photo by: Southern Illinois University

Southern Illinois center fielder Jordan Bach connects with the ball during a game against Missouri State on Monday, April 7, 2025, in Carbondale, Ill.

Junior-college recruiting is only one piece of the puzzle for the Kansas baseball coaching staff.

It’s a big one, certainly, big enough that KU has earned the top-ranked JUCO class in the nation three years in a row. But it is far from the only tool the Jayhawks use to build their roster, and they have been known to make key additions from the transfer portal over the summer, both before and after the MLB Draft, during Dan Fitzgerald’s tenure as head coach.

This time around, along with the three pitchers KU has added thus far — possible starters Carter Fink and Riane Ritter, as well as reliever Toby Scheidt — the Jayhawks have also brought in a key outfielder, Jordan Bach, who has been a summer-ball standout and could play a big role next season.

Here’s a closer look at each of the four.

Jordan Bach

The Kansas coaching staff has made a habit of bringing in players who have taken interesting paths through the world of college baseball, particularly with some of KU’s summertime additions like Robbie Knowles and Max Soliz Jr. last year. That’s a natural trend to some extent given how much of a priority the staff places on recruiting JUCO players, but it also arises from time to time with their additions from four-year colleges.

Jordan Bach would seem to be another entry in that category. He’s originally from Ladner, British Columbia, but moved stateside to play his first season of college baseball at St. Xavier University, an NAIA school in Chicago. He did not appear during the 2022 season, then had a breakout year when he hit .411 at junior college Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, which KU has recruited in the past, in 2023.

Bach has spent the last two years at Southern Illinois, with a combined 117 starts. His first season, he primarily played as a catcher and corner outfielder; his second, in which he improved dramatically at the plate, averaging .323 with 11 home runs and 44 RBIs, he spent in center field.

In recent days he has been lighting up the Northwoods League for the Thunder Bay Border Cats, with whom he hit .446 through 21 games to lead the league by 29 points.

With outstanding defensive center fielder Derek Cerda already in the fold for KU, and a slew of prospective catchers entering from the JUCO ranks in the likes of Augusto Mungarrieta, Frankie Santiago and Gavyn Schlotterback, Bach may likely fit best in left or right field, and indeed he has been playing in right for Thunder Bay.

photo by: AP Photo/John Amis

ETSU pitcher Carter Fink (17) during an NCAA regional baseball game against Louisville on Friday, May 30, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn.

Carter Fink

KU’s most recent addition is its second in two years from East Tennessee State after Tommy Barth, who slotted in as a starting left fielder during his lone season in Lawrence. Fink will also be playing at the fourth school of his collegiate career, and in his case he has already played four full collegiate seasons and will therefore be eligible for 2026 due to the NCAA’s waiver for former junior-college athletes whose careers would otherwise have ended after 2025.

A native of Macon, Georgia, Fink in fact played at two separate JUCOs. First, in 2022, was Snead State in Alabama, where he was a rarely deployed member of a team that reached the NJCAA World Series; next came Cleveland State (in Tennessee, not the four-year school in Ohio), where he served as a regular starter. Fink started eight games for the Cougars and made nine total appearances, going 5-2 with a 4.12 ERA and 49 strikeouts to 16 walks.

Over the course of two years with ETSU, he continued to serve as a starter for the most part, making 27 starts in his 32 appearances, albeit for only 136 total innings. Still, that makes him the kind of veteran arm KU typically likes to add.

As the Friday night starter in 2025, he went 6-5 with a 4.48 ERA for a team that won the SoCon tournament and earned an automatic bid in the postseason. He was a first-team all-conference pick.

Fink immediately becomes a top contender to start for the 2026 KU baseball team. The question is exactly with whom he will be competing.

Rising junior Dominic Voegele may have had an uneven 2025 season, but he’ll be the surefire Friday night starter if he returns. Cooper Moore, who formed a strong one-two punch with Voegele as the Saturday starter, could potentially be drafted next month. Kannon Carr was solid if unspectacular after assuming the Sunday role midway through the season; Manning West started occasionally and pitched quite well in relief.

Several newcomers besides Fink and Ritter (more on him in a moment) could shake things up, including righties Mason Cook (added on Monday from McLennan Community College), Dane Ebel (Lincoln Trail College), Mathis Nayral (Cochise College), Jacob O’Day (Heartland Community College) and Boede Rahe (Kirkwood Community College) and lefty Ty Thomson (Des Moines Area Community College).

photo by: Alex Jurkuta/St. Cloud Rox

Playing for the St. Cloud Rox, incoming Kansas pitcher Riane Ritter pitches against the Willmar Stingers on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in St. Cloud, Minn.

Riane Ritter

Late in the 2025 season, Ritter, a freshman from Rogers, Minnesota, pitching for St. Thomas, started four consecutive games in which he went at least seven innings and allowed a total of two runs. That included seven one-hit innings in a victory over North Dakota State, the team that eventually eliminated KU from the NCAA Tournament.

It’s been much the same for Ritter in the Northwoods, where he has allowed six total runs in his first five starts of the summer for the St. Cloud Rox, playing with future KU teammates Mungarrieta, Brady Ballinger and Tyson LeBlanc.

KU did not take long to secure Ritter’s commitment for the 2026 season, as he made his announcement on June 12.

Ritter started the year in the Tommies’ bullpen and it’s easy to conceive of him taking on a long-relief role for the Jayhawks next year as well, but considering how stingy he’s been over the last two months or so of his career, he may well mount a challenge for the rotation. He’ll also be only a sophomore next year, so KU could theoretically mold him into a key piece over the course of multiple seasons.

He did not, by the way, pitch in either of the Tommies’ two games against the Jayhawks last season on March 25 and 26.

photo by: AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack

Bryant pitcher Toby Scheidt (26) during an NCAA college baseball game against Central Florida, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, in Orlando, Fla.

Toby Scheidt

Scheidt is a more conventional portal addition as a reliever who has gradually improved his consistency over the course of three seasons with a single school and has one more left to play.

The native of Columbia, Missouri — who may now have earned the ire of the team on the other side of the Border Showdown — appeared in about the same number of games each of his three years at Bryant but improved his ERA from 8.50 to 5.94 to 3.58. Most recently, in 2025, he attacked the zone far more effectively, improving his strikeout-to-walk ratio from 1.14 to 3.00 and decreasing his total number of batters hit from 13 to five, even in 11 more innings of action.

Scheidt was a top relief arm on a team that won the America East regular-season championship. In recent days, he only allowed two earned runs through his first five appearances with the Mystic Schooners of the New England Collegiate Baseball League.

The Jayhawks will hope for a slightly more effective transition for Scheidt than some of last season’s transfer additions from four-year schools experienced. Connor Maggi, whom KU’s pitching coach had once predicted to lead the Big 12 in appearances, only made one appearance after March 25 and Jake Cubbler didn’t pitch at all after April 15. Malakai Vetock, once thought to be a potential starter, and Eric Lin continued to see action out of the pen throughout but were uneven, with ERAs of 5.84 and 6.18, respectively, although Lin still took periodic turns in the closer role. KU’s best relievers on the year, Alex Breckheimer and West, had both arrived from the JUCO ranks.

In the bullpen, Scheidt will join Breckheimer and West along with Dalton Smith and a few young pitchers who didn’t play last season. Other newcomers include any of the numerous potential starters who don’t make the rotation, as well as righties Aiden Cline and Brennan Haman and lefty Caleb Deer.