Wes Johnson on the potential effect of next week's MLB draft

Baseball coach Wes Johnson and his staff put in countless hours lining up a freshman class and a subsequent group of transfers they hope will help make up the 2025 edition of the Bulldogs.

They’ll spend the first three days of next week on pins and needles, seeing how many they’ll keep.

The 20-round Major League Draft gets underway Sunday night, and there will be no shortage of Bulldogs expected to hear their names called.

By whom and when they go will determine how many players will return and how many more trips to the transfer portal Johnson may need to take.

“We’re anticipating some guys getting signed. We’ve got a couple of guys – how do I want to say this – put into a holding pattern – to see how the draft shakes out,” Johnson said in a telephone interview with UGASports. “As you know, we’ve got a couple of guys in the mix. Obviously, the (Charlie) Condon guy, I think he’s going to go, Slate’s (Alford) another one. Kolby Branch will get drafted; it’s probably 50-50 on him being back.”

Of the 16 transfers, Johnson mentioned three – outfielders Robbie Burnett (UNC-Asheville), Jojo Jackson (Georgia State), and JR Freethy (Nevada) – as having the “higher draft risk.”

As indicated by Johnson, there are some obvious calls.

Condon is expected to be one of the top two picks in Day One of the draft that begins Sunday at 7 p.m.

He will not be the only one.

In Baseball America’s final mock draft listing the top 500 picks over the three-day event, plenty of Bulldogs and future Bulldogs are expected to hear their names called.

From the 2024 team, they include:

• First Baseman Corey Collins – No. 180.

• Infielder Slate Alford – No. 361.

• Pitcher Chandler Marsh – 383.

• Shortstop Kolby Branch – No. 454.

Catcher Fernando Gonzalez and outfielder Dylan Goldstein did not make the Top 500 but could also be drafted.

Gonzalez, Collins, and Goldstein are each out of eligibility and cannot come back in the event they go undrafted.

Five current commits are also possibilities and will bear watching.

They include:

• Shortstop Erik Parker – No. 134.

• Third Baseman Cade Brown – No. 202.

• Outfielder Michael Mullinax – No. 212.

• Outfielder/Shortstop Bryce Clavon – No. 250.

• Pitcher Nate Taylor – No. 380.

Because their paperwork is not in, Johnson is not allowed to speak specifically about the potential freshmen.

However, he’s confident most of the new additions will ultimately make it to Athens.

“We feel really, really good. We’ve taken – for lack of a better term – sort of a money ball approach to everything. You’re not to replace Charlie, you’re never going to replace him,” Johnson said. “Can we offensively get enough pieces that we think can give us the bottom-line numbers that we’ve got as a team this year? I feel very, very confident, if these guys show up we will be there.”

Of Georgia’s 16 transfers, none of the draft-eligible additions are ranked in the latest Top 500 mock draft by Baseball America.

However, don’t judge Georgia’s class of transfers off of that.

The website 64analytics.com is a stat-based site, and it ranks Georgia’s class of transfers third in the country, right behind LSU and Arkansas

Four of the 16 transfers are ranked in the top 100, including second baseman Ryan Black (No. 19), third baseman Ryland Zaborowski (No. 39), pitcher Brian Curley (No. 51), and Jackson (No. 63).

Seven others – infielder Christian Adams (No. 106), Burnett (No. 129), Freethy (No. 156), pitcher Alton Davis II (No. 189), catcher Daniel Jackson (No. 203), outfielder/first baseman Charlie Jones (No. 228), and infielder Brennan Hudson (No. 247) are ranked in the top 250.

Per 64analytics.com, 5,094 baseball players put their names in the NCAA transfer portal when it opened for baseball a month ago. It’s now closed, but players currently in the portal can sign up with a new team and be eligible for 2025.

“When you look at how crazy the portal is, I don’t think anybody would have thought it would take on the life that it has,” Johnson said. “You start looking, there are 5,000 players roughly in the portal. Now instead of back in the day, going and hunting the top 500 in a recruiting class, now, you’re sorting through 5,000. It’s almost 10 times the work as it used to be.”