The 2027 Auburn Baseball Roster Tracker
After back-to-back Super Regional exits, Butch Thompson's Tigers will have eyes on Omaha again. Here's what they could have next year.
AUBURN — The expectations on the Plains are only continuing to rise.
After hosting its first ever Super Regional in 2025, Auburn — a team filled with youth — ran back nearly the same script by earning the No. 4 national seed and winning its regional for the second year in a row before bowing out to Ole Miss in the supers.
Great stuff. Truly. Would have been applauded around 2018 or so.
But it’s 2026, and the expectations have massively evolved for the program.
“I think the guys are really upset,” Auburn head coach Butch Thompson said. “It’s not a celebration and a pat on your back that you are in the Super Regional anymore.”
Auburn had its chances over the Super Regional weekend, but just constantly found itself a couple inches short.
Nothing represented that better than a late line drive hit to center field by Ethin Bingaman with two on and two out that chased the Ole Miss center fielder back towards the wall, forcing him to leap and somehow snowcone the ball for the final out.
“Now that it's over I will say, when that ball was hit, and center fielder went back, I said, 'Man, this might not be in the cards,'“ Thompson said. “It was the first time I felt that.”
The next inning, Ole Miss homered twice off of Jackson Sanders, who had been absolute nails out of the bullpen all season. Guess what? That’s baseball.
The end result hurts, but as Thompson mentioned prior to the Ole Miss series — and once again after it had ended — Auburn as a program hasn’t been better under him. And, with a core set to return a lot of key pieces, there’s a lot to look forward to.
“We made it to Omaha in ‘19,” Thompson said ahead of the Super Regional. “But where the program was in ‘19, to where it sits today, it ain't even close. You look at the quality of player and what our amazing staff's been able to acquire, it's because the people that come before them, and that growth build out of everything happened together.
“I just absolutely love where our program is.”
But, with that said, the Tigers will likely still have to replace some outgoing talent. How much, exactly? That’s still to be determined.
“You’re not going to hear just all portal, portal, portal,” Thompson said of his team’s recruiting philosophy. “And people who are doing that are older clubs that don’t have a choice. I feel like we're doing a good job of getting them here, developing them, growing them. It's an amazing sophomore class, and we had some freshmen help us again.
“And so it’s being true to those guys and taking care of those guys properly, instead of them feeling like they got somebody over the top of them. We need to add complementary pieces that would fill in what we lose.”
With all of that in mind, here is The Observer’s first Auburn Baseball Roster Tracker. This will stay on top of all the comings and goings for the Tigers, and it will evolve throughout a busy offseason.
Subscribers can click the button below for a spreadsheet version of this tracker.