Jordan Sprinkle was one of three UC Santa Barbara players and six overall from the local area to be selected during Monday’s second day of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.
Sprinkle, a sophomore shortstop, was taken in the fourth round by the Chicago White Sox as the 131st overall pick.
The Palm Desert High graduate batted .319 during his collegiate career, leading the Gauchos to a pair of NCAA Regional appearances. He won NCAA Freshman All-America honors in 2021 after batting .353 with seven home runs and 26 stolen bases and earned selection to Team USA’s collegiate summer squad.
MLB.com projected last fall that Sprinkle would be a second-round pick but correctly reassessed him as a fourth-rounder just before the draft. It recently rated him at No. 140 among all prospects after his offensive production dropped to .285 with three homers this spring.
Jonathan Mayo, a draft analyst for MLB.com, noted that Sprinkle “struggled with the bat” this season.
“He had made some changes to his swing the previous year that made him jump really on the radar,” he said. “He didn’t hit nearly as well this year, but he can flat out play at shortstop. This is a no-doubt-about-it, long-term shortstop — plus arm, great range.
“He has some offensive skills if he can kind of refine his approach at the plate.”
The White Sox are likely to come to terms with Sprinkle because of an MLB rule which penalizes teams for failing to sign any player drafted in the first 10 rounds. Of the first 312 players drafted last year, 309 eventually signed.
Sprinkle has a signing-bonus value of $452,700 for his slot as the 131st overall pick. He will not return to UCSB even if he doesn’t sign, having recently entered the NCAA transfer portal. He committed to Arkansas on July 8.
Two other Gauchos were also drafted on Monday: center fielder Nick Vogt and starting pitcher Cory Lewis.
The San Diego Padres picked Vogt in the seventh round as the No. 210 overall pick. The sophomore from Woodland, Ca. had a breakout season at UCSB this spring, batting .317 while leading the team in hits (65), triples (5) and runs scored (50). He also ranked second in runs batted in (49), hit seven homers and stole 10 bases.
Lewis, a sophomore from Huntington Beach, was chosen by the Minnesota Twins in the ninth round as the No. 264 overall pick. He tied for the team lead in pitching victories this season with a win-loss record of 9-1. He also struck out a team-high 107 batters in 88 1/3 innings with an earned run average of 3.57. In his two seasons as a Gaucho, he went 16-5 with a 3.47 ERA and 193 strikeouts in 168 1/3 innings.
None of UCSB’s signed recruits — including highly rated shortstop Austin Charles of Bakersfield’s Stockdale High — were selected in the first 10 rounds.
Three Santa Barbara-area players were among the last nine picks of the 10th and final round of Monday’s selections. The draft will wrap up on Tuesday with rounds 11 through 20.
San Marcos High graduate Ian Churchill, a lefthanded pitcher for the University of San Diego, was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays as the No. 308 pick. He registered his team-high fourth save in a 3-2 win over Vanderbilt in the Toreros’ NCAA Regional opener. He went 3-2 with a 4.17 ERA and 57 strikeouts in 54 innings. He was the California Community College Pitcher of the Year in 2019 when he went 8-2 with a 1.96 ERA and 98 strikeouts at Santa Barbara City College.
Dos Pueblos High graduate Isaac Coffey, who earned 18 pitching wins in three full seasons at Oral Roberts, was taken in the next pick at No. 309 overall by the Boston Red Sox. He went 9-2 with a 2.81 ERA as a sophomore to win Summit League Pitcher of the Year honors. He was 7-6 with a 3.77 ERA this season to lead the Golden Eagles to the NCAA Tournament. He also batted .387.
Westmont College catcher Simon Reid, a junior from McKinney, Tex., was the second-to-last player to have his named called on Monday. He went to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 10th round as the No. 315 pick.
Reid batted .378 with 12 homers this season and .373 with seven homers in 2021. He caught his brother Bailey, now a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs’ High-A farm club in South Bend, Ind., during his freshman year of 2019 and batted .333.