Which UCF Knights Baseball Players Could Leave for MLB Draft?
The UCF Knights baseball team is already slated to lose 16 seniors following the 2025 season, but they may not be the only ones who have played their last game of college baseball.
Since any baseball player enrolled in an NCAA institution is eligible for the MLB draft after three years or when they turn 21, there are several juniors on coach Rich Wallace's squad that could depart the Knights early to pursue their dreams of making it to The Show.
Wallace has already said there was "no way" that MLB franchises would pass on the likes of junior outfielder Andrew Williamson and redshirt junior pitcher Evan Jones. As for the rest of UCF's draft-eligible players, he put the chances of them getting selected at "50-50 with probably most of them." While most of the players he mentioned were seniors, and thus are graduating out of UCF anyway, four of them were juniors that could have the opportunity to go pro early.
These are those four juniors:
1. Camden Wicker
The only one of UCF's season-opening weekend rotation to go the full season without injury, Camden Wicker also established himself as one of the Knights' premier arms with an All-Big 12 Second Team honor in 2026.
He led the league with an opposing batting average of .211, finished second in the league and 68th in the nation with 7.02 hits allowed per nine innings and was seventh in the league with a 1.20 WHIP.
2. Matt Sauser
During the first few weeks of the season, Matt Sauser was one of the hottest pitchers in the country, sporting an ERA of less than one that put him among the leaders in the nation in the statistic. However, thanks to two separate multi-week absences due to injury, he ended up finishing his season with just nine starts and a 3.22 ERA.
Perfect Game had Sauser ranked 171st on their 2026 MLB Draft Board back on April 24th, which was made after his first multi-week absence in late March and early April, but before his second, which spanned most of May.
Sauser's chances in the MLB Draft are going to hinge on whether scouts were impressed enough with the early-season form that a team is willing to select him in the hopes he can recapture it again once fully recovered.
3. Braden Smith and Joey Trombley
Both Braden Smith and Joey Trombley's 2026 seasons were brought to premature ends as victims of the slew of injuries that swept through the Knights' pitching stable.
Trombley made just four starts, finishing with a 3.63 ERA, while Smith made seven starts before getting hit in the head with a line drive 20 pitches into his eighth on April 3 against West Virginia in Morgantown, resulting in him getting hospitalized. Following his release, he was unable to fly back to Orlando, so Wallace and Jack Zyska, UCF's assistant director of player development, took turns driving on the car ride home.
"I think it's days before he starts getting back to normal, normal rehab, and just like he didn't have that injury," Wallace said of Smith following the Knights' NCAA Regional exit on Friday.
Just because a player suffered a long-term injury does not preclude them from being selected in the MLB Draft. Just ask former UCF pitcher Colton Gordon, who had to undergo Tommy John surgery and miss half of his senior season and was still selected in the eighth round of the 2021 MLB Draft by the Houston Astros. He even made his MLB debut with the club in 2025.
Before his injury, Smith had been one of 141 pitchers named to the National Pitcher of the Year Award Watch List, and before he was a Knight, he was named a Division 1 All-Region selection at Maryville in 2025.
The 2026 MLB Draft opens on July 11 at 1:20 p.m. and continues into the next day. Following that, draftees have until 5 p.m. Eastern Time on July 27th to decide on signing a professional contract or not.
Catch up on more UCF news below:
Which UCF Knights Players Will Be Picked in the 2026 MLB Draft?
Meet The 2026 UCF Knights: Countdown To Kickoff - No. 84 Thomas Wadsworth
What Went Wrong for the UCF Knights in Elimination Game Loss Against Auburn
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Bryson Turner is a sports journalist who covers UCF Athletics. Turner has contributed to the Black and Gold Banneret, the home for UCF Athletics on SB Nation. He has called the Orlando area home since the age of 8 and received his bachelor's and master's degrees from UCF.
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