UVA Baseball coach Brian O’Connor has added a fifth pitcher from the transfer portal to his staff for 2025.
Matt Lanzendorfer, a grad transfer, pitched for four seasons at Misericordia, which won the D3 national title last month.
The 6’1”, 180-pound lefty didn’t exactly get a lot of run in his time at Misericordia, with 48 career appearances and 83.0 innings, the bulk of that in 2024 – 20 appearances, 43.2 innings, with nice counting numbers (4-0, 1.24 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 50Ks/12 BBs).
Lanzendorfer did get the last five outs in the 10-5 win over Wisconsin-Whitewater in Game 3 of the D3 College World Series final, after getting the win in Game 1, giving up an unearned run in 4.1 innings in a 12-9 win.
The previous additions to the UVA pitching staff for 2025
VMI righthander Will Riley had a ghastly, at first glance, 6.78 ERA in 2024.
I was the play-by-play guy on ESPN+ broadcasts for VMI baseball for nine years; the home park, Gray-Minor Stadium, is about as hitter-friendly as they come.
Riley’s fundamentals – 84 Ks/23 walks in 78.1 innings last season, 213 Ks/104 walks in 175 innings in his three-year career – tell you that he has good stuff.
To illustrate that point: his 10.95 Ks/9 is #1 all-time at VMI, surpassing Josh Winder, a seventh-round pick in the 2018 draft who has been with the Minnesota Twins the past couple of years, and is currently on a minor-league rehab assignment.
Winder has done all of that after pitching to a 5.40 ERA in his junior season, ahead of going pretty high in the draft, then pitching his way into the bigs.
The baseball people know.
Seriously, forget the ERA.
Rising sophomore Joey Colucci, from Harford Community College, pitched in six games for Maryland in 2023, then transferred to Harford Community College for the 2024 season, where he was 8-1 with a 1.86 ERA/0.92 WHIP, with 83 Ks and 18 walks in 63.0 innings.
Colucci also pitched in the Perfect Game Collegiate League in 2023, going 2-0 with a 4.60 ERA/0.96 WHIP, with 14 Ks and seven walks in 15.2 innings.
Wesley Arrington (Lynchburg), another D3 grad transfer, has 17 wins as a starter over the past two seasons, including a 10-2 mark in 16 starts in 2024, with a 3.86 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, and 103Ks/37BBs in 100.1 innings pitched.
Arrington saved his best for last, going 4-0 in his four postseason starts, with three complete games, including a nine-strikeout no-hitter in the 5-0 win over Randolph-Macon on May 9, and 12-strikeout effort in the opening game of the D3 College World Series, a 7-2 win over Endicott on May 31.
In that stretch, Arrington pitched to a 1.03 ERA, 0.86 WHIP and 31Ks/11BBs in 35.0 innings pitched.
Alex Markus (William & Mary) started his career at the D3 level at Roanoke, where he didn’t get much work – 28.0 innings over parts of four seasons, with a 2-3 record, 4.50 ERA, 1.61 WHIP and 35Ks/26BBs.
At William and Mary in 2024, Markus was 1-4 with a 5.70 ERA, 1.80 WHIP, and 46Ks/33BBs in 42.2 innings.
He has good stuff – a fastball that sits at 94-96 mph, a changeup in the 84-87 mph range, and a slider that goes 80-84 mph – but the numbers indicate an obvious need for some fine-tuning.
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Chris Graham
