What Is It Like To Face Kade Anderson? LSU Teammates Explain What Makes The Tigers’ Ace So Good

Image credit: Kade Anderson (Photo by Eddie Kelly/ ProLook Photos)

LSU infielder Steven Milam has known Kade Anderson long enough to anticipate what’s coming.

Anderson knows he can’t hit it, Milam jokes, and so does the coach who calls the pitches.

In real games, the LSU ace and top MLB Draft prospect touches his changeup only rarely. Even after his most recent College World Series start in Omaha, he’s used it just 13% of the time this season. It’s not his go-to. It’s not even necessary.

But when Milam steps into the box during intrasquads, that changeup suddenly becomes the main event.

“He toys with you,” Milam told Baseball America.

When Anderson wants to embarrass you, he doesn’t need his best stuff. Just the one you’re not ready for. Just enough to make you flinch.

“It’s like he waits for me just so he can throw that pitch,” Milam said.

Milam and Anderson have been teammates since childhood when the latter was more outfielder than ace. Back then, Milam thought Anderson might hit his way into LSU’s lineup. He still remembers early practices on campus—just him, Anderson and Jake Brown in the batting cages—before the coaching staff told Anderson his future was on the mound.

Turns out, they were right.

Now a sophomore, Anderson leads the nation in strikeouts and headlines the rotation for the hottest team in college baseball. On Saturday night, with Omaha’s spotlight fixed on him, he shut down an Arkansas lineup loaded with draft talent, striking out seven across seven innings and allowing just one run while touching 96 mph with a fastball that moves like smoke through a keyhole.

His slider and curveball—both capable of spinning over 3,000 rpms—were especially vicious, with the curve flashing wipeout depth.

It was the kind of performance that separates good pitchers from first-overall-pick candidates. The kind of outing that makes teammates say, “Yep, that’s what it’s like.“

So what is it like?

To understand Kade Anderson, you have to stand in the box against him.

Or talk to the players who have.

— —

Daniel Dickinson got one official at-bat against Anderson in the preseason after joining the Tigers from Utah Valley. It ended in a slow roller back to the mound.

“That’s about as good an outcome as I could’ve asked for,” Dickinson said.

Anderson is a four-pitch pitcher with command of all four—and more importantly, conviction behind each one. He doesn’t pitch scared. He doesn’t nibble. He forces decisions with precision.

“He’s got something that moves in every direction,” Dickinson said. “And if you’re looking for one pitch and you don’t get it, you’re already behind. You’ve got to battle even more from there.”

It’s not just about velocity. It’s about shape, angle and sequence. The curveball dives. The slider tilts. The changeup vanishes. The fastball, Dickinson said, “gets on you quicker than you expect.”

“And if you’re guessing?” he added, almost cautioning Anderson’s future opponents. “You’re in trouble.”

Josh Pearson has seen it all. He’s faced elite SEC arms, future pros, flamethrowers and freaks. He was teammates with Paul Skenes and took hacks against Hagen Smith. But Anderson, he said, stands apart.

“You’re up there, and you have no idea what’s coming,” Pearson said. “He doesn’t double up pitches very often. Everything’s firm. Everything’s plus. And he throws it all for strikes.”

Pearson said hitters often talk about “eliminating pitches” to narrow their focus, but with Anderson, there’s nothing to eliminate. Everything’s in play.

“You can’t guess,” he said. “Not against him.”

Like his teammates, Michael Braswell knew Anderson was good, too. Then he faced him.

“The ball just gets up on you really quick,” he said. “Everything comes out the same slot, same look. And then it breaks late. It’s really hard to square him up.”

And when Braswell says “hard,” he doesn’t mean “challenging.” He means “good luck.”

Take the slider, for example—mid-to-high 80s with late sweep. 

“Anytime you have a lefthander throwing 86 to 88 with that kind of movement, it’s going to play,” Braswell said.

The curveball? That’s a different beast entirely.

“It’s a rollover machine,” Braswell said. “You just can’t square it up. It’s firm, tight, sharp. It feels like it breaks under your barrel.”

Add it all up—four pitches, all sharp, all coming from the same tunnel—and you start to understand what makes Anderson a nightmare.

“He can pitch wherever he wants,” Braswell said. “That’s what makes him the best pitcher in the country, in my opinion.”

— —

Everyone who faces Anderson talks about his stuff. But the more time you spend around him, the more something else starts to stand out—his presence.

“He’s like a lion out there,” said Derek Curiel, who logged a walk, a groundout and a strikeout in three career intrasquad plate appearances against Anderson. “It’s not just the stuff. It’s the confidence and the feel. The way he attacks.”

Milam agreed: “He wants to embarrass you.”

But it’s not arrogance. It’s edge. It’s what happens when a pitcher knows exactly who he is—and has the arsenal to back it up.

After giving up a home run on Saturday in the sixth inning against Arkansas, Anderson struck out two of the next three hitters to retire the side. No panic, no shake. Just a reset and more heat.

“He misses a pitch, he’s right back on the next one,” Milam said. “That’s just who he is.”

Ask Milam or Braswell or anyone who’s seen Anderson’s evolution, and they’ll tell you it didn’t happen overnight.

“He’s taken a huge step from freshman year,” Braswell said. “The command, the velocity, the offspeed development—it’s all on another level now.”

What changed? Maturity, mindset, a little help from pitching coach Nate Yeskie and head strength coach Chris Martin and an obsessive desire to get better.

“He’s just a workhorse,” Milam said. “He’s one of my best friends, and he’s one of the best people I’ve ever met. He’s humble. He comes from a great family. And he gives you everything he has every time out.”

— —

All five LSU teammates were asked: Why should a professional team take Kade Anderson first overall in the 2025 MLB Draft?

The answers varied slightly. But the tone was always the same: conviction.

“You’re getting a competitor,” Braswell said. “An ace in the rotation. One of the youngest draft-eligible arms out there, and he’s just going to keep getting better.”

Pearson called him a dog.

“First in, last out,” he said. “He’s going to work.”

Milam said what everyone else was thinking.

“I think he’s the best pitcher in the country,” he said. “Hands down.”

Anderson has the tools. He has the track record. He has the numbers. But more than anything, he has the testimony.

Because the people who know him best—the ones who’ve stared down that 3,000 rpm curveball, guessed wrong on a first-pitch fastball and walked back to the dugout shaking their heads—aren’t talking in hypotheticals.

They’ve been in the box.

They’ve felt it.

They know.