are Jay Johnson’s.
“I thought Cade probably was the best player on the team for the fall. No question about that,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said in a November press conference. “He was the quality at-bats champion. Hit like almost over .650, which against our pitching staff is a pretty good number. Caught, threw well. Managed the pitching staff.”
That should be music to LSU fans’ ears as it looks like the No. 1 catcher from last year is coming into his own. Arrambide got plenty of time to get acclimated to the college game last season, appearing in 36 games and making 19 starts. They weren’t just midweek starts either, as Arrambide caught a good portion of Anthony Eyanson’s starts last season.
Because LSU was blessed to have Luis Hernandez, Arrambide was able to hone his craft and reports out of fall practices suggest he’s become a much better defender. He’s always had a plus-arm, but his receiving and handling of pitchers has taken a step forward.
Where Arrambide really made a name for himself coming out of high school is the power in his bat and we saw glimpses of it last spring. Arrambide went deep four times last season, the biggest of which came in LSU’s 13-3 win over Arkansas in May. LSU’s going to be looking for power in this year’s lineup, so if Arrambide went deep four times in 62 ABs, then you’re looking at about a dozen or so home runs with 200 ABs this season.
The fact is this: Arrambide was the No. 1 high school catcher going into the 2024 MLB Draft, but the Tigers were able to get him to campus with the intention of him being a multi-year starter behind the plate. We got a glimpse of it in 2025, now we’ll see the plan really come to fruition in a couple of weeks.
LSU is going to need Arrambide to live up to the hype because the Tigers don’t really have any experience behind him. Eddie Yamin enters his second year with the program, but the next time he takes the field as a Tiger will be the first time. Yamin redshirted in 2025. Moreover, Yamin has far more experience as an outfielder/first baseman than he does at catcher. As far as I can tell, Yamin has caught two (2) games at catcher, which is only two more games than incoming freshman Omar Serna.
While we don’t really know what Eddie Yamin looks like on the field, he’s beloved inside the locker room. He was the bullpen catcher last season and now he’ll get a chance to make his mark this spring.
Omar Serna is almost a carbon copy of Arrambide. Serna, like Arrambide, is a Texas native that was the top catcher prospect in the state heading into last summer’s draft. Serna, like Arrambide, is a big-bodied catcher with an even bigger bat. Serna’s name has been at or near the top of Trackman’s exit velocities from the past couple of scrimmages.
But while Arrambide had a clear path to starting after his freshman season, the same can’t be said for Serna because of, well, Arrambide. In the here and now, however, Serna will probably get some starts early on in the year to give Arrambide some rest and depending on how he adjusts to college pitching, maybe he factors in as a DH or maybe even first base.
