September 4, 2026
Texas Tailgaters Roster 2026: Every Player, Stat and Coach
The full 2026 Texas Tailgaters roster: every hitter, the pitching staff, manager Joe Mikulik, and how the Banana Ball Open champs stack up in the BBCL.
Banana Ball's Texas team is the one that grills in the parking lot, line dances between innings, and then quietly leads the league in trick plays. If you came looking for the Texas Tailgaters roster, here is the whole thing — every hitter, every arm, the manager in the cowboy hat, and what the numbers say about the only team already holding a playoff berth.
Who are the Texas Tailgaters?
Banana Ball announced the Tailgaters on October 3, 2024 as the fourth team in what became the Banana Ball Championship League. They were a new idea for the organization: a semi-regional club, run out of Savannah like every other team, but built to headline its own games across Texas and Oklahoma. The uniforms borrow the colors of the Texas state flag.
The bit is the tailgate. A house country band travels with the team, there is line dancing, there is parking-lot grilling, and the official pitch is "home runs to honky-tonks." Manager Joe Mikulik — a Weimar, Texas native and a longtime minor-league skipper — works the dugout in western chaps, a straw cowboy hat, a handlebar mustache and bootcut pants. He joined Banana Ball in 2025 and is back for his second season with the club.
The 2026 Texas Tailgaters roster
The official roster carries 29 players. Stats below are through August 29, 2026, from the league's own stats feed. The always-current version, with every number updating as games finish, lives on our Texas Tailgaters roster page.
Position players
| Player | No. | Pos | AVG | HR | RBI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kyle Martin | 27 | RF | .365 | 27 | 78 |
| Jordan Barth | 6 | 3B | .358 | 9 | 37 |
| Taylor Justus | 85 | 1B | .354 | 8 | 43 |
| Nick Lopez | 9 | DH | .311 | 6 | 36 |
| Indiana Stanley | 7 | CF | .294 | 3 | 16 |
| Jonathan Luders | 1 | 2B | .294 | 0 | 0 |
| Zach Watson | 2 | LF | .273 | 5 | 29 |
| Jorden Hussein | 5 | SS | .250 | 0 | 19 |
| Taj Porter | 26 | C | .242 | 4 | 25 |
| Jose Gonzalez Jr. | 28 | RF | .233 | 6 | 34 |
| Travis Moniot | 16 | 2B | .217 | 4 | 8 |
| Mac Danford | 11 | 1B | .203 | 0 | 15 |
| Jayson Arendt | 3 | LF | .181 | 2 | 9 |
Rounding out the group: Megan Wiggins (No. 25, LF), one of several former Division I softball players now playing Banana Ball full time, plus designated runners Jacob Pipercic (No. 13) and Tre Jones (No. 33), who exist to turn a walk into chaos. Infielder Jose Gutierrez (No. 21) is listed as inactive.
Pitching staff
| Pitcher | No. | IP | W–L |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brett Sanchez | 17 | 96.0 | 5–5 |
| Christian Davis | 12 | 83.2 | 7–3 |
| Chris Clarke | 44 | 58.1 | 3–2 |
| Jonathan Hughes | 8 | 53.1 | 2–3 |
| Reese Miller | 22 | 36.0 | 8–8 |
| Brett Allen | 36 | 21.2 | 0–0 |
| Matthew Fletcher | 14 | 16.2 | 3–2 |
| Zach Blankenship | 37 | 16.0 | 1–1 |
| Jimmy Lewis | 99 | 16.0 | 0–0 |
| Joe Sperone | 23 | 11.2 | 0–0 |
| Jon Reid | 24 | 6.0 | 0–0 |
| Paxton Thompson | 19 | 6.0 | 0–0 |
Sanchez and Davis are the workhorses. Reese Miller is the reliever Mikulik keeps reaching for — 37 appearances, more than anyone else on the staff.
Kyle Martin is having the loudest season in Banana Ball
One name on that roster deserves its own section. Kyle Martin, the No. 27 right fielder, is not just the best hitter on the Tailgaters — he leads the entire league, and it is not close.
Through August 29 he had 27 home runs. The next-best total anywhere in Banana Ball was 13. He had 78 RBI; second place was 52. He is doing it while hitting .365, which is a top-tier average in a league where the ball carries and the innings are short.
Put plainly: Martin has hit more than twice as many home runs as any other player in the league. If you are watching a Tailgaters game for one reason, that is the reason.
The trick-play team
The Tailgaters lead Banana Ball in trick plays — 691 of them through August 29, well clear of every other club. Behind-the-back flips, between-the-legs catches, the stuff that makes the highlight reel.
That is not just showmanship. Trick plays are the league's tiebreaker behind head-to-head, so a team that racks them up is banking a real advantage for a tight finish. Texas pairs that with a +18 point differential.
Where the Tailgaters stand in 2026
The defining moment of their season came in April. The first Banana Ball Open, played April 16–19, 2026, put the top four teams in a preseason tournament with an actual prize: the winner takes an automatic berth in the October playoffs. Texas won it, beating the Savannah Bananas in the final. Every other team has to earn a top-four finish by winning percentage. The Tailgaters are already in.
They led the standings for most of the summer. As of August 29 they sat 29-24, second place, with Savannah having edged ahead at 30-22, and eight games left — including a three-game closing weekend at Globe Life Field in Arlington on September 25–27. You can track the rest of it on the Banana Ball standings and the playoff picture.
Then comes the Banana Bowl on Saturday, October 10, 2026 at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. — the first championship game in league history, streaming on Disney+ and the Banana Ball YouTube channel.
How to watch the Tailgaters
Every Texas Tailgaters game streams free on the team's YouTube channel, and select games air on ESPN platforms. Our where to watch the Texas Tailgaters page lists the platform for each upcoming game, and the full Banana Ball schedule has the dates.
Tickets are sold only through Banana Ball's lottery at bananaball.com/tickets — you join a list for a specific city, a random drawing picks the buyers, and winners get a purchase email from FansFirst roughly two months out. Entering more than once does not improve your odds. See our Banana Ball tickets guide for how it works.
FAQ
Who is on the Texas Tailgaters roster?
The 2026 Texas Tailgaters carry 29 players. The everyday lineup is built around Kyle Martin, Jordan Barth, Taylor Justus, Nick Lopez, Zach Watson, Jorden Hussein, Taj Porter and Indiana Stanley, with Brett Sanchez and Christian Davis leading the pitching staff. Joe Mikulik manages.
Who is the best player on the Texas Tailgaters?
Kyle Martin. Through August 29, 2026 he led all of Banana Ball with 27 home runs and 78 RBI while hitting .365 — more than double the home run total of any other player in the league.
Who is the Texas Tailgaters manager?
Joe Mikulik, a Weimar, Texas native and longtime minor-league manager who joined Banana Ball in 2025. He coaches in western chaps, a straw cowboy hat and a handlebar mustache.
Did the Texas Tailgaters make the playoffs?
Yes. They won the inaugural Banana Ball Open in April 2026, beating the Savannah Bananas in the final, which comes with the league's only automatic playoff berth. Every other team has to finish in the top four by winning percentage.
Where are the Texas Tailgaters based?
They are operated out of Savannah, Georgia like every Banana Ball team, but they are the league's Texas franchise and headline games across Texas and Oklahoma — including College Station, San Antonio, Sugar Land, Oklahoma City and Arlington.
Why do the Texas Tailgaters have a country band?
It is the team's whole identity. The Tailgaters were built around tailgate culture — a traveling house band, line dancing and parking-lot grilling are part of the show, on top of the standard Banana Ball rules that keep every game under two hours.
Photo: baseballmapper / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
