Three-year Gamecock baseball starter signs pro deal, skipping senior season
South Carolina baseball will have to fill a major hole in its lineup next season, as three-year starter Noah Campbell signed with the MLB’s Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday.
A junior, Campbell started 103 games for the Gamecocks, hitting .254 with a .349 on-base percentage and .382 slugging percentage.
Drafted by the Brewers in the 19th round out of high school, Campbell came to Columbia and immediately earned praise from coach Mark Kingston, who called him “the kind of player you build your program around.”
As a true freshman, Campbell immediately earned at-bats at second base, designated hitter and left field. He started 42 games and appeared in five more for a Gamecock squad that advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals, hitting .270 with a .372 on-base percentage.
Going to the Cape Cod League that summer, Campbell excelled and was named an All-Star. He hit .364 in the wood bat league, finishing second in the race for the batting title, and drove in 26 runs in 32 games. With hype building off that performance, he was named a second-team preseason All-American by Baseball America heading into 2019.
Campbell’s sophomore season, however, was bogged down by struggles at the plate. He struck out five times in the season opener against Liberty and went on to strike out 47 times on the year compared to 18 walks. He hit just .239 and had an OPS of .702 with 19 RBIs, second-lowest among starters.
Kingston and Campbell later chalked up those struggles to added pressure he put on himself, swinging too much for the fences and issues with his stance.
Headed back to the Cape Cod League in the summer, Campbell fixed those issues and once again excelled. He was again named an All-Star and hit .324, collecting more walks than strikeouts and equaling his RBI total of 19 from the spring in 16 fewer games.
With that momentum once again behind him, Campbell was named a third-team preseason All-American by Baseball America heading into 2020, and both he and Kingston expressed confidence he could avoid another slump.
In 12 games and 14 starts in 2020 before the season was ended by the coronavirus pandemic, Campbell hit .256 with a .370 on-base percentage and .410 slugging percentage. He had 10 RBIs and seven walks in that span, against nine strikeouts.
Before this season’s draft was shortened to five rounds, Campbell was considered a likely candidate to be picked and named a top prospect by D1Baseball.com. As an undrafted free agent, Campbell could sign with a maximum signing bonus of $20,000, though teams can also offer scholarship money and other perks to entice players.
Campbell is the fourth Gamecock to turn pro this offseason — pitcher Carmen Mlodzinski was drafted No. 31 overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates, and pitchers Graham Lawson and T.J. Shook both signed as undrafted free agents, Shook with Milwaukee as well. South Carolina signee Luke Little was also drafted, in the fourth round by the Chicago Cubs.
South Carolina has also lost three players to the transfer portal — pitcher Trey Tujetsch, catcher Jax Cash and outfielder Anthony Amicangelo. The Gamecocks have added a pair of graduate transfers in pitcher Jaret Bennett and infielder Joe Satterfield.
This story was originally published July 7, 2020 at 10:41 PM.
