Overview:
UCSB pitcher Cole Tryba hurls one-hit gem for the Orleans Firebirds to cap stellar summer season as a Cape Cod League All-Star
Change is the only constant in life, or so said the philosopher Heraclitus.
The ancient Greek expressed that thought about 26 centuries ago, but any baseball geek knows it now.
Changing teams has become ever present in America’s Pastime.
That was especially true this week for some of UC Santa Barbara’s past and future stars.
Dos Pueblos High School graduate Kellan Montgomery got the ball rolling when he submitted his paperwork to transfer to UCSB.
Former Gaucho pitcher Shane Bieber needed his passport for a cross-border change after the Cleveland Guardians traded him to the Toronto Blue Jays.
Current Gaucho Cole Tryba, one of the team’s top relievers the last two years, auditioned for a role change by putting an exclamation point to his summer in the prestigious Cape Cod League.
But perhaps the biggest change of all was the lack of change for former UCSB ace Michael McGreevy:
The Cardinals, who recalled him from the minor leagues five times this season for a single spot start, finally decided to keep him in St. Louis.
Throwing Home
UCSB coach Andrew Checketts is glad he won’t have to face Montgomery for the fourth-straight season next spring.
The Long Beach State righthander pitched the Dirtbags to a victory over UCSB’s Tyler Bremner, the No. 2 pick in this year’s Major League Baseball draft, in their Friday night matchup on March 28.
Checketts announced Montgomery’s transfer to UCSB by noting, “He’s 2-1 against the Gauchos in his career.”
Montgomery, Dos Pueblos Class of 2022, balked at transferring from Long Beach the previous season.
“We tried to get him when he went into the portal last year after they made a coaching change,” Checketts said. “We were excited to get another crack at him.”
He admitted that he was “late to the party” in Montgomery’s recruitment despite watching him pitch early in his career at Dos Pueblos.
“He didn’t have a particularly good day,” Checketts recalled. “I might’ve seen his only bad day that year because he was dominant that senior year of high school.
“When we recruited him this time, I said, ‘Hey, I screwed it up the first time … The second time you screwed it up because you had a chance to come then … So let’s not either of us screw it up the third time.’”
Montgomery tied for 27th in NCAA Division I pitching victories last season with a record of 9-4. He earned all-league honorable mention while ranking third in the Big West Conference with six league wins.
He posted a win-loss record of 16-12 and earned-run average of 4.97 during his three seasons in Long Beach. He had five saves as a reliever during his freshman year.
“He brings a lot of experience — a lot of starting experience — and maturity,” Checketts said. “We know he’s really competitive and a worker.
“We’re looking forward to seeing how we can help him and excited to see how he can help us.”
The move brings Montgomery together with longtime rival Chase Hoover, the ace of San Marcos High’s Class of 2022.
Hoover transferred to UCSB last year after having pitched for TCU the previous two seasons.
A back injury limited him to just eight appearances and 15⅓ innings with the Gauchos this spring.
“We ended up shutting him down in the middle of the year, but he’s back healthy and throwing now,” Checketts said. “He’s getting in some work to make some of the adjustments he needs to make.”
Blue Jay of Happiness
Bieber’s long road back from his April 2024 Tommy John elbow surgery took an unexpected detour to Buffalo, New York, on Sunday.
He found himself pitching for the Buffalo Bisons, Toronto’s Triple-A affiliate, in a rehab assignment after the Blue Jays acquired him in a trade for minor league pitching prospect Khal Stephen.
Bieber, who turned 30 on May 31, drove across the Canadian border on Friday to meet with Blue Jay players and staff.
“Being around the game a lot, I’ve seen guys come and go on (trade) deadline day and I understand the situation,” he said.
Bieber, the American League’s Cy Young Award winner of 2020, had a win-loss record of 62-32 and ERA of 3.22 in his 136 career starts for Cleveland.
Toronto, which entered Sunday with a four-game lead in the American League’s East Division, was looking for a top-shelf pitcher to enhance its playoff chances.
“Obviously, the guy has been elite and performed really well on really big stages,” Blue Jays’ general manager Ross Atkins said. “He has been the best pitcher in the game at certain points.
