2026 Tulane Baseball Results, Looking Ahead to 2027

The 2026 edition of Tulane baseball ended up where no one expected them to be. After appearing in the American Conference championship game in the first three years under the leadership of Jay Uhlman, preseason polls had the Green Wave slated for a 4th place finish. Instead, the Wave finished 25-31 on the year and 10-17 in league play, placing the Greenies in 10th place and out of the conference tournament, a first for the program in over a decade.

Last week, we gave you our picks for the most outstanding players on the team for 2026, including our pick for MVP. This week, we dissect what happened this season and how things can get better for the Wave program.

Taking the High Road

Naysayers are exactly that. Their pessimistic attitudes do nothing but feed into the negativity of others and make a situation that already feels below the standards set by the coach themselves even worse. We, at On SI Tulane, feel it doesn't do any good to berate, belittle, or reprimand the Tulane athletic department. With today's social media, there are those who will do just that, forgetting that
- these are young men and women in the programs, who are mostly in their late teens,
- their coaches are dealing with what these young people are going through as student-athletes with social media staring them in the face on a regular basis,
- no matter how good something looks on paper, sometimes it doesn't translate to the field, or diamond, or sand, or lake, or track, or court.

Some will say this makes us Tulane apologists.

We say it makes us followers of Tulane athletics who are willing to take a look at both the good and the bad. We did it after every Green Wave football game we covered. To wit, the Tulane-Charlotte game that had the Greenies shutout the 49ers. Though the Wave football team dominated that game, we still found things to improve upon.

This is the attitude we will continue to take, as we examine the 2026 baseball team.

Hitting Took a Hit in 2025

The Tulane baseball team looked decent to begin the year. The Wave took two of three from Loyola Marymount in California, a program that has been to the NCAAs nine times in its history. Two days later, Tulane held its own for a third of the game before succumbing to #1 UCLA. The Green Wave stood at 11-11 to end the pre-conference games, splitting games at then 17th ranked TCU, getting outscored by third ranked Mississippi State in Biloxi, but also losing three straight in Turchin Stadium to Creighton, a team that advanced to the Big East championship game this weekend.

Heading to the American Conference opening series against Memphis on March 20th, Tulane bats were hitting on all cylinders. As a team, the Wave was hitting .350 with 49-doubles through those first 22-games.

Then, league play started.

Since that third weekend in March, Tulane saw its collective team batting average drop almost 100-points. By season's end, the Wave was batting .252 as a team, and the only player hitting over .300 was All-Conference right fielder Jason Wachs, who hit .327 for the year.

Not to pick on any player in particular, but when one of your key players is batting almost .350 by the end of pre-conference play and drops below the .240 mark to end the year, something is not going right.

We knew this was not going to be a team based on power before the season began. The 2026 Tulane squad hit 41-homers on the year, third from the bottom in American.

The injury bug bit the Green Wave in a big way. By the end of conference play, coach Jay Uhlman had a total of four positions players available on the bench to send into a game.

Four.

As Vizzini would say in The Princess Bride, "Inconceivable!"

On SI Tulane Analysis

Hoping to build on Jason Wach's prowess, Tulane corralled seven position players in the transfer portal: Catchers Johnny Elliott and Brett Rowell, Infielders A.J. Groeneveld, Jack Johnson, Trent Liolios, Nolan Nawrocki, and Outfielder Tye Wood.

Wood was immediately placed in left field and stayed there all season long. Jack Johnson, the older brother of Nate, saw utility play across the infield, mostly at 2nd and 3rd base. Liolios had a slow start to the year before finding his niche at 1st base by the time conference play started and remained there through the end of the season.

Groeneveld and Nawrocki were hurt early and saw little playing time. Elliott showed promise behind the plate, but not yet in the batter's box. Rowell sat the bench for almost the entire year.

Truth be told, none of the transfers were "lights out" at the plate. Liolios ended up fourth on the team in batting average at .262. Wood, who was eventually moved into the leadoff spot hit .257. None of the other transfers met the minimum requirements to be part of the official statistical categories by season's end (at least two plate appearances per game and playing in at least 75% of the Wave games in a year).

