SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASEBALL
Mark Kingston is winding down after a busy summer filled with recruiting, Team USA duties and putting the finishing touches on the Gamecocks’ 2019 recruiting class.
As he does and the Gamecocks get ready to start fall workouts this week, he met with Jay Phillips and Tommy Moody Tuesday afternoon on 107.5 to talk about his summer, his team and a few standout performances from his guys in summer ball.
“From the day our season ended I think I maybe spent three nights in our house and sleeping in my bed,” he said on 107.5. “Between recruiting and trying to solidify what is a really good recruiting class coming in because the draft was coming up and meeting with a lot of our potential draft picks. We ended up having nine guys drafted and we held the majority of them. That was a big part of the postseason.”
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Kingston spent the first half of the summer putting together the final touches to a 2019 class where he added a few late pieces—JUCO transfer Anthony Amicangelo, graduate transfer Bryant Bowen and freshman Colin Burgess—along with graduate transfer Dallas Beaver.
Kingston, while talking about the Cape Cod League, focused primarily on Beaver, who had an all-star level season, hitting .287/.351/.400 with two homers and 15 RBI.
“Dallas Beaver—an incoming player for us, a catcher, a graduate transfer—Jerry Weinstein was the coach and is known as one of the catching gurus in the country,” Kingston said. “He played for Jerry this summer, and to us that’s a major positive. That’s two months of high-level catching development and he ended up being the all-star game starting catcher in the Cape Cod League. That was a major plus for us.”
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Kingston also touched on Noah Campbell and Andrew Eyster, who were also up in the Cape with Yarmouth-Dennis.
Campbell, who’s coming off a year where he struggled at times, hit .324/.442/.431 while Eyster, who was one of the team’s premier hitters last season, slashed .208/.299/.351.
“It’s interesting, Andrew had a really good season for us and really struggled in the Cape and Noah had probably not his best season for us and hit around .300 in the Cape,” Kingston said. “You just never know. Some guys do better with the wood, some better with the aluminum. It’s up to us as coaches to figure out what makes them tick and help them be successful.”
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The Gamecocks are breaking in a 17-man recruiting class that includes nine drafted players with six of those—Jeff Heinrich, Brennan Milone, Noah Myers, Thomas Farr, Andy Peters and Brannon Jordan—all opting to forgo pro baseball to come to South Carolina.
He cited statistics on the show, saying pro teams are looking more for college players and it may be on to something; of the first 60 picks in this year’s draft, 38 picks were either junior college or college players, including six of the first 10.
Kingston’s excited about the opportunity he has to work with those players and is hoping to develop them so they can be drafted even higher when they’re draft eligible again.
“We had nine of our recruits drafted this year, which was most in the country, and we had six decide to come,” he said. “So two thirds of the kids who were drafted and had the opportunity to go pro decided to come play for us this year instead. I think that’s an education process in showing them the stats and getting them to understand we will develop you as well, if not better, statistically than what you will get in rookie ball and A-ball.”
