LSU baseball is officially underway for its quest towards another trip to Omaha and a chance at a national championship.
The Tigers are coming off two rings in three years and return a core group of players from last year’s team that know what it takes to have success at the highest level. In their first media interviews of the spring, there was plenty to go over with these team leaders as they dive further into preseason baseball.
Here were 10 quotes from the leaders of this 2026 team that stood out to us.
Derek Curiel (CF)
On the development of his body and strength going into 2026
“Bigger, faster, stronger is the biggest thing for me this off-season. I wanted to improve my speed. I wanted to improve some of my exhibit stuff. My get-out speed, meaning how fast I get out of the box, how fast I get off my steel break. Those are just a few things I wanted to improve, and I think we did a great job with that. I think a lot of the guys on our team did a great job with that this off-season
“My physical strength is something I’ve been working on for quite some time now. I’ve seen improvement in that, but I don’t think that it’s at its ceiling yet either. So just making sure I kind of grow into that man body, I think that’s the biggest thing for me this year, just competing. The name of the game is to compete in the box and just be a hard out. That’s going to be my goal every time I go up there is to be a hard out for the other team. Make the pitcher throw a lot of pitches and get on base for my team. Steal some bases and help score. We score, we win. So that’s kind of the things I need to do this year.”