Coach Jay Uhlman reached out and brought in some quality players who did not meet the expectations of the coaches or, to be quite honest, of themselves. How many of them can or will return is a question that will be answered in the month of June when the transfer portal opens for NCAA baseball.

Pitching Starts Warm, Then Cools Off Considerably

After an outstanding Fall, there were high hopes for Tulane pitching. In a hot-then-cold-then-hot-then-cold scenario, the Green Wave were hoping for more consistency from its staff. The Friday starter, Trey Cehajic, was good, then not, then good, then not. His inconsistency sent him to the bullpen toward the end of conference play. The Saturday starter, Beau Sampson, began well, but dropped off enough that he was moved into the pen, performed well, then had a season-ending injury. The Sunday starter, Jack Frankel, was the most consistent of the three. So much so he moved to the Saturday starter, then promptly ended up on the injured list, not to pitch again in the season.

The pen itself had its ups and downs. One week, it was unhitable, then, while the offense was having a hard time getting things in gear, runs would be forfeited.

In the 22-games before conference play, the Tulane pitching staff had 205-strikeouts, averaging nine per game, while walking 105-batters, an average of almost five per contest. Through the last 34-contests of the year, including mid-week games, the number of Ks dropped off, averaging 7 strikeouts per contest, while the walks remained the same, 4.6 bases-on-balls per game.

The staff ERA through non-conference games sat at 5.22. By the end of American Conference play, the staff's ERA was almost six at 5.95.

On SI Tulane Analysis

Tulane coaches went shopping for strong pitching in the portal last year. Uhlman and his staff brought in Sam Larson (RHP), Jude Abbadessa (RHP), Jack Brafa (RHP), Owen Geiss (RHP), Jack Frankel (RHP), Beau Sampson (LHP), Jake Toporek (LHP), LuisPablo Navarro (LHP), Max Mazinter (RHP), Aidan Rath (RHP), Caden Tarango (RHP), Tom Vincent (LHP).

Amongst those dozen, seven were injured at one time or another during the year. Geiss, Mazinter, and Rath barely saw playing time combining for 3.3-innings among them, with Geiss not even getting on the mound in 2026. Combine that with the season ending injuries to Sampson and Frankel, and it's easy to see why these transfers could not meet the expectations after they signed on in Uptown.

The defending national champions up the river in the Red Stick had their share of bumps and bruises. So much so, their head coach told reporters last week that he "can't remember one of his teams with injury luck this bad."

We would be willing to bet he'd have competition for "most injury bad luck" from just 80-miles downstream.

Picture from 30,000 Feet

It is so easy to critique from outside a program. Though we got to see Jay Uhlman's team from close up week-in and week-out, we still don't know everything about the 2026 squad: why certain things succeeded and didn't succeed.

We do know this:
- there were times when things were in top form. Unfortunately, the times when the Green Wave was not at their best outweighed the times when they were, thus the final 25-31 record, the 10-17 American Conference numbers, and missing out on a conference tournament for the first time in over a decade.
- This roller coaster of a season was frustrating for every person in the Tulane dugout. Uhlman told us on more than one occasion he had communicated a sense of urgency with this squad, and that, for some reason, his message was just not hitting home the way he wished.

Getting down to the brass tacks, the 2025 transfer portal group did not work out. Injuries played a more than gigantic reason for that. In addition, besides Jason Wachs, the returnees did not perform up to where they wanted to perform.

Coach Jay Uhlman

We have no doubt that Jay Uhlman is an outstanding coach and teacher. We covered that at length in our analysis a month ago.

Uhlman is a true lover of Tulane athletics. He attends many other Tulane sporting events regularly, probably more than any other head coach Uptown that we've seen. In fact, when Will Hall was introduced as the new football coach on December 9th, we spotted Uhlman in attendance. We could have missed someone, but when we searched the room that day, we didn't recognize any other head coaches from other sports.

With the baseball transfer portal opening up on June 1st, it will be interesting to see how Uhlman and his coaches react to this past year's transfer portal and what it means for 2026.

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