USC and Washington made their pitches, but both struck out.
UC Santa Barbara baseball coach Andrew Checketts resisted the more alluring paycheck, perks and ballparks of the Pac-12 and kept his home base at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
But now he must wait to see if his top high school recruits choose to stick with the Gauchos, too.
“It’s been fairly stressful,” Checketts said in anticipation of next week’s Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft. “Austin Charles is No. 76 in the top 100 (prospects). Tyler Bremner is 122.
“Both of those players, along with a kid named Frank Camarillo from Moreno Valley, are guys that we’re going to be watching and sweating out a little bit.”
The draft, reduced to 20 rounds in 2020 from 40, will be selected over three days beginning next Sunday in Los Angeles as part of MLB’s All-Star Week.
Checketts, whose 98-36 record the last three years ranks as the fifth best in NCAA Division I baseball, is counting on a youth movement for next season. Not one of the nine Gaucho batters he penciled onto the lineup card for last month’s NCAA Regional opener at Stanford is expected back next season.
It would be enough to make any coach cry.
“Senior Day, there weren’t many dry eyes,” Checketts conceded. “Those guys were a special group. You think about all that they have done, the wins, the losses, the leadership … getting through COVID.
“Those guys did a lot and left the program better than they found it.”
That’s saying a lot at a school which has earned five NCAA Regional bids in the last seven years and advanced to the College World Series in 2016.
Forecast for Sprinkle
It could be a chilling MLB Draft for UCSB. Checketts expects shortstop Jordan Sprinkle to go in either the third or fourth rounds, starting pitcher Cory Lewis in the fifth-to-10th, and outfielder Nick Vogt anywhere from the sixth to 14th.
“He’s kind of a wild card,” he said of Vogt, his All-NCAA Regional centerfielder. “Some people really like him and others don’t really know who he is.”
Checketts also wouldn’t be surprised if third baseman Bryce Willits and outfielders Blake Klassen, Christian Kirtley and Broc Mortensen are picked in the later rounds.
“I think we have a pretty good feel for it,” he said. “I can’t speak for them, but I anticipate that if you hear their names drafted in those rounds, they’ve made the decision that they’re moving on.”
He’s not so sure about the cream of his incoming crop of recruits. Checketts found himself “re-recruiting” several of those he signed last fall. He drove to Bakersfield for a CIF playoff game just to make sure Charles knew his importance to the Gauchos.
Charles’ grand-slam home run and four-hit pitching win in the CIF Central Section Championship game provided an odd mixture of assurance and worry. It validated Checketts’ investment in the recruit … but also increased the Stockdale High School star’s value to the pro scouts.
“We’ve got four guys I’m nervous about,” he said, including Golden West Junior College star Jonah Sebring in that quartet. “They’ve done too good of a job. Three of them will probably have to turn down a million dollars to make it on campus.
“Nobody else recruited them. It wasn’t like we beat UCLA on these guys, we just projected them right. But they got better faster than we had anticipated.”
Charles in Charge
Charles, a 6-foot-6 shortstop and pitcher, batted .483 with 13 homers and 19 stolen bases. He posted a pitching record of 5-0 with a 1.36 earned run average and 62 strikeouts in just 46⅔ innings.
“He’s got high upside,” Checketts said. “If he doesn’t go in the first round this year, his development will be something like that down the road.”
Charles was one of 118 high school players who participated in last month’s MLB Draft Combine at San Diego’s Petco Park. He gave little insight into his plans during the workouts.
“It’s a win-win situation,” Charles said. “Whether that’s getting drafted next month or going to (UCSB) and developing for the next three years, I feel like I can’t lose.
“I have an older brother who’s been through the process, so I understand, and I feel like I’m ready to go … It just depends on the situation.”
Bremner, a hard-throwing righthander out of Scripps Ranch High in San Diego, was also invited to the MLB Combine. He went 4-2 with a 0.90 ERA on the mound last spring for Scripps, striking out 87 in 54⅓ innings.
Camarillo was one of the fastest-rising pitchers on the West Coast this spring. He posted a 9-0 pitching record for Moreno Valley before losing a 1-0 pitcher’s duel to Pepperdine commit Gunnar Nichols of Burbank Burroughs High in the CIF-Southern Section final. Camarillo struck out 122 batters in 75⅓ innings with a 1.86 ERA.
“If we get everybody we signed, I think it’s a top-15, top-20 recruiting class in the country,” Checketts said. “We’ve got some other guys coming in who are good players, too.
“It’s really easy to look at the ceilings on Charles, Bremner and Camarillo and go, ‘They can turn into first-rounders.’ All three of those guys have families that are academic-minded, but we’ll see what life-changing money is for them.”
Calling on the Junior Colleges
Two of UCSB’s junior college recruits —Sebring and Santa Rosa’s Jared Sundstrom — could also be lost to the draft.
Sebring, who plays both infield and outfield, batted .411, stole 22 bases and hit seven homers in 39 games this spring for Golden West in Huntington Beach. Sundstrom also reached the .400 mark, stole 16 bases and hit six homers in 30 games.
“Sebring reminds me of a Jason Willow,” said Checketts, referring to UCSB’s graduating all-purpose player. “He’s maybe a little more advanced with the bat. I know there are some pro guys who like him. Whether they can get their people above them to draft him, I don’t know. He’s on the older side so if he does get drafted, I’m anticipating that he’ll sign.
