Report: TCU lands two-way star Payton Tolle from Wichita State

According to Kendall Rogers of D1 Baseball, TCU has landed Payton Tolle out of the NCAA transfer portal. A huge get for the Horned Frogs, landing the two-way player from Wichita State.

“TRANSFER NEWS: @TCU_Baseball has landed a massive get out of the portal as former Wichita State two-way standout Payton Tolle is headed to Fort Worth play for the #Frogs, @d1baseball has learned,” Rogers said via Twitter.

Tolle was the Saturday night starter for Wichita State, putting together a good season on the bound. He threw a total of 85.2 innings, striking out 97 and walking just 19 batters. An ERA of 4.62 for Tolle was worse than his number in 2022 but opponents’ batting average dropped to .245 from .294.

Designated hitter is where Tolle spent most of his time in the lineup. However, if he was to play defensively, Wichita State sent him to the infield. Nonetheless, Tolle’s bat was the real strength of his game.

Tolle hit .313 in 212 at-bats with 13 home runs and 50 RBIs. An incredible OPS of .899 is going to bring some real juice to the TCU lineup next season.

Portal season is heating up in college baseball, with a huge name now off the board.

Transfer portal background information

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.