By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
Thousands of college athletes enter the NCAA Transfer Portal every year, and most of the time they are just names with numbers for coaches recruiting new talent. Sometimes, though, a name rings a bell.
LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson saw the name Zach Yorke, a junior first baseman/designated hitter at Grand Canyon in Phoenix last season with power. But it was that Yorke part. Johnson had recruited a Nick Yorke when he was Arizona’s coach in 2020.
Johnson lost that Yorke, the No. 75 prospect in the nation at the time as an infielder from Mitty High School in San Jose, California, when he signed with the Boston Red Sox organization as the No. 17 pick in the first round of the 2020 Major League Baseball Draft.
Yorke was traded to Pittsburgh before the 2024 season and made his MLB debut at second base with the Pirates that year. He played briefly with the Pirates last season as he spent most of the season at Triple-A Indianapolis.
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Johnson said before the 2025 season on KLSU Radio that Nick Yorke was the player in MLB who got away he most wishes he could have coached.
“Every time I saw him, it was like, ‘This guy is the best player on the field, no question about it,’” Johnson said. “I just remember the makeup, the hitting ability, the toughness, the character, it was all there. I remember when he got drafted, I mean I was just like in silence, like, ‘I knew it.’”
Zach remembers Johnson recruiting his older brother and taking the family to Fleming’s Steakhouse in Tuscon.
“So, I went on his unofficial visit, and I don’t know why I was sitting in between coach Johnson and Nick, but I was,” Zach Yorke said in interviews this week. “And they were talking about his swing the whole night, because he was really good. And coach Johnson wanted him really bad and Nick was like, ‘What about my brother? Like what’s it going to take to get him to come to U of A?’ And coach tapped me on the shoulder, and he’s like, ‘You/ve got a lot of work to do.’ So, obviously, I worked hard and got in the cages.”
And Zach improved.
“Obviously, I was very young when he said that, but I would say I’ve gotten a lot better since,” Zach said.
During his three years at Grand Canyon, Yorke (6-foot-2, 295 pounds) batted .328 (199-for-606) with 32 doubles, two triples, 32 home runs, 157 RBIs and 127 runs scored.
“He has plenty of power, and it’s the thing that grabs everybody’s attention,” Johnson said. “But he doesn’t have to sell out to hit with power, and I think that allows you to make a really positive contribution, no matter what type of game you play. That type of hitter can be successful in a small ballpark, in a big ballpark, on a day where the wind’s blowing in, wind’s blowing out. He has tremendous strike zone discipline, tremendous contact skills. So, you put all that together, and you have a really good hitter and the exact hitter for us to bring in with the corresponding pieces with this team.”
Johnson didn’t get the opportunity to coach Nick Yorke, but he’s got a second chance to keep it in the family with Zach.
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