Mississippi State baseball lands mid-major shortstop from portal

Mississippi State baseball head coach Chris Lemonis has a major reload ahead of him this offseason. After a successful 2024 season that saw the Diamond Dawgs win 40 games, finish fifth in the SEC, and return to their first regional since 2021, the MSU roster is being overhauled.

Nearly every major contributor from this season will be gone in 2025, both at the plate and on the mound. And while young talent will always be present on the Mississippi State roster given they consistently recruit at a high level, in the transfer portal era, there’s no reason to only rely on those less experienced pieces.

Now, you turn to the portal to fill the holes on your team, and State has quite a few holes to fill. Over the weekend, they began the reload process with the addition of former North Alabama third-baseman Gehrig Frei. On Monday, they brought in another piece for the left side of the infield.

Shortstop Sawyer Reeves, formerly of The Citadel, is the second transfer pick-up for Mississippi State baseball this offseason.

Reeves batted .304 in 2024, the second-best in The Citadel’s lineup. He had 58 hits with 10 doubles and five home runs, and he was second on the team with 31 RBI. Reeves had a slugging percentage of .445 with an on base percentage of .377 for an OPS of .822. The most impressive statistic for Reeves at the plate is that he struck out just 22 times the entire season (a 10.2% K rate) while drawing 19 walks. He led The Citadel in stolen bases, going 10-11.

In 2023, Sawyer Reeves was named 2nd Team All-SoCon and was an All-Freshman selection in 2022.

If any coach should be well-informed about baseball at The Citadel, it’s Chris Lemonis. Lemonis played for The Citadel and spent over a decade as an assistant there. He was also college teammates with (now former) The Citadel head coach Tony Skole.

You can expect that Lemonis did his due diligence on scouting Sawyer Reeves and was able to get an evaluation he trusted on him.