“Sundstrom was in Baseball America’s Top 500 (draft picks), but we’re anticipating that we’ll get him. The JC market needs to be good for us.”
The Gauchos’ youth movement will come with some promise no matter how many recruits are lost to the draft.
Returning catcher John Newman Jr. received All-Big West Conference honorable mention last year after batting .355 in 93 at bats. Sophomore Nick Oakley (.265 in 108 at bats), a Santa Barbara High graduate, and freshman Zander Darby (.241 and seven homers in 108 at bats) played quality minutes in the infield.
“We’ve got a good young group that’s excited to have the baton passed to them,” Checketts said. “No offense to the older guys, but we think their ceiling is a lot higher in terms of their professional prospects down the line.
“Darby has a big-league body and is physical. We envision Zander being in there, and Oakley and Newman. We think Aaron Parker and Newman can split some of those catching duties.
“Jesse Brown, LeTrey McCollum, Justin Trimble and Josh Williams … They developed by the end of the season and we’re hoping those at-bats they get this summer will really help them. It’s a real physical group that has a chance to do some exciting things over the next couple of years.”
Stockpile of Arms
The Gauchos do return most of their pitching staff. Sophomore Mike Gutierrez (8-1, 3.02 ERA) and freshman Ryan Gallagher (8-0, 3.00 ERA) both made the All-Big West Second Team as starters, as did sophomore Ryan Harvey (11 saves, 3.72 ERA) and freshman Matt Ager (five saves, 2.92 ERA) as relievers.
Lefthander Carter Benbrook, a Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American in 2021, is expected back next spring after missing last season with elbow surgery. He led the Gaucho bullpen two years ago with a 7-1 record, five saves and 3.02 ERA in 25 appearances.
“He should be ready to go,” Checketts said. “We’ve had some new guys come in who needed Tommy John (surgery) right away and it really set them back, losing whole freshman year of experience. That second year becomes really tough for them, and then their third year we finally get something.
“But Carter already has some experience under his belt.”
Harvey is on the radar of many MLB scouts, although he is currently playing summer ball in the West Coast League. He’s struck out 12 batters with just three walks in 9 2/3 innings so far with the Ridgefield Raptors in Washington.
“We set him up for the summer anticipating that it was likely he would come back,” Checketts said. “I think he’s probably 50-50, but it’ll all depend on where he gets drafted.
“You can’t wait until all those guys sign before you spend their scholarship money. You’ll have no players if you do that. You’ve got to anticipate what’s going to happen. On the books, we’re anticipating Harvey coming back, but I can’t speak for him about what his current viability is.”
Eighteen Gauchos are playing summer collegiate baseball — half of them in the West Coast League, which fields 16 teams throughout Oregon, Washington and Canada.
“Part of it is that we have a lot of relationships up there,” Checketts said. “We have three coaches from Oregon and know a lot of people up there … I got my first coaching job with Corvallis in that league. It’s a good league.
“The Northwoods League is another good spot. The Alaska League, too.”
Checketts is getting good reports on J.D. Callahan, a promising righthander whose first two seasons at UCSB have been a roller-coaster ride.
He went 2-3 with a 4.33 ERA as a midweek starter but has been consistently unhittable for the Edmonton Riverhawks this summer in Alberta. He’s allowed only seven hits and one run in three starts for the West Coast League club, posting a 0.64 ERA with 16 strikeouts in 14 innings.
“We need him to go out and make those jumps that we’ve been anticipating for three years now,” Checketts said. “It’s a big summer for him.”
Several Gauchos emerged during past summers in the elite Cape Cod League in Massachusetts, but Checketts normally doesn’t send his freshmen there.
“Next year, we anticipate having someone like an Ager or a Gallagher, or a Darby go to the Cape … Or maybe a freshman who comes back next year and is ready for a place like that,” he said.
Perhaps he’s looking at you, Messrs. Charles and Bremner and Camarillo.
Bull-Rushing the Bullpen
Eleven of the 18 Gauchos playing summer ball are pitchers. Checketts challenged his bullpen during a post-season meeting with his pitching staff, noting that their inconsistency “took years off my life.”
“We think there’s enough talent there, I just don’t think we’ve performed to our capabilities,” he said. “I told them, ‘We won 44 games, went to a regional, won the conference, and so I think it’s easy for us to pat ourselves on the back. But we need to be better … and we need to be better out of the bullpen.’
“Gallagher and Gutierrez need to make jumps physically to compete for a Friday night ace spot. We need Ager and (Michael) Rice and somebody else like (Alex) Schrier or (Nick) Welch or Clayton Hall to emerge as legitimate back-end guys.
“It’s up to us coaches to get it out of them. If it were just one guy, you can blame it on the kid, but when it’s four or five guys, you’ve got to look in the mirror and go, ‘All right, what are we doing that has these guys under-performing to what we think they can be?’”
Checketts plans to change his fall training program to get better outings in the spring.
But he anticipated the Gauchos’ changing of the guard in 2023 even before the 2022 season had begun.
“We did two leadership groups this year,” he said. “We had an older group and a freshman one because we felt there was such a gap in age and experience between our older guys and younger guys.
“We wanted to make sure that the transition to next year was clean.”
At least they’ve got their coach back to help make that happen.
— Noozhawk sports columnist Mark Patton is a longtime local sports writer. Contact him at sports@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.