New Baseball Commit

[mike412]

Pitcher Dylan Lester from San Jacinto Junior College in Texas has committed to Pitt, the first commitment for new coach Mike Bell. Bell tweeted to “expect” a number of additional commitments before the November signing period.

Lester transferred to San Jacinto from the University of Houston where he pitched only 5 innings as a freshman. He was an Honorable Mention AA coming out of HS and was rated the number 500 player in the country by Perfect Game. He was an academic All-American both in HS and at Houston, so his transfer clearly had to do with baseball and not academics. He was recruited by Coach Bell when he was at FSU.

My guess is that he sees Pitt as a better opportunity for him to be a starter. San Jacinto is one of the top JUCO baseball programs in the country, having gone to the JUCO World Series almost every year.

 

[bwh05]

Pitcher Dylan Lester from San Jacinto Junior College in Texas has committed to Pitt, the first commitment for new coach Mike Bell. Bell tweeted to “expect” a number of additional commitments before the November signing period.

Lester transferred to San Jacinto from the University of Houston where he pitched only 5 innings as a freshman. He was an Honorable Mention AA coming out of HS and was rated the number 500 player in the country by Perfect Game. He was an academic All-American both in HS and at Houston, so his transfer clearly had to do with baseball and not academics. He was recruited by Coach Bell when he was at FSU.

My guess is that he sees Pitt as a better opportunity for him to be a starter. San Jacinto is one of the top JUCO baseball programs in the country, having gone to the JUCO World Series almost every year.

He got injured his freshman year at Houston

 

[mike412]

He pitched as a redshirt freshman. I would think he will have two years eligibility after pitching this year in JUCO, unless he enrolls early at Pitt.

 

[DiehardPanther]

Is he eligible for this season?

 

[mike412]

Is he eligible for this season?

He would be if he enrolls early. But, I suspect the plan is for him to pitch JUCO this season and then transfer to Pitt. I don’t know why he would have enrolled in JUCO to leave before his first season there.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

He would be if he enrolls early. But, I suspect the plan is for him to pitch JUCO this season and then transfer to Pitt. I don’t know why he would have enrolled in JUCO to leave before his first season there.

No, he wouldn't be. Unless they have changed the rules, and I haven't heard of any such change, when an athlete goes to a juco they must graduate from the juco to be eligible to play D1 sports. Now I suppose it would be possible to transfer enough credits to the juco to graduate from there in one semester, but why on earth would the juco have allowed something like that? They'd have had a guy on scholarship for one semester, the one where he didn't play any for them, and then he'd have been off to another school. Wouldn't make any sense.

 

[mike412]

I agree. That’s why I said I said that wouldn’t be the plan. I think the earliest he would enroll will be next Fall.

I don’t know if they have tightened up the rules, but theeligibility rules for baseball and softball used to be a joke. Barry Zito transferred to UCLA from a JUCO with the plan to pitch for one year prior to the draft. He didn’t enroll in the Fall but waited until the Winter semester when practice started. He enrolled for 12 credits, never attended a single class, and then dropped out before exams. But, he was able to pitch for that one season and become a number one draft pick.

It was worse in softball. UCLA had a pitcher from Australia who enrolled for the semester when the softball team was active, also didn’t attend a class and flew back to Australia as soon as the season ended. UCLA won the National Championship with her as the star pitcher. She came back the following year and did the same thing. She apparently took some courses at an Australian school that were credited to her and made her eligible to pitch that second year. But she never attended a single class of the courses she signed up for at UCLA.

When the story of that got into the papers, the rules were changed.