South Carolina Baseball: Gamecocks add transfer portal pitcher

South Carolina baseball has been one of the country’s most active teams in the transfer portal this offseason. After seeming to get the program back on track with a top-16 regional host seed in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, the Gamecocks endured a significant amount of attrition through the 2023 MLB Draft.

The Gamecocks lost six players from last year’s team (Jack Mahoney, Will Sanders, Noah Hall, Braylen Wimmer, James Hicks, and Cade Austin), a new transfer pitcher (Matt Duffy), and two high school signees (George Wolkow and Raudi Rodriguez) in the draft, but have supplemented the roster overhaul heavily through the portal.

Other than Duffy, who is expected to sign a professional contract with the Boston Red Sox after being selected in the 4th round, the top portal additions have been outfielders Kennedy Jones and Austin Brinling and pitcher Ty Good, but USC has brought in several “lottery ticket” type players who have a lot of talent but haven’t put it all together yet.

Very late on Tuesday night, South Carolina baseball received yet another commitment to the squad via the transfer portal. After entering the transfer portal as a graduate transfer from Marist College, right-handed pitcher Drake Quinn announced his commitment to the Gamecocks with a tweet from his personal Twitter account.

Quinn led the Marist Red Foxes in strikeouts in 2023 and has logged an impressive 104 strikeouts in just 75 2/3 career innings. He has had tremendous struggles with keeping the ball in the strike zone, however, as he has logged 61 walks and 21 hit batters in those same 75 2/3 innings.

Frankly, those numbers cannot play in the SEC, even with the good strikeout totals, so Quinn must throw strikes if he wants to carve a role with the Gamecocks.

Head coach Mark Kingston and new pitching coach Matt Williams must believe that they can fix Quinn’s control issues and utilize the mustachioed right-hander as a bullpen weapon. He has one more year of eligibility remaining.