By BILL FRANQUES, Tiger Rag News Services
Former LSU All-American pitcher Kade Anderson is a Major League Baseball player for the Seattle Mariners and is scheduled to start tonight against the Chicago Cubs (6:15 p.m., FOX).
He will become the 94th former Tiger who finished his college career at LSU to see action in Major League Baseball since 1912 and third this season. LSU’s complete list excludes former Tigers who finished their college careers elsewhere, former Tigers who appeared on MLB rosters but did not participate in a game, and those who attended LSU and played in an MLB game but did not play baseball at LSU.
The previous two Tigers to debut in a MLB game this season were third baseman Tommy White on July 17 with the Sacramento Athletics (formerly Oakland and moving to Las Vegas in 2028) and pitcher Gage Jump on May 26 with the Athletics. White played at LSU in the 2023 national championship season and in ’24 after transferring from North Carolina State. Jump was at LSU in the 2024 season.
Anderson, a left-hander from Madisonville, will become the seventh MLB player to make it under current coach Jay Johnson during his five seasons with the Tigers, beginning in 2022. LSU has had at least one former player make his MLB debut in of 32 of the past 36 seasons.
Former coach Skip Bertman, who passed away on Aug. 14 at age 88, coached 40 players at LSU from 1984-2001 who reached the Majors.
Johnson’s other LSU Major Leaguers include pitcher Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and outfielder Dylan Crews of the Washington Nationals after they were drafted 1 and 2 in the 2023 MLB Draft after leading the Tigers to the national title. Others are pitcher Grant Taylor of the Chicago White Sox, pitcher Paul Gervase of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Anderson, who pitched at LSU in 2024 and 2025 and was the College World Series MVP for the ’25 national champion Tigers, is 10-1 this season with a 1.06 ERA in 18 starts for the Double-A Arkansas Travelers in Little Rock. Selected No. 3 overall by the Mariners in the 2025 draft, Anderson has struck out 135 and walked 13 in 93 and a third innings, allowing just 47 hits and 11 runs in 18 starts.
A first team All-American and All-SEC pitcher in 2025, Anderson was also named the Baseball America College Pitcher of the Year. He was 2-0 in the CWS with victories over Arkansas and Coastal Carolina in the national championship series, posting a 0.56 ERA while allowing just one run on six hits in 16 innings with 17 strikeouts.
Anderson fired only the second complete-game shutout in LSU’s College World Series history when he defeated Coastal Carolina with a brilliant three-hitter in the opener of the CWS finals. He finished 12-1 on the season with a 3.18 ERA and 180 strikeouts in 119.0 innings. He completed the year No. 1 in the nation in total strikeouts and No. 7 in strikeouts per nine innings at 13.61.
The 180 strikeouts in 2025 by Anderson is No. 3 on the LSU season strikeouts list, trailing Skenes’ SEC record 209 in 2023 and Ben McDonald’s 202 strikeouts in 1989 that was the SEC record until Skenes broke it.
Over his LSU career, Anderson was 16-3 record with a 3.38 ERA in 157 and a third with 55 walks and 239 strikeouts.
Anderson posted a 3.57 grade point average as a sport administration major with a business administration minor at LSU and was voted a 2025 Academic All-American by College Sports Communicators. And he received the 2025 Jim Corbett Award, presented by the Sugar Bowl to the top male athlete in the state of Louisiana and named after the former LSU athletic director from 1954-67.
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