Eric Samulski breaks down a group of intriguing hitters who are entering their peak years.

The No. 2 team in the D1Baseball poll, Texas blew a ninth-inning lead in Friday's 4-3 loss at No. 5 Auburn. This marked the second straight week that UT couldn't close out an SEC series opener.

Paul Mainieri is out as South Carolina’s baseball coach midway through his second season after he couldn’t approach the level of success he had produced at LSU

The final spot on the Dodgers looks like it’s coming down to Freeland and Hyeseong Kim, who had an RBI single in four at-bats today. Kim has been quite a bit more productive this spring (.967 OPS to .519), but if the Dodgers were sold on him, this wouldn’t even be a contest. The winner figures to share time at second base with Miguel Rojas and Santiago Espinal until Tommy Edman returns. Jacob Lopez was charged with just one run despite allowing five hits and four walks while getting six outs Saturday against the Dodgers. He deserved considerably worse. Lopez began the game with a walk, a double and a walk and then apparently walked in a run, only to have the call overturned because his pitch clipped the corner. He left with two outs and the bases loaded and all three runners were stranded. Lopez returned for the second and allowed two to reach before escaping. In the third, he retired just one of five batters he faced before again leaving with the bases loaded. Justin Sterner replaced him and retired back-to-back hitters to ensure that there was no further damage. We assumed Lopez had the fifth spot in the Athletics’ rotation pretty well locked up coming into this one, but we’ll have to see if that’s changed. At least he did throw 73 pitches to get his six outs, so pitch count isn’t going to be an issue. Hogan Harris took a blown save in the fourth after giving up two runs in his inning against the Dodgers. Harris walked one and gave up a two-run homer to Alex Freeland. He’s now allowed three runs in 8 1/3 innings and posted an 11/4 K/BB this spring. He’s one of the favorites for saves in the Athletics’ bullpen, but since he’s the club’s top lefty, he’ll also probably be used earlier in games on occasion. Emmet Sheehan surrendered four runs in 4 2/3 innings Saturday in a no-decision against the A’s. This was an A’s lineup with Denzel Clarke as its only likely regular. The good news is that Sheehan was back up to 94.3 mph on average with his fastball today. That’s still down 1.3 mph from last year, but it’s more encouraging than the 93.3 mph he averaged last time out against the Cubs. Expectations for his 2026 probably shouldn’t be quite as high as they were a month ago, but he’s still likely to be useful as is and his ceiling might still be intact. Denzel Clarke went 0-for-4 on Saturday, leaving him 1-for-23 with no extra-base hits this spring. Clarke was also 3-for-16 with no extra-base hits for Team Canada in the WBC. Interestingly, Clarke has struck out just twice in his 24 plate appearances for the A’s, which seems like a good sign for someone who fanned 38% of the time in 47 games a rookie. However, he’s just pounding everything straight into the ground. Clarke’s superb defense will cause the A’s to be patient with him, but he could well be one of the league’s worst hitters. At some point, he’s going to need to show something offensively. Borucki not only gets an MLB deal after opting out of his minor league contract with the White Sox, but he gets to play for a much better team in the process. Win-win. The 31-year-old will operate in the middle innings for San Francisco to begin 2026 . Michael Conforto has been informed that he’ll be on the Opening Day roster. The Cubs will need to add Conforto to the 40-man roster, and that will likely come closer to Opening Day than not. The 33-year-old didn’t exactly tear up the Cactus League with a .635 OPS coming into Saturday, but he did enough to win a job with Seiya Suzuki (knee) and Tyler Austin (knee) both unavailable to begin the year. Conforto should see playing time against right-handed pitching, but his lack of success since 2020 makes him a wait-and-see option at best. Jhonkensy Noel hit a grand slam in the bottom of the sixth Saturday in the Orioles’ 10-8 win over the Phillies. It’s still disappointing no non-contender claimed Noel off waivers when the Orioles managed to sneak him through in January. He’s gone 8-for-21 with two homers this spring, and while he’ll never completely overcome his contact issues, he’s still just 24 and more interesting than some of the guys getting jobs as fourth and fifth outfielders. Bryson Stott finished 2-for-4 with a double against the Orioles on Saturday. Stott’s fantastic spring has seen him go 5-for-7 with a homer and two walks against left-handed pitching. Still, it’s going to be hard not to platoon him once again, just because Edmundo Sosa is maybe the game’s best right-handed platoon infielder. Stott has been fine against lefties; his .251/.324/.342 line isn’t great, but that it’s paired with excellent defense makes him more than adequate. Stott still offers a fair amount of mixed-league value while sitting against lefties, but he might be a better bet next year, assuming that Sosa exits in free agency. 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