Three more names from UVA Baseball have formally entered the transfer portal, as one of their teammates is telling us, don’t just assume that everybody’s going to Mississippi State with Brian O’Connor.
I’m not going to name the player, for probably obvious reasons, who told us today that the guys already in the portal, and the ones that will be entering the portal in the next few days, are just protecting themselves in a situation full of unknowns.
The new names today: sophomore shortstop Eric Becker, junior centerfielder Aidan Teel and junior first baseman Chris Arroyo.
They joined freshman lefty Tomas Valincius, junior lefty Evan Blanco, freshman outfielder James Nunnallee and sophomore outfielder Henry Ford, who entered the portal earlier in the week.
Ford, a draft-eligible sophomore, and Arroyo look like second- or third-round 2025 MLB Draft picks, so they’re more likely to go that route than transferring out or remaining at UVA for another year.
Blanco and Teel are both draft-eligible as juniors.
Baseball America ranks Blanco as its 248th-best prospect in the 2025 draft cycle, which would translate to him being an eighth-round pick; Teel is ranked #421, which runs into Day 3 of the draft.
I’d expect Blanco to sign if he’s picked where Baseball America has him slotted, and Teel to return for one more year of college ball.
The player who talked with us today about this expects more names to hit the portal in the coming days.
He said Carla Williams, the AD, has been in touch with everybody individually to ask them not to decide anything about their futures until a new coach has been named, which runs in line with what we know about how she handled the UVA Basketball search.
Chance Mallory, the top recruit in the Class of 2025, told us when he signed his letter of intent, the day that Ryan Odom was announced as the new basketball coach, that Williams had been in constant contact with him and his family to update them on the coaching search, and to ask him to hold steady until she named a new coach.
Note that I write here about Williams reaching out to the baseball players individually.
Which is to say, she didn’t send a group text.
As far as the decision made by O’Connor to leave UVA for Mississippi State, the player who talked with us today said what a lot of us have been saying: “It was a head-scratcher.”
When we asked if the reports that O’Connor was unhappy with the amount of money that UVA is committing to baseball, this was the answer:
“We have everything we could possibly need. So, I don’t know about that.”
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Chris Graham
