Just another manic Monday?
Exactly a week after the Notre Dame baseball team’s NCAA Tournament bubble burst on Selection Monday, an out-and-out explosion took a massive chunk out of the program’s future.
Catcher Carson Tinney entered the transfer portal.
The transfer portal for college baseball opened Monday, and closes at the end of the day on July 1. Irish Sports Daily's Matt Freeman was first with the news.
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Arguably the hottest player in the nation in the last month and a half of the regular season and unarguably Notre Dame’s strongest asset toward ending a three-year postseason drought in 2026, the Irish sophomore catcher joined four other Irish departees so far, only one of whom saw any action in 2025.
Tinney did more than see action, he carried the Irish (32-21) during a 16-3 late-season surge that fizzled with a first-round ACC Tournament loss to 14th seed Boston College, 5-4 in 10 innings.
Coming off an April 2024 ACL tear and surgery a month later, Tinney bounced back to lead the Irish in batting average (.348), on-base percentage (.498), slugging (.753), OPS (1.251), home runs (17), RBIs (53) and runs scored (52). He also threw out an ACC-high 17 would-be base stealers.
His numbers in ND’s 19-game run that nudged the Irish out of last place in the ACC standings and onto the NCAA Tourney bubble — a .448 batting average with a .570 on-base percentage, a 1.090 slugging percentage for a 1.660 OPS. Over that span, he amassed 30 hits, 34 runs, seven doubles, 12 home runs, 27 RBI, and 14 walks.
“What shifted for me was I just made a couple of adjustments with my swing that helped me a lot,” Tinney told Inside ND Sports in a one-on-one interview ahead of the ACC Tourney. “I was having a lot of hard outs, but mainly into the ground. I had a lot of groundball outs, which hitting the ball into the ground usually doesn’t do much good.
“So, I made a couple of adjustments to try to get the ball in the air, and since then it’s been working well. So, not complaining.”
But now he’s leaving. Tinney will be eligible for the Major League Draft after next season.
He is joined in the portal by two sophomore pitchers — Tore Indomenico, Justin Mayes Jr. and Noah Greenseid — as well as freshman infielder Charlie Vercruysse. Only Mayes, among them, logged any stats this past season, and that consisted of 7 ⅓ innings pitched with a 13.50 ERA.
Notre Dame hasn't made the NCAA Tournament since 2022, when former head coach Link Jarrett coaxed the Irish to the College World Series, then left after the season to coach at his alma mater, Florida State.
Shawn Stiffler was hired away from VCU to succeed Jarrett. Stiffller's three-year record with the Irish is 89-70, with a collective 38-52 mark in ACC play.
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