One of country’s top freshmen will lead Kentucky baseball into NCAA Tournament
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Tyler Bell brings top-tier work ethic and performance to UK's NCAA Tournament bid.
- Bell turned down MLB signing bonus to honor Kentucky commitment and develop further.
- Bell's strong SEC play and leadoff role fuel high expectations in Clemson Regional.
Three years into his stint at Kentucky, senior third baseman Pat Herrera knows extra work is often needed to thrive in the best conference in college baseball.
So, when he and teammate Cole Hage arrived early for a practice to get in some extra swings in the batting cage, he thought he was ahead of the curve. But as Herrera and Hage walked down the stairs in UK’s practice facility to the batting cages, they were met by another teammate headed the opposite direction.
“I’ve already been here for two hours,” freshman shortstop Tyler Bell told them. “Where have you guys been?”
Coach Nick Mingione has become accustomed to similar sights during Bell’s first season of college baseball.
There was the time Mingione thought he was the only person in the facility late one night and began locking doors behind him only to discover he had inadvertently locked Bell in the lobby because the freshman shortstop had left his ID card in the locker room while working out in the batting cage. Monday evening, hours after Kentucky had been awarded an at-large bid to the 2025 NCAA Tournament, Mingione was leaving the building around 8 p.m. when he again heard the ping of an aluminum bat connecting with balls in the batting cage.
“There’s one guy in the batting cage,” Mingione said. “Guess who it is? Tyler Bell. Like, he is the hardest worker on our team.”
It should come as no surprise that Bell has been one of the Wildcats’ best hitters as a freshman considering he is the highest-drafted player from last year’s MLB draft to attend college baseball this season, but the extra work he has put in to enter the NCAA Tournament with a .306 batting average, 10 home runs and .926 OPS was no certainty for a prospect of his stature.
Due to the format of MLB’s draft, which penalizes teams with a hit to their overall bonus pool for not signing picks in the first 10 rounds, the number of players selected in that portion of the draft who do not sign each year can usually be counted on one hand. Even Bell acknowledges now that when the Tampa Bay Rays selected him with the 66th pick in the 2024 draft he assumed he was about to start his professional career.
But the negotiations with the Rays did not go according to plan. Tampa signed all of its other draft picks, leaving as much as $2 million for Bell’s signing bonus, but the two parties could not agree on a deal. Since Bell would have to wait just two years due to his age to be eligible for the draft again instead of the three most college players must wait to be drafted, the option to follow through on his commitment to Kentucky was more appealing.
“Once I decided on coming to school, I never looked back, and this has been my full focus ever since then,” Bell said. “And very happy I made the right decision.”
Even though he could enter the draft again in 2026, turning down a seven-figure signing bonus came with risk for Bell.
He is the highest-drafted high school player without an injury issue affecting his bonus offer to not sign since a trio of healthy high schoolers picked in the 2018 first round elected to attend college. The player picked immediately after Bell last June, New Jersey prep right-handed pitcher Chris Levonas, also did not sign with the Milwaukee Brewers but has struggled as a freshman at Wake Forest, where he has a 5.67 ERA in 33 1/3 innings.
With a level of hype rare for a freshman arriving on a college roster, Bell could have assumed his impressive tools would be enough to thrive against players lacking the same draft stock. Instead, he used the decision to turn down the Rays to provide even more motivation to put in extra work.
“We were excited to land him,” Herrera said, noting that Bell was his assigned partner for team building exercises during the fall semester. “... And it’s crazy, a freshman teaching a senior a lot.”
Bell was just 1-for-10 in his first three games as a Wildcat, but he did not need long to prove more than worthy of his preseason hype. Over a four-game stretch from Feb. 22-26, he tallied nine hits in 17 at-bats (.529). Five of those hits went for extra bases, including his first home run.
The success continued in SEC play.
There was a two-hit game at Georgia and a three-hit game against Auburn. In a three-game series at Texas A&M, Bell went 8-for-13 with one home run and seven RBI. Multi-hit games against Texas, Tennessee and South Carolina followed. In the second game of the final regular season series at Vanderbilt, he tallied four hits for a second time. He homered twice in the three games in Nashville.
“I always feel like I’m not doing enough on the field, however I’m playing,” Bell said. “If it’s a 3-for-4 day with a couple of balls that just barely fall in, it’s like I’d rather have a couple more barrels.
“Just keep pushing myself to get better. It’s just whenever I came to school, it’s not like I had a spot guaranteed, so I had to just keep working and put my best foot forward and find a spot on the field and then keep producing for the team.”
When Kentucky opens NCAA Tournament play against West Virginia in the Clemson Regional on Friday it will almost certainly be Bell who steps to the plate first.
He hit cleanup for most of the first half of the season but moved to the leadoff spot on April 19 and has batted first in every game since. That might look like a lot of pressure for a freshman playing his first postseason game, but do not be surprised if he thrives in the moment.
Bell already has become UK’s first player named to the SEC All-Freshman Team since 2016. This week he became the first Wildcat invited to the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team Training Camp since 2018.
“When the most talented guy is also the hardest worker on the team, Tyler Bell can rest in his preparation because he knows how hard he works,” Mingione said. “I’m not surprised. And I would tell you that I don’t think any of the players are surprised with the amount of success he has, because he’s not only talented, but like he’s actually working.”
Friday
Kentucky vs. West Virginia
What: NCAA Baseball Tournament Clemson Regional opener
Where: Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson, S.C.
When: Noon
TV: ESPNU
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: No. 3 regional seed Kentucky 29-24, No. 2 regional seed West Virginia 41-14
Format: Double elimination