It took only a few hours for our article detailing the newcomers to the Iowa baseball program to become out of date.
South Dakota State freshman pitcher Adam Mazur will make the move from the Jackrabbits to Iowa City to play for the Hawkeyes next season. This transfer was rumored on the HawkeyeReport forums, but was officially announced by Mazur via his twitter account today.
Mazur is a class of 2019 prospect out of Woodbury, Minnesota, a southeast suburb of St. Paul. Perfect Game rated him as the #5 right-hand pitching prospect and the #28 overall prospect in the state of Minnesota.
In his true freshman season, Mazur was the Friday starter for the Jackrabbits, starting four games before Covid cancelled the rest of the campaign. He was second on the team in strikeouts with 18 in 20.1 innings pitched. His best start came against UT Rio Grande Valley, when he pitched seven innings, allowing just one run, while striking out seven. He posted a 5.75 ERA, but that was mostly due to a bad outing vs Air Force just before shutdown.
This last season in 2021, Mazur started 12 games, but went just 2-7. He posted a 5.43 ERA over 68 innings pitched, but when you look at the individual starts he was able to go deep into games. In six of his 12 starts, Mazur went 6+ innings and he went 5+ innings in nine starts. He struck out 88 in 68 innings, which is good for 11.6 K/9 and posted a 1.23 WHIP.
He was invited to play in the prestigious Cape Cod League with the Wareham Gateman and has pitched in two games. In those two games, Mazur has thrown 8 innings, striking out ten, while allowing zero runs on four hits. Although that is limited work, the Cape Cod League has good talent every summer and makes this look like a promising land.
With this addition, my assumption is that Baumann and/or Dreyer are looking to get signed by MLB clubs and the coaching staff is trying to add a couple of solid arms to fill those losses. Over the next week or two we will learn more on the potential MLB signings and maybe even the possibility of another added arm to the Iowa staff.