Brendan Lawson has been the story for Florida baseball.
The shortstop is the Gators’ leader in batting average (.333), OPS (1.264) and home runs (11), despite missing games to injury and illness. Lawson is also coming off an imposing freshman year in which he finished second on the team in batting average at .317. All of his stats have been improved from last season.
The Canadian earned some profound awards for his last campaign as well. He was a Baseball America first-team Freshman All-American and made the SEC All-Freshman Team. Lawson had the option to go to the minor leagues out of high school after being drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 19th round of the 2024 MLB draft. He boasted a top-200 prospect position that year, but opted to head to Florida instead.
Now, his outlook has received a major upgrade.
Lawson is the No. 2 prospect in the 2027 MLB draft, according to Baseball America. Still, Lawson isn’t quite where he will need to be at this time next year to hold that spot. He’ll need to rekindle his power, which was only seen at the start of this season — in his last 15 games, Lawson only has one home run. However, there’s a lot of baseball left in his college career, which means lots of time for improvement. But where does he rank among past Florida stars?
When compared to the talent of recent top Gators, Lawson falls short, for now. At his current pace, he’s in line to finish this season with about 15 home runs and 40 in his career, which is an impressive feat nonetheless. His career slash line is .322/.464/.588 (batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, respectively). Those numbers are still noticeably deflated when compared to first baseman and pitcher Jac Caglianone’s 75 career home runs.
He also maintained a slash line of .355/.447/.760, not to mention his 4.55 ERA in 148.1 innings pitched. Prior to Caglianone, outfielder Wyatt Langford slashed .363/.471/.746 with 47 home runs. Langford went fourth overall in the 2024 MLB draft, and Caglianone followed at sixth overall the next year. Both players are now starters on major league teams.
While he may not have the numbers of Caglianone and Langford, Lawson is still a serious presence on the diamond. Being the best hitter in the lineup, he has bought himself respect from opposing teams. This season, he leads the SEC in walks with 42, potentially taking away chances at hitting in the manner either of those former stars did. More notably, Lawson is third in the SEC in OPS (1.264) and first in on-base percentage (.543), giving him a chance to finish at the top in those categories where Caglianone and Langford never did.
OPS has grown tremendously in popularity over the last few years as the main measure of hitting success. To be third in the best conference in the country in it is no doubt a huge accomplishment for Lawson, despite lacking the same level of dominance as the Gators’ recent MLB bats. Within his OPS is his remarkable ability to reach base in more than 50% of his at-bats, solidifying him as yet another world-class talent for the Gators. Home runs may sell the tickets, but strong overall stats sell MLB scouts.
While still a step below the prowess of Caglianone and Langford, Lawson has time to continue to build his resume by next year’s draft. Soon enough, he could be among Florida’s stars.