“That was important to us, raising our potential and raising our bar.”
He allowed five hits and two runs with six strikeouts and one walk during Sunday’s five-inning rehab appearance against the Syracuse Mets.
It marked Bieber’s fifth outing this summer at four different minor-league levels. He pitched for the Guardians’ rookie-level team in the Arizona Complex League, at High-A Lake County in suburban Cleveland and then at Double-A Akron before Sunday’s appearance at Triple-A Buffalo.
“My stuff has been in a really good spot,” Bieber said. “I’ve been really happy with how the ball is coming out of my hand.”
Atkins expects him to be back on a big-league mound within the next few weeks.
Staying Power
Nobody knows the 284 miles of the I-55 freeway between Memphis and St. Louis better than McGreevy.
He’s made that drive at all hours of the day and night while shuttling back and forth from the minors to the majors — twice last year and five times this year.
Cardinals manager Oli Marmol said it was a credit to McGreevy’s “strong mentality” after they sent him back to Triple-A Memphis the last time on June 25.
He returned to the Cardinals on July 21 to make this fifth quality start of the season, allowing just one earned run in seven innings of a 6-2 win at Colorado.
“We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think he was mentally tough enough to handle it,” Marmol said of the up-and-down moves.
“He is stubborn about just doing what it is that gives him success.”
McGreevy, St. Louis’ first-round pick in the 2021 MLB draft, shrugged and said it’s just how the baseball business works.
There wasn’t an open spot at that time in the Cardinals’ starting five-man rotation.
“I’m always stoked beyond my mind to get a chance to pitch in the big leagues, and if I stay here for the rest of the year, great,” McGreevy said. “If I go down tomorrow, oh well.
“You have to smile through it all.”
The Cardinals finally opened up that permanent spot by designating Eric Fedde for assignment after McGreevy’s win over the Rockies.
But he had to grin and bear his next start six days later: a loss in which the San Diego Padres shellacked him for nine hits and seven runs over 4⅔ innings.
McGreevy might’ve cracked a smile at Checketts’ post-game observation:
“Maybe he should’ve driven like five hours beforehand, gotten in at 4 a.m. and had 14 Red Bulls or something,” he said. “He had a crappy routine going and was making it work.
“I’m sure he’ll bounce back.”
He did just that on Saturday in San Diego while pitching before numerous family and friends from his nearby hometown of San Clemente.
McGreevy recovered after falling behind 4-0 in the first three innings to blank the Padres over the next three and improve his record to 3-2 in a game the Cardinals eventually would win, 8-5.
“Sometimes it takes getting punched in the face and you have to wipe the blood off and keep going,” he said. “That’s what I did after the third inning by putting up some zeroes.”
Sixth Sense
Four former Gauchos will be in the big leagues once Bieber is activated. Noah Davis (Minnesota Twins) and Kyle Nelson (Arizona Diamondbacks) were both promoted by their clubs last week.
Two more might soon join them.
Dillon Tate is having a bounce-back season for Toronto’s Triple-A farm team in Buffalo with a 3-0 record, four saves and 1.97 ERA in 32 innings.
Ryan Gallagher took a step closer to a major league call-up last week after the Chicago Cubs traded him to the Twins’ organization. He’s now pitching for the Double-A Wichita Wind Surge.
His ERA of 3.43 and 96 strikeouts in 84 innings this summer have come mostly at High-A, although he won both his starts for the Cubs’ Double-A team at Knoxville.
“He’s moving up quick,” Checketts said of the 2024 Big West Pitcher of the Year. “I’m not saying he’s going to win a Cy Young — it’d be great if he did — but he’s taken a similar track and path as Bieber in terms of having a lot of success in college and a lot of feel for what he’s doing.
“He’s gotten a little bit of a velo bump and he’s got a curveball, too, so it’s pretty exciting for him.”
Old College Try-ba
Tryba has pitched in relief 46 times during his two years with the Gauchos, but he made a strong case on Wednesday of becoming a starter.
He pitched 5⅓ innings of one-hit, no-run baseball in his final Cape Cod League outing for the Orleans Firebirds in a 2-1 win over the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox.
