The Shawn Stiffler era with the Notre Dame baseball team has not gone as well as hoped. In fact, it's gone rather bad. Not only have the Fighting Irish missed the postseason every year of his time in South Bend, but this spring, the program is losing one of the best players to come through the school in the last few years. Bino Watters, still a very young but highly touted player, is expected to hit the Transfer Portal.
Watters isn't the only one who is expected to leave the Irish this spring. The second defection is pitcher Oisin Lee, who pitched 20.1 innings with three wins but had a 5.31 ERA. He was a big part of the Golden Domers out of the bullpen, but he did have issues with giving up walks. Of course, there were plenty of issues with the Irish pitching staff.
Watters is the biggest loss of the year for a Notre Dame team that started the season looking like it might finally return to the NCAA Tournament. In the middle of the season, the pitching staff hit a rough patch that sent Stiffler's squad into a tailspin. However, the team did still show enough fight towards the end of the regular season and even made a bit of noise in the ACC Tournament.
All-ACC as a sophomore, Watters' departure is a huge hit to the program, as he is viewed as a high MLB draft pick when he's eligible next summer. In 2026, Watters was fantastic, hitting 10 homers with 51 RBI while batting .362. The Notre Dame offense will be hard-pressed to replace his bat in the 2027 lineup.
Bino Watters portal decision leaves Notre Dame baseball with a major lineup hole
However, on that note, the Irish did get some good news regarding a star player not entering the portal. Outfielder Jayce Lee is coming back to South Bend for his junior season after a big second year in the Fighting Irish program. He hit 12 homers and drove in 46 while batting .327 on the year.
Starting pitcher Caden Crowell will also return for his sophomore season. He made 9 starts over the course of the year, and while his ERA was an ugly 7.55, he showed plenty of promise, striking out over a batter per inning. For a program badly needing to upgrade its pitching staff, Shawn Stiffler and his staff won't have to replace at least one pitcher who does have a live arm.
Instead, the Notre Dame staff will look to help Crowell as well as the rest of the returning pitchers to develop and have better success in the dog days of the season, especially the ACC. The real question now is just how active the Irish will be in bringing in new players. Both the baseball and basketball teams are clearly suffering a bit in NIL and Rev Share compared to the top schools in the country. Those struggles with resources is likely the main factor in Shawn Stiffler's seat not yet being all that hot despite four straight seasons of missing the NCAA Tournament.
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