UC San Diego's Shay Whitcomb Selected in Fifth Round of MLB Draft
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UC San Diego junior shortstop and 2019 CCAA Most Valuable Player Shay Whitcomb was the final selection of the 2020 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft on Thursday night.
The native of Newbury Park was the last pick of the fifth round, at No. 160 overall, by the Houston Astros. This year’s edition of the draft was shortened from 40 rounds to just five, as decided by MLB following the COVID-19 pandemic that cut short college and high school baseball seasons, while all but eliminating the minor league campaign.
Whitcomb was the CCAA’s lone representative taken in 2020, with UC San Diego having now led the conference in MLB draft selections for three years in a row, after a program-record four in 2018 and two in 2019. He was the third of three student-athletes chosen from the NCAA Division II ranks, after right-handed pitchers Ryan Murphy (Round 5, No. 144, San Francisco Giants) of Le Moyne and Brandon Pfaadt (Round 5, No. 149, Arizona Diamondbacks) of Bellarmine. Whitcomb is the CCAA’s highest draftee since former Cal Poly Pomona right-handed pitcher Cody Ponce by the Milwaukee Brewers in the second round (No. 55) in 2015.
Whitcomb vaulted firmly onto MLB’s radar courtesy of a remarkable 2019 summer at the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League. Initially joining the Orleans Firebirds in Orleans, Mass., on a 10-day contract, he was kept on for the entirety of the season and loudly slugged eight wood-bat home runs, a CCBL record for a Division II prospect, while slashing .303/.371/.606. The eight blasts were tied for third in the CCBL, and in fact one more than the total of fellow middle infielder and CCBL Most Valuable Player Nick Gonzales, selected seventh overall out of New Mexico State by the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday night.
For his standout three-year UC San Diego career, Whitcomb started all 136 games played at shortstop, missing just two, and batted .315 with 126 runs, 41 doubles, 21 home runs and 95 RBI. He aided the Tritons to back-to-back West Region titles as the 2018 CCAA Freshman of the Year and 2019 CCAA Most Valuable Player, as well as the 2018 CCAA Tournament and 2019 CCAA regular-season banners. In that sophomore effort, Whitcomb was a unanimous All-West Region performer and picked up All-America honorable mention from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.
Whitcomb is UC San Diego’s highest draft choice for its Division II era (since 2001), which concluded with the abrupt ending to the 2020 season, as the Tritons officially become Division I and Big West Conference members on July 1. Previously, former teammate Ted Stuka was taken by the Detroit Tigers in the 14th round (No. 412) last June.
Whitcomb had until Aug. 1 to either sign his first professional contract with the Astros, or return to UC San Diego for its initial foray into Big West baseball. He reportedly had already agreed to terms within an hour of the draft’s conclusion, thus forgoing what ultimately would be his final two years of college eligibility since the NCAA has granted all spring-sport student-athletes an extra one after the abbreviated season.