Arizona State is looking to build off last season’s playoff run

(Photo: Connor Gleason/WCSN)

PHOENIX – Ole Miss celebrated, dancing through the Auburn, Alabama night as it just clinched a spot in Omaha, Nebraska for the College World Series. Back home in Phoenix, Arizona State players had a lot to contemplate. The fact that the team that ended its season in two extra-inning games stung worse than a stingray.

The loss served as the second straight season ASU had gone out in the regional round.

“That’s not the goal,” third-year catcher Brody Briggs said. “Getting to the postseason, getting to a regional is not the goal. The goal is to put another banner up and win a national championship. I think raising the standard and letting them know that we fell short last year.”

Not only that, but many of those players had to wrestle with a potentially life-altering decision: whether to stay as Sun Devils or follow in the footsteps of many top college athletes and hit the transfer portal with hopes of hitting the jackpot.

None faced that decision quite like Landon Hairston.

The third-year outfielder is coming off a historic season. In 2026, Hairston broke the Sun Devils’ single-season home run record with 28 alongside an impressive .400 batting average. Next to those numbers came awards. Hairston won Big 12 Player of the Year along with Baseball America’s National Player of the Year before finishing runner-up in the Golden Spikes.

With all the attention, Hairston stared down the eyes of whether to leave ASU for a potentially substantial payday from an SEC or Big 10 school or to stay put with the Sun Devils as the face of the program. Ultimately, the Queen Creek, Arizona native elected to stay home for his final season.

“I never want to leave this place,” Hairston said. “This place is home to me. My parents live 30 minutes down the road, so I grew up 30 minutes down the road, and yeah, this is home for me. So one last year here is very important to me.”

Hairston will likely come into the spring of 2027 with a vengeance, not only due to the Sun Devils ‘ earlier-than-preferred exit, but also how his season in particular ended.

In the bottom of the fourth inning in the Sun Devils’ elimination game against hosts Nebraska, Hairston looked at a full-count strike to punch out, exacerbating his struggles in the tournament. Instead of simply walking back to the dugout, Hairston flung his bat high in the air, seemingly out of frustration with himself.

After long deliberation, the umpires ejected Hairston, suspending him for ASU’s regional final against the Rebels.

“It sucked,” Hairston said. “I wasn’t trying to do that. I wasn’t trying to show up the umpire, and it wasn’t even the home plate umpire that was the one that made the call. It was frustrating. The guys battled. The guy that took my spot, he was balling. It was a tough watch for me.”

The Sun Devils lost both of their captains, Nu’u Contrades and Sean Fitzpatrick, to the 2026 MLB Draft. Throughout his two seasons with ASU, Hairston had built a special relationship with Contrades, looking up to him as a mentor. Now, as the third-year Sun Devil becomes an upperclassman in the group, ASU will hope that Contrades mentorship helps Hairston lead the team as it needs.

“Learning from him and trying to be like him in the locker room,” Hairston said. “He wasn’t always the vocal guy; he wasn’t always the rah-rah guy, but he was always the one that led by example. And when he said something, everyone listened. So I want to try and be like that. Be like a guy that you can depend on in any situation. I think that’s important.”

While Hairston is certain to get a bulk of the attention throughout the fall and into the spring, the Sun Devil offense is set to bring back two more key pieces in fourth-year first baseman Dominic Smaldino and fourth-year third baseman Austen Roellig.

After Hairston, Smaldino was likely the Sun Devil who took the largest surprise step in their offensive repertoire. The Ladera Ranch, Calif. Native started last season off slow, before turning on the jets with a .329 batting average to go along with 19 home runs–ending as ASU’s consistent cleanup hitter.

Due to the exit of Contrades and shortstop PJ Moutzouridis, Smaldino seems likely to be the leader of a Sun Devil infield that is likely to include some young talent, including first-year infielder Jet Berry. Multiple Sun Devils have touted Smaldino as being a consistent mentor for the first-year players in their adjustment to the collegiate level.

“Everywhere I go, especially the freshmen, I try to take them under my wing as much as I can,” Smaldino said. “I try to do better at that every day, with the younger guys especially.”

Roellig, on the other hand, is facing a unique situation entirely. 2027 will be the first time in his college career that he returns to the same school as the year before after making two previous transfers. Though Roellig wasn’t known for his power last season, he found some of that slugging late, including a grand slam in the Lincoln Regional.

“There’s a little chip on my shoulder now because we could have made it,” Roellig said. “We see the potential and all the great that could have come out of that. If we ended up beating Ole Miss in those two games, we would have gotten through Auburn. I 100% believe, and we would have been in Omaha. We had it, but we just didn’t get it. It’s just now to build on that for this upcoming year.”

On the pitching side, the Sun Devils seemingly have more questions than answers. Seven pitchers from last season’s team were selected and signed by a team in the MLB Draft, including Cole Carlon and Kole Klecker, both regular weekend starters. Even Jaden Alba, whom head coach Willie Bloomquist had expected to be back, took the next step to the pros.

Following those departures, only one lengthened-out arm remained on the Sun Devil roster: third-year pitcher Taylor Penn. While Penn had an up-and-down year, the final part saw him become one of Bloomquist’s highest-leverage relievers and even started four games–finishing the season with 47.0 innings pitched and a 3.45 ERA. Penn looks slated to be a weekend starter, possibly alongside his fall throwing partner, Stetson transfer fourth-year pitcher James Hays.

Next to Penn as the only other ASU pitcher with starting experience is third-year pitcher Easton Barrett, who began last season as the Sun Devils’ Sunday starter. Unfortunately for Barrett, control and confidence issues tainted his 2026 campaign, leaving him benched for much of the latter half of the season.

“I didn’t have the start that I wanted to,” Barrett said. “It was a lot mentally. Just coming into a start, knowing like there’s going to be a lot of situations thrown your way, and you just have to be prepared for all of those.”

Multiple other Sun Devils, including fourth-year pitcher Josh Butler and third-year pitcher Eli Buxton, played roles in the Sun Devils’ second-consecutive regional exit. Buxton and Butler were both forced to pitch in the Lincoln regional, with Buxton nearly becoming a savior for ASU in the regional final.

Buxton, Butler and the rest of the Sun Devil returners will hope to utilize the experience of last season to better inform ASU’s 2027 campaign, as hopes of returning to the historical program’s roots remain.

“We just want to pick each other up,” Butler said. “We know everyone’s got our backs. We’re gonna do our part for everybody else, and everyone’s gonna do their part for us. So, just the community and the culture that we’ve built here, as a pitching staff and as a team in general.”