Clemson baseball finished 31-26 with a 10-20 ACC record — the worst conference mark in program history. Now the roster is emptying out.
Nine Tigers have entered the transfer portal since June 1: Nate Savoie, Noah Samol, Jay Dillard, Bryce Clavon, Collin Priest, Talan Bell, Peyton Miller, Jason Fultz Jr., and Hayden Simmerson. It’s the kind of list that takes a few reads before the full weight of it lands.
Savoie is the one that stings most. The catcher/outfielder hit .329 with 16 home runs, 52 RBI and a 1.009 OPS this season, earning Third Team All-ACC honors. He’s entering the portal for the second consecutive year — he came to Clemson from LMU before the 2026 season — and multiple outlets have already ranked him the No. 1 available player in the baseball transfer portal nationally with two years of eligibility remaining. When your best player leaves and immediately becomes the most coveted free agent in the country, that’s not a transition — that’s a verdict. And Savoie is just the start of it.
Go through the list and the losses add up fast.
Priest is the second-most painful departure after Savoie. He was a 2025 Third Team All-ACC selection who hit .240 with 12 home runs and 52 RBI — and then missed the entire 2026 season with a hand injury just when Clemson needed him most. The expectation was that he’d come back healthy and anchor the middle of the order in 2027. That’s not happening now. Clavon came in from Georgia to add outfield depth and gave the Tigers a .364 on-base percentage and five home runs in 42 games — solid, not spectacular, but depth that now has to be replaced. Dillard and Fultz Jr. were fringe contributors, hitting .215 and .231 respectively, but they take roster spots and minor competition with them.
The pitching losses are harder to absorb than they look. Simmerson was the reliever Bakich leaned on when games got tight — 3.62 ERA, 46 strikeouts across 32.1 innings — and no one in the current room has those numbers. Miller is heading to USF after posting a 4.15 ERA in six appearances. Bell committed to UCF; the highly-touted recruit spent most of his freshman year on the shelf and finished with a 7.82 ERA, so the production wasn’t there, but the recruitment cost was real. Samol, a Georgia Tech transfer, logged a 4.76 ERA in 11.1 innings before exiting. Simmerson, Samol, and Fultz Jr. haven’t announced their next stops yet.
The one incoming piece so far is Bennett Edwards, a catcher/outfielder from Georgia Southern who hit .287 with three homers and 16 RBI as a leadoff hitter. He’s a real addition — and one man coming in against nine walking out.
Hanging over all of it is the Jarren Purify question. The junior infielder hit .344 with five homers and 21 RBI in 40 games — the best remaining bat on the roster — and is ranked the No. 144 overall prospect in the 2026 MLB Draft by Perfect Game. He’s described his situation as “open to all options.” Erik Bakich has made retaining him a top priority. If Purify goes, Bakich loses his best returning hitter on top of everything else.
The ACC Tournament loss to Notre Dame on May 19, a 5-4 defeat on three solo home runs, felt like a fitting end to a season that never found its footing. Bakich built this roster to compete in the ACC. It didn’t, and now it’s coming apart. What the portal and recruiting class bring back in the coming weeks will determine whether this is a stumble or the start of something harder to fix.
