On Sunday, the Yankees signed right-handed pitcher Carson Coleman as a non-drafted free agent out of the University of Kentucky. Coleman pitched to a career 5-5 record with a 4.31 ERA over 48 innings out of the bullpen for Kentucky over his three seasons as a Wildcat. He struck out over 20 guys per 9 innings this past season and overall averaged over 12 strikeouts per 9 in his college career.
We had the chance to catch up to Carson and talk about signing a professional contract with the Yankees and more.
Pinstriped Prospects: This year is a little bit different with the coronavirus cutting the college season short, and the drastic cut in the MLB Draft. What was your mindset coming into June?
Carson Coleman: I was actively looking for an opportunity to hopefully move on to the professional level. And, you know, to a certain extent you got to be transparent in reality, or real with yourself when it comes to the draft, especially when it’s just five rounds, and I really wish it would have been more than five rounds, I would have been a lot more optimistic then. Never would I have said that there was no way I could get drafted in five rounds, but obviously you have to be transparent and realistic. I knew it was not exactly the likely option or opportunity will come from there. But I was confident that I get the opportunity outside of that. I am happy Yankees gave me that opportunity.
The rest of this interview is exclusive to Pinstriped Prospects Dugout Monthly and Annual Members. Monthly and Annual Dugout Members get complete access to scouting reports, interviews, and more all with limited advertisements on the website. Click here to sign up!PP: We talked to your college coach and he talked about your community service, is there one cause that is near and dear to your heart?
CC: The one that means a lot to me is the 4Mom charity, which benefits the Alzheimers Association. One of my closest friends named Hunter Bishop, who was a first-rounder by the Giants last year. His mom sadly passed away from Alzheimer’s this past year. Him and his brother Braden Bishop, who plays for the Mariners, they started that charity back when Braden was playing college baseball in Washington. With my family, my whole mom’s side of her family sadly passed away from Alzheimer’s so that’s something that always meant a lot to me and my family. Especially to my mom. It was great this year, we do a march to end Alzheimer’s and it happened to be at our football stadium here in Kentucky. I was the rep for the baseball team on our student-athlete council and I was able to make it a UK athletic wide event for anyone to attend to get community service and to be apart of it. I think we had close to 70 total student-athletes attend and help with anything from signups or registration to being a part of the event which was It was great. I mean it was great to see something you truly care about and have your close friends and other student-athletics from UK athletics be all around it. It was really cool.
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