Tryba finished the summer with the CCL’s second-best ERA of 1.07 and a win-loss record of 3-0.
“He had a great freshman year and last season was up and down,” Checketts said of his hard-throwing lefthander. “He dealt with some injuries and never really got into a groove, so it was good to see him do that.
“We’re going to give him the chance to start next year … That’s the next transition for him.”
Orleans used him as a reliever, but he showed enough different pitches and endurance to prove his capability as a starter.
“I was really just trying to work on getting ahead in the count and establishing my off-speed,” Tryba said of Wednesday’s performance.
He got mound visits from Firebirds pitching coach Jim Lawler in the eighth inning and manager Kelly Nicholson in the ninth, but he talked them both out of removing him.
“I told them I had it the whole way,” Tryba said. “I wasn’t going to stop.”
He was selected a few weeks earlier to the Cape Cod League’s East Division All-Star team.
Stanford star Ryan Speshyock, a 2023 graduate of Dos Pueblos High, was picked to the Cape’s West Division All-Stars for his performance with the Hyannis Harbor Hawks.
Speshyock capped his own stellar summer on Thursday by pitching a scoreless ninth to get the win in a 4-3 thriller against the Bourne Braves.
He finished the season with a record of 2-1, three saves and an ERA of 1.72.
Cape of Good Hope
UCSB infielder Xavier Esquer needed a change of plans — joining the Santa Barbara Foresters instead of a Cape Cod League team — after getting a late start to his summer season.
“We don’t get out of finals until mid-June,” Checketts explained. “He was waiting for a spot in the Cape to open up and it just never did.
“Bill (Pintard, the Foresters’ manager) was looking for an infielder and Esquer was done waiting.”
Esquer played second base and hit .313 with seven doubles in 48 at bats from the Foresters’ leadoff spot.
He batted .281 as UCSB’s starting third baseman last spring after having transferred from the University of Arizona.
“He’s a good player and has a fast motor,” Checketts said. “Last year was his first real season playing (in college) after not getting much time earlier.
“He’s had a good year, so hopefully there will be one more jump.”
A.J. Krodel appears set to make one of his own at UCSB after pitching a shutout for the Foresters last week at the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kansas.
He finished the summer with a 3-0 record and 1.50 ERA with 47 strikeouts and nine walks over 36 innings.
The Foresters rewarded him with their EP 19 Pitcher of the Year Award.
“A.J.’s walk totals were down and that’s been his Achilles heel,” Checketts said. “The stuff hasn’t been an issue — he’s got four plus pitches — but he’s just lost the strike zone at times.
“I think he’s a strike-thrower. We see it enough.
“We’re hoping he’s had a change of course this summer and can come back with some confidence and belief because the stuff is good enough.”
The competition for jobs in UCSB’s starting rotation should be fierce next season.
Jackson Flora will return with a few weeks of summer training with Team USA’s collegiate national team. He allowed just one hit and an unearned run during his two innings of intrasquad competition.
Jonathan Mayo’s early 2026 mock draft for MLB.com projects Flora as the No. 19 pick.
“Flora could be ready to follow in 2025 first-rounder Tyler Bremner’s footsteps with the ability to throw strikes with a fastball that flirts with triple digits and a low-80s slider that misses bats,” Mayo wrote.
Seven other returning Gauchos — Tryba, Donovann Jackson, Nathan Aceves, Calvin Proskey, Raymond Olivas, Nic Peterson and Van Froling — made at least a dozen appearances for UCSB last season.
“We also really like our freshman arms coming in,” Checketts said. “I think it’s got the chance to be a special group.”
Joshua Janicelli, a 6-foot-5 righthander from Santa Rosa’s Cardinal Newman High, was listed by MLB.com as one of the top 150 prospects in the last draft.
“He priced himself out of the market,” Checketts pointed out. “He had the opportunity to be picked in the top four rounds and sign, but he said no.”
Checketts anticipates an “interesting” fall training season.
“There are some question marks but there are also some capable bodies,” he said. “We just need to figure out how we’re going to work all that out.
“But we do know that we’re going to play more games in the fall than we did last year.”
And he expects that will help him win even more of them next spring.
