The wheels for the 2027 South Carolina baseball season started to get going months before the portal opened, after the school let go of Paul Mainieri. USC hired Kevin Schnall from Coastal Carolina in the summer, and his handprints are all over the roster for this upcoming season.
The Returnees
For a team light on notable returning hitters, the Gamecocks did bring back two from 2026.
One was now-senior Tyler Bak, an outfielder who batted .247 with six home runs for USC last season. Patrick Evans, meanwhile, hit eight home runs as a junior last year. While neither had a high batting average, both were among the best performers on a team whose leading hitter from 2026, Talmagde LeCroy, batted .260.
Moving to the pitching staff, Brandon Stone is on the roster for his senior season. Stone, last season, struck out the third-most batters on the team (59) over 68.2 IP.
The Newcomers
As expected, Kevin Schnall pried several of his players from Coastal Carolina to join him at USC.
Walker Mitchell was the primary on-base threat for CCU last season, as he picked up 68 hits, the third-most on the Chanticleers, walked 27 times, and hit 21 times. Mitchell will be joined by Jackson Winer, a first baseman who hit five home runs in just 27 contests for Coastal Carolina. Catcher Brice Estep also joined the South Carolina roster.
Additionally, Colby Richardson, Dominick Carbone, Hayden Johnson, Daniel Parker, and most notably, Luke Jones, are on the USC roster. Carbone and Johnson were both relied-upon relievers during the Chanticleers’ Omaha run in 2026, while Jones worked extensively in ’25 and ’26.
Low-90s fastball for Jones, who also liked to work in a sweeping slider. His 15 starts last season were the second-most on CCU last year.
South Carolina also grabbed three of the top bats from the 2026 Wake Forest roster: Luke Costello, Andrew Costello, and JD Stein.
It was a very good 2026 for the Costello boys from Erie, Pennsylvania. Luke hit 17 home runs last season, the second-most on the Demon Deacons. As for Andrew, the now-South Carolina catcher wasn’t an everyday player on a team filled with catchers. But he batted .361 in the Cape Cod League, posting one of the lowest Whiff% in the circuit.
Stein, meanwhile, had 15 extra-base hits and walked 30 times as a freshman. A very patient hitter, and that showed in the Cape Cod League (61.3% Take%). At the same time, he also took an awfully high number of called strikes (38.2%) among those takes.
Ryan Brennacke, who pitched briefly with Wake Forest last year, also transferred to South Carolina.
Connor Shouse hit .353 with 10 home runs for Texas Tech as a sophomore. Now a junior, he’ll be with the Gamecocks in 2027.
Another notable pickup was Bristol Carter, now in his senior season. Carter was a high-profile transfer acquisition from Auburn two summers ago after a fantastic freshman campaign with East Carolina. However, things didn’t go as planned in Carter’s first two years in the SEC.
Carter hit just .243 in his sophomore season with the Tigers. The numbers ticked up more in 2026, as Carter batted .298 and also stole a team-high 31 bases.
Back to the pitchers for a second, Carter Harrington joined USC after he spent his freshman season with the College of Charleston. Harrington tied for the team lead in starts (14) last year for CoC, striking out 49 over 63 innings.
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