Six former Mississippi State baseball players will compete in the inaugural Spring Breakout games later this week as top prospects for their professional organizations. Each Major League Baseball team has assembled a squad of top prospects that will compete in televised exhibition games between Thursday and Sunday.
Justin Foscue, a second baseman in the Texas Rangers’ organization, will face the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday alongside other top Rangers prospects. The 14th overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, Foscue slashed .297/.380/.482 as a Bulldog from 2018-20, with 22 doubles, 14 home runs and 60 RBI in 2019. He played 122 games at the Triple-A level in 2023, hitting 18 homers and driving in 84 runs.
Infielder RJ Yeager went undrafted in 2022 out of MSU but signed with the St. Louis Cardinals, splitting time last season between Low-A and High-A ball. He spent just one season with the Bulldogs as a grad transfer from Mercer, hitting .317 with a .668 slugging percentage, 18 home runs and 56 runs batted in. Yeager and the team of Cardinals prospects will battle the Miami Marlins on Friday and the Houston Astros on Sunday.
Former MSU relief ace Landon Sims, who had 13 saves and a 1.44 ERA in the Bulldogs’ 2021 national championship season, was a first-round pick in 2022 by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Sims and other top Arizona prospects will face the Colorado Rockies on Saturday.
Andrew Walling made just three relief appearances with the Bulldogs in 2022 after previously playing at Oregon State and Eastern Oklahoma State College. Now a Philadelphia Phillies prospect, Walling posted a 3.23 ERA in 55 ⅔ innings in 2023 in Low-A and High-A ball. He and the Phillies’ Spring Breakout team will play against the Detroit Tigers on Saturday.
Outfielder Colton Ledbetter had an outstanding 2023 season with MSU after transferring from Samford, with a .320/.452/.574 triple slash and 17 stolen bases as the Bulldogs’ primary center fielder. He was drafted in the second round last year by the Tampa Bay Rays, where he will face the Minnesota Twins’ top prospects on Saturday.
Eric Cerantola spent time as both a starting and relief pitcher for MSU from 2019-21, with a 4.41 ERA and a .210 batting average against over 49 innings. A fifth-round pick by the Kansas City Royals in 2021, he will battle the Milwaukee Brewers’ top prospects on Sunday. Cerantola pitched to a 1.93 ERA in 14 innings at the Double-A level last season.
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