{"id":764030,"date":"2026-07-28T22:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T22:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/764030\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T22:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T22:36:16","slug":"kentucky-baseball-lands-top-10-recruiting-classes-after-mlb-draft-signing-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/764030\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky baseball lands top-10 recruiting classes after MLB draft signing deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) &#8211; With the Major League Baseball draft signing deadline now passed, Kentucky has solidified what it hopes will be a major talent influx, putting together top-10 recruiting classes from both the 2026 high school group and the transfer portal that are set to arrive on campus in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Baseball America ranked the Wildcats\u2019 2026 high school recruiting class No. 10 in its team rankings released this week. Kentucky also has drawn top-10 transfer portal marks from most major outlets, including a No. 7 ranking from 64Analytics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Baseball America ranking was bolstered by right-handed pitchers Matt Ponatoski, the No. 62-rated player in the 2026 class, and Grayson Willoughby, who is ranked No. 83. Kentucky also added four additional Top 200 players in the class, according to Baseball America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Willoughby, a right-hander and two-way player, was named MaxPreps\u2019 National Player of the Year, Kentucky Gatorade Player of the Year and Kentucky Mr. Baseball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In the portal, Kentucky added 12 transfers: outfielders Brody Chrisman (Akron) and Alex Kelsey (St. Joseph\u2019s); infielders Lee Ellis (Ohio State) and Owen Lee (Tennessee Tech); left-hander Kale Hammer (Seattle); right-handers PJ Craig (Rider), Logan Hastings (Maryland), Dylan McIntyre (San Jacinto College) and Mason Snyder (Western Carolina); catchers Riley Jackson (Houston) and Brayden Ricketts (Indiana); and utility player JP Peltier (Wright State).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Kentucky\u2019s incoming freshman class includes catcher Carson May; outfielders Rob Czarniecki and Kaden Powell; left-handers Joey Ansell and Cole McLean; right-handers Aiden Smith, Logan Sorrel and Sammy Swank; and two-way players Ponatoski and Willoughby.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"link | text-reset d-block h-100 w-100\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wkyt.com\/page\/wkyt-apps-for-ios-and-android-devices\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"WKYT Streaming Apps\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MEPHTWNVMREWLEQQWWFJM27ZMA.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) &#8211; With the Major League Baseball draft signing deadline now passed, Kentucky has solidified what&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2276],"tags":[5,23640,7674,2291,86292,4,1586,94519,12277,16575,4895],"class_list":["post-764030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-draft","tag-baseball","tag-grayson-willoughby","tag-kentucky","tag-major-league-baseball-draft","tag-matt-ponatoski","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-draft","tag-nick-mingione","tag-recruiting","tag-uk","tag-wildcats"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116999998008049735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}