Florida Gators waste no time landing transfer portal help

After a disastrous NCAA Tournament run, Kevin O'Sullivan and company have wasted no time in going after help in the transfer portal to try and reload for 2026.

The Gators have landed Notre Dame pitcher Ricky Reeth and JUCO catcher AJ Malzone out of the portal and have their eyes on even more.

Florida Baseball lands two players out of the transfer portal

Reeth is expected to be a bullpen arm for the Gators in 2026, but as 2025 showed, you can never have too many quality arms out of the bullpen. The Windemere native made 22 appearances in 2025 and pitched a total of 48 innings for the Fighting Irish.

He had an ERA of 4.31 with a record of 4-2.

Perhaps his biggest asset that will play well with O'Sullivan is the fact he only walked 12 hitters in 2025 while striking out 43.

2026 will be his final season of eligibility.

Malzone is a catcher from the JUCO ranks. Playing for Wabash Valley College, Malzone hit .372 with eight home runs in 55 games played in 2025. The Illinois native was originally ranked 611th in the class of 2023 by Perfect Game before going the junior college route.

Is there more coming to Gainesville?

The common belief is that Florida catcher Luke Heyman is going to get drafted high enough in the upcoming MLB Draft that he will not return to Gainesville for 2026.

And after the Brody Donay experiment at catcher did not go well after Heyman was injured for the season, there are plenty of reasons why Florida would want to keep Donay at 1st base in 2026 if they can help it.

Jacob Rudner of Baseball America dropped a nugget on social media that he believes the Gators are in the running for Notre Dame catcher Carson Tinney, who was a teammate of Reeth and would have caught Reeth plenty in South Bend.

If there is a bright spot to Florida getting bounced as early as they did in the NCAA Tournament, it's that they can turn their attention to the transfer portal now rather than having to wait two or three weeks.