Florida Baseball: Brandon Sproat will open the College World Series for Gators
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Brandon Sproat turned down third-round money from the New York Mets to return to Gainesville this season. He’s led the Florida Baseball team all season and his manager will go wit the guy that has anchored the pitching staff all season when the Gators open the College World Series on Friday against Virginia.
Virginia hasn’t announced a starting pitcher but Coastal Carolina transfer Nick Parker is expected to get the nod.
Sproat was fantastic in his last home start against South Carolina. After allowing three runs in the first two innings, he made an adjutsment and doinated a potent Gamecock lineup.
“That’s happened a few times this year where they’ve kind of cheated the fastball, but I think that’s made Brandon better where he’s got the curveball and the change-up he can go to behind in the count and he was able to do that against a really good lineup,” Kevin O’Sullivan said after the game. “That just shows the maturity of where he’s at. He gave up three in the first two and put up four zeros. I was going to take him out in the fifth, he was at 90 pitches, he had to really make a lot of leverage pitches. It was an emotional night for him. He begged to go back out there in the sixth and obviously he put up another zero.”
Florida Baseball schedule in Omaha
The Gators and Cavaliers are paired with Oral Roberts and TCU, who will officially open the College World Series on Friday afternoon at 2 ET. The winner of each game will play on Sunday night, while the losers of the opening games will play in an elimination game Sunday afternoon.
Hurston Waldrep will get the start for the Florida baseball team in their second game of the CWS.
MLB Scouting Report on Brandon Sproat
Scouting grades: Fastball: 60 | Curveball: 45 | Slider: 55 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 45 | Overall: 45
Since his high school days, Sproat has tantalized scouts with impressive raw stuff, but hasn’t always delivered consistent results. The Rangers took him in the seventh round out of high school in 2019, but he opted to head to Florida. A year in the rotation in 2022 was a little up-and-down, but was enough for the Mets to take him in the third round, but he decided to come back to the Gators for one more season, giving him one more chance to impress scouts.
Sproat looks the part with his 6-foot-3 frame and has a potential four-pitch mix to use to get hitters out. He’s flirted with triple digits in the past — his fastball averaged close to 96 mph in 2022 and he was once again in the 94-98 mph range this fall. He does have distinct breaking pitches, with a mid-80s slider a potential true out pitch that misses a ton of bats and a slower get-me-over type of curve. He has feel for a mid-80s changeup that he doesn’t throw as much, but it could be a fourth at least average pitch.
The right-hander made strides in finding the strike zone last year and showed solid command in fall ball, though his fastball can be too straight at times and he gets hit more than he should given his stuff. Another inconsistent turn in the Gators weekend rotation has once again made it difficult to figure out where he belongs on a Draft board.
