STARKVILLE — Brandon Woodruff knew all along he wanted to play baseball in college.
At 6:30 tonight, Woodruff will make his first career start — one that might have cost him $400,000 — in the Mississippi State University baseball team’s game against the University of South Alabama at Dudy Noble Field.
“I’ve said before I want to play college baseball,” Woodruff said in July. “I want to get an education and have the college experience, and that to me is worth more than signing a contract to begin a professional career.”
Last year, Woodruff, a 6-foot-2, 221-pound right-handed pitcher from Wheeler High School, turned down a $400,000 contract offer from the Texas Rangers franchise to play baseball at MSU. Woodruff opted not to sign a professional contract after the Rangers selected him in the fifth round of the 2011 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.
After five relief appearances last season as a freshman, Woodruff (0-0, 4.91) is scheduled to take on junior right-hander Payton Gardner (0-2, 8.05).
“Woodruff is perhaps Mississippi State’s most important recruit as a power arm,” Baseball America senior editor John Manuel said. “He has a fluid arm action and pro body. He’s a good athlete who also played basketball, leading to a late start to his baseball season. He had three straight double-digit strikeout starts in high school when he flashed a 94 mph fastball and showed the ability to spin a power curveball.”
Those physical attributes were attractive to the Rangers and other teams, but Woodruff took his time to consider his options. Woodruff’s father, Richard, asked the Rangers scout a question in the family’s home in Wheeler that sealed their thinking.
“I looked the guy right the eye and asked him if he played college baseball, and when he said yes then I asked him if he would trade that experience for any amount of money in the world,” Richard Woodruff told The Dispatch months ago. “He leaned back and said, ‘No.’ At that point, what are we talking about?”
Woodruff, a right-handed pitcher and a left-handed hitter, hit .618 with three home runs as a senior at Wheeler. He also had games in which he struck out 10, 14, and 15.
Woodruff is likely a candidate to compete for a spot in MSU’s weekend rotation next year. This season, he has seen time as a dual-threat player in the lineup. Woodruff’s versatility has bolstered MSU’s depth in a key stretch in which it has suffered through a rash of injuries. Woodruff filled in in right field when Ben Brownlee was on the disabled list.
On the mound, Woodruff has been used sparingly in an effort to help him adjust to the college game. It’s a plan John Cohen said has worked for him in his coaching stints at the University of Kentucky at MSU.
“As a coach you go back to your own experiences as a player, and when I played at Mississippi State, the thing I remember the most is coaches aren’t around all the time,” Cohen said. “I can see our freshman pitchers watch (senior All-America pitcher) Caleb Reed pitch and they say, ‘Got it. That’s what I want to be and emulate that.’ ”
After completing its first series win against Vanderbilt University,
MSU (20-12, 5-7 Southeastern Conference) will look to build momentum tonight as it prepares for a road series this weekend at two-time defending national champion University of South Carolina (23-9, 5-7 SEC). The Gamecocks are ranked as high as seventh in the latest national polls.
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