IU baseball saw a Big-Ten leading six players selected in the 2021 MLB Draft, including four pitchers in the first ten rounds.
Pitcher McCade Brown was selected No. 79 overall by the Colorado Rockies in the third round of the 2021 MLB Draft.
Brown was MLB Pipeline’s No. 103 prospect and Baseball America’s No. 122.
As a sophomore last season, Brown had a 3.39 earned run average and finished with a 5-4 record. His 61 innings pitched were third on the team.
He was named Second-Team All-Big Ten.
Brown also led the Hoosiers with 97 strikeouts but his 43 walks, which were second in the Big Ten, led to concerns about his control from major league scouts, per MLB’s scouting report on Brown.
The last Hoosier to be selected in the second round was outfielder Matt Gorski in 2019.
Brown’s teammate in the rotation, sophomore pitcher Gabe Bierman, was drafted by the Miami Marlins in the seventh round. He was picked No. 209.
Bierman matched Brown’s 5-4 record and joined his teammate on the All-Big Ten second team.
Over 74 innings pitched, Bierman struck out 80 batters and walked 30, finishing the season with a 2.68 ERA.
In the 10th round, sophomore pitcher Matt Litwicki was selected No. 286 overall by the Boston Red Sox.
Litwicki, from Dyer, Indiana, spent 2021 as IU’s closer, finishing the year with four saves. He pitched 12 innings, striking out 17 and going eight appearances without allowing a run to start the season. He allowed three earned runs each in his final two appearances, closing the year with a 4.50 ERA.
Junior pitcher Tommy Sommer was selected 19 picks after Litwicki at No. 305 overall by the Chicago White Sox.
Sommer, who went to high school in Carmel, Indiana, pitched 62.2 innings in the weekend rotation alongside Brown and Bierman. All three had a 5-4 record on the season.
Sommer struck out 69 batters and walked 38. He finished the season with a 4.60 ERA.
Junior third baseman Cole Barr was selected by the Seattle Mariners in the 15th round with the No. 444 pick Tuesday. Barr, from Yorktown, Indiana, was previously drafted in the 37th round by the Mariners in 2019.
Barr was second on the team with a .292 batting average and led the Hoosiers with eight home runs, 35 RBI, a .526 slugging percentage and a .415 on base percentage.
Barr was named Third-Team All-Big Ten this year. In his sophomore season in 2019, Barr earned a spot on the All-Big Ten second team before being drafted.
In the 17th round, the New York Yankees drafted sophomore outfielder Grant Richardson, the second Hoosier position player to be selected.
Richardson, from Fishers, Indiana, followed up his 2019 Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American honor with a First-Team All-Big Ten selection in 2021.
He paced the Hoosiers with a .320 batting average and trailed only Barr in home runs with seven and RBI with 33.
The Hoosiers had two signees selected in the first two days of the Draft.
IU commit Colson Montgomery was selected No. 22 overall in the first round Sunday by the Chicago White Sox. Montgomery, a shortstop from Southridge High School in Huntingburg, Indiana, committed to IU prior to his junior year and led Southridge to a 3A state title.
Another IU commit, TJ White, was drafted No. 143 by the Washington Nationals. The fifth-round pick from Roebuck, South Carolina, was the No. 26 outfield prospect in the 2021 class, according to Perfect Game.
