Is Liam Peterson a First Round Caliber Pitcher?
Three weekends into the college baseball season, draft profiles are starting to take legitimate shape. For some, profiles are restructured in their draft year while others are simply building upon the success that made them a prospect in the first place. For others, it’s about tweaking or improving one part of their game in order to solidify their self as a first round talent. For Florida’s Liam Peterson, he falls into the latter.
Coming into the current cycle, the industry consensus was that there was an upper tier of college pitchers that consisted of three aces - Coastal Carolina’s Cam Flukey, UC Santa Barbara’s Jackson Flora, and Florida’s Liam Peterson. For these three junior right-handers, the conversation started with elite stuff, as it usually does for pitchers entering their draft years. The conversation starts with the quality of stuff as it’s near impossible in today’s game to be considered a potential first round draft pick without at least one plus pitch in your bag. From there, those pitchers separate themselves throughout the cycle with polish, command, pitch-ability, and projection among a number of other things.
Due to the early returns on Jackson Flora’s expanded arsenal and improved command along with an injury that has sidelined Cam Flukey for the foreseeable future, Jackson Flora has separated himself as the top pitching prospect on many draft boards. But where does that leave Liam Peterson?
Entering the season, Peterson’s stuff was up there with the rest of the top arms in the nation. As a sophomore and Florida’s Friday night starter in 2025, he featured a four pitch mix. It started with a mid-90s fastball that could grab 98 at times with high spin and ride. His mid-80s slider was arguably his best pitch and go-to secondary, working with a tighter cutter-ish shape. A mid to high-70s curveball was also in the mix with more downer than horizontal break, providing another look off the slider. He also threw a mid-80s changeup with more depth than fade that he didn’t throw all that often.
The arsenal set the foundation for Peterson’s draft year, but the question was always going to be, can he figure out how to command it? He posted a 10.5% walk rate in 2025, pretty standard for a college starter, but on a deeper level, there were more concerns that the walk numbers alone couldn’t really quantify. The concerns really came down to fastball command, and it was more of a control over command issue with the fastball as it just had a hard time finding the strike zone at times rather than his spots. When it was in the zone, it was often the pitch getting hit because of Peterson’s steeper approach due to his higher slot and simply because he was more likely to leave it over the heart of the plate. Due to the high level of his breaking pitches, he was able to lean heavily on those to work through trouble. That can be a common theme at the amateur level that can lead people astray. If a pitcher has one elite pitch, they can go to the well with that all day and night and survive. At the pro level, that is not always going to be the case. So for Liam Peterson, his 2026 draft stock was going to hinge greatly upon the improved control and command of his fastball.
Fast forward to his first start of 2026, and all the red flags that he brought with him into the cycle were on display. He took on UAB at home in Gainesville, and simply put, could not find the strike zone, especially with his fastball. He gave up five walks and three hits while striking out only three in a 3.1 inning stint against lower-level competition. The fastball couldn’t find the zone while hitters were laying off of his breaking stuff because he was consistently working from behind in the count. Although it was a start in February and his first of the season, it certainly left a lot to be desired.
His next start a week later against Kennesaw State was much better as he punched out 12 hitters while allowing just two walks across 5.1 innings of work. However, reports remained consistent that it was still the command of the fastball and reliance on the secondaries that stuck out as caution signs. Peterson had already begun slipping on draft boards and as far as out of the first round due to the fact there had been no visible improvements made upon the package coming out of his sophomore year.
That all brings us to his most recent start and his biggest of the season thus far, in Florida’s biggest game of the year thus far. After dropping the opener to UAB, Florida entered their weekend series at Miami on a nine game win streak, while the Hurricanes were undefeated at 10-0. Not to mention, records aside, this is a big in-state rivalry series with a lot of history. It would without a doubt be Peterson’s biggest test of the season, and a lot of people wondered just how he would look considering Miami came into the series as the highest scoring offense in the country on a per-game basis, averaging over 15 runs per game through their first ten games of the season. They also led the nation in home runs, an unfavorable match-up for Peterson who had been home run prone in the past.
While all signs were pointing towards Peterson falling out of first round conversations and a potential ambush from Miami’s lineup, Peterson managed to flip the script and remind evaluators why he was included in that upper-tier of college pitchers in the first place. Peterson faced the Canes offense head on, striking out eight hitters while walking just one across 5.2 innings of work. In fact, Miami was held scoreless through five innings and had not been held scoreless through even the first three innings in any game prior. It was only after a few lucky hits in the sixth inning that Miami was able to scrape across a run and then they managed to get another across after Peterson left the game and was charged with the second run. Considering the stakes and the competition he was facing, it was a far more impressive start than his 12 strikeout performance against Kennesaw State a week prior.
He was once again pretty reliant on his breaking stuff, primarily his slider, to put away hitters and get called strikes and whiffs. However, he seemed to be throwing the fastball with a lot more conviction and it also started seeing more of the strike zone. He was really letting it eat too, running it up into the upper-90s with more consistency, and even grabbed a few 99s. Perhaps his most impressive heater was a two-strike challenge pitch in Daviel Cuvet’s first at bat of the night in the first inning, locating it in the upper third of the zone at 99 mph to induce a lifeless whiff from Miami’s biggest power threat.
He was primarily fastball/slider through the first couple of innings and then really started mixing in the curveball third time through the order. Although the curve has got some big break and allows for a third velocity band, it does appear to be easier to identify out of the hand due to its loopy nature without much tunnel off of the fastball and slider. With that being said, I think it was used at the right rate, rather in flashes than in every sequence. His changeup was used exclusively to left-handed hitters and was a whiff-getter when located at the bottom third and below the zone.
My only gripe with Peterson’s performance against Miami’s lineup was the pitch-ability. His catcher was calling pitches, but I’m assuming Peterson could shake him off because there were a few instances of him tripling-up and even quadrupling-up on different secondaries. In a specific instance, he had thrown three straight curveballs to a left-handed hitter in the sixth inning to get to a two-strike count and proceeded to drop another curveball in the middle of the zone in which the hitter slapped a single that ultimately contributed to some of the run-scoring in the sixth. He was set up nicely for a fading changeup or a heater at the top of the zone, but got too cute with the curveball. There were other times he did the same with the changeup and the slider that didn’t yield the same results, but felt a bit forced.
Regardless of the pitch mixing gripe, the conviction in which he was throwing his best offerings was quite encouraging and the improved command he showed across the arsenal was enough for me to pump the brakes on pulling him from the first round ranks on the 2026 draft board. On the debut of the board back in January, Peterson landed at 11th overall, and was recently moved down to 25th overall due to the aforementioned concerns. After his start against Miami, moving him down further past the first round into the 40-50 range where a lot of the industry has slid him to will have to wait.
So to answer my first question, “Is Liam Peterson a first round caliber pitcher?” There is no answer. It sounds lazy, but it depends on who you ask. The better question to ask is “can he be a first round pitcher?” The answer to that question is yes because I think it would be unwise to ignore the fact that he showed off a first round performance against Miami on Friday night. He’ll certainly have more opportunities to do so here in the near future. He’ll get another mid-major tune-up against High Point next Friday before taking on South Carolina in the opening weekend of SEC play the following weekend. After that, we’ll really get to see who Liam Peterson is as there is then no weeks off as he’ll get Alabama, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Georgia, Auburn, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and LSU to presumably close out his college career.
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