Casparius with a K
Former Staples standout among nation’s leaders in strikeouts for UConn
At some point early Saturday afternoon, Jim Penders will hand the ball to his starting pitcher Ben Casparius for UConn’s 1 p.m. game with Butler at Elliot Ballpark.
Then, the UConn coach will try to avoid Casparius the rest of the afternoon. Including when — if? — it’s time to lift the big righthander from the game.
“I don’t like taking (the ball) from him,” Penders said. “I let Coach Mac (pitching coach Josh MacDonald) go to the end of the dugout and take it away from him. I don’t want to go near him.”
Casparius is one of the most competitive players Penders has coached in his 18 years at the helm. In between starts, the Westport
product and former Staples High star is as supportive of his teammates as anyone on the team. But when it’s his turn to start ... beware.
“It’s almost to the point where he gets a little angry … not a little angry, a lot angry,” Penders said.
Casparius has been able to channel that competitiveness/intensity/anger into being one of the top strikeout pitchers in college baseball this season and a likely early-round pick in the 2021 Major League Baseball draft in July.
A couple of weeks ago, Casparius, the 2017 Connecticut Gatorade Player of the Year after leading Staples
to a state title, ranked No. 4 in the NCAA in strikeouts. Two of the pitchers ahead of him, Vanderbilt’s Jack Leiter (