Florida baseball adds key arm through transfer portal

There’s a good chance Florida baseball loses both Hunter Barco and Brandon Sproat to the MLB draft in the next 10 days, but Kevin O'Sullivan’s latest move might make that blow hurt less than expected. Hurston Waldrep, Southern Mississippi’s Sunday starter for most of 2022 who entered the transfer portal after a breakout season, committed to the orange and blue on Thursday, according to Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball.

Waldrep was a key member of one of the nation’s top pitching staffs last year. The Golden Eagles finished second among all Division I programs in earned run average (3.29), strikeouts per nine innings (11.3) and strikeout to walk ratio (4.22). Waldrep ended his sophomore campaign with an ERA of 3.20, 140 strikeouts and a WHIP of 1.16 over 90 innings of work in 17 starts.

Although he played in Conference USA, Waldrep’s final two games came against SEC opponents. He racked up double-digit strikeouts in both NCAA Tournament outings — 11 against LSU in the regional round and 12 against Ole Miss in the super regionals. He’s also teammates with Wyatt Langford on the USA collegiate national team.

A rising junior, Waldrep has a chance to be the Friday night starter at Florida if Barco and Sproat do end up leaving. Assuming those in the transfer portal end up leaving, Brandon Neely, Pierce Coppola and Carsten Finnvold are the expected returning starters. Waldrep likely starts the season ahead of all of those names and Barco won’t be ready for opening day anyway if he does return.

This is Sully’s third pick-up through the transfer portal after adding Coastal Carolina infielder Dale Thomas and Mercer outfielder Colby Thomas. The Gators will likely add another name or two through the portal when all is said and done. Follow all of Florida’s transfer portal actions with our tracker for more on those two.

Waldrep features a fastball, curveball and changeup. The fastball tops out around 95-96 mph with reports of it touching 98 mph, but he sat around 92-93 mph with Team USA a week ago.

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