Three Ole Miss Baseball Players Enter Transfer Portal

By Adam Brown
Sports Editor
adam.brown@hottytoddy.com

After Ole Miss baseball finished a historic season on the diamond, culminating in its first-ever national title, the Rebels have three players enter the transfer portal.

Right-handed pitchers Derek Diamond and Drew McDaniel, and catcher Knox Loposer have opted to close out their tenure in between the chalk at Ole Miss, a source confirmed on Friday to HottyToddy.com.

This season, Diamond made 14 starts with 16 appearances on the mound, with a 6.89 ERA and 4-4 record overall. He worked 65.1 innings on the bump with 57 strikeouts and 13 walks.

Diamond arrived at Ole Miss as a freshman for the 2020 season. The junior in his tenure with red and blue with an 9-9 overall win/loss record and a 5.61 ERA with 161.1 innings tossed.

Prior to coming to Oxford, Diamond was selected in the 40th round of the 2019 MLB Draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

McDaniel, who finished his junior season with the Rebels, had seven starts and 15 appearances on the bump. McDaniel recorded a 5-3 win/loss record on the season with 32.2 innings tossed. He struck out 45 sluggers to 23 walks.

In his three seasons at Ole Miss, McDaniel closed with a 10-5 record with a 6.16 overall ERA in 99.1 innings tossed. He retired 119 batters by strikeout and 48 to walks in his career.

Loposer will extend his college career after four years spent with the Rebels and will use his last year of eligibility away from Oxford.

In the 2022 season, Loposer started a game and played in nine games with a .222 batting average a double and four RBIs

Loposer ended his Ole Miss career with a .214 average with 22 hits, five doubles, triple and three home runs in his career.

Ole Miss turned its season around after returning from a series on the road at Arkansas after which they had a 7-14 mark in SEC play and needed to close out the last nine conference games strong with at least a 7-2 record to make the SEC Tournament.

The Rebels took care of business by sweeping Missouri and LSU and taking a mid-week game from No. 11 Southern Miss during the run. On the last weekend of the regular season, Ole Miss hosted Texas A&M and won the game.

In Hoover, Alabama, Ole Miss lost to Vanderbilt on Tuesday and had to hope to be chosen on selection Monday for a trip to Omaha. Ole Miss then headed to Coral Gables Regional and faced Arizona and Miami.

Ole Miss stormed through Coral Gables and Hattiesburg by winning five straight games to arrive in Omaha. Bianco’s club did not let off the gas in Omaha as they got to 2-0 by defeating Auburn and Arkansas. The Razorbacks forced a winner-take-all game on June 23 with the victorious team advancing to to the Championship Series. A dominating performance on the mound by junior Dylan DeLucia propelled Ole Miss to play Oklahoma for the National title.

The Rebels wrapped up an amazing season with consecutive wins over the Sooners to capture the first baseball national championship in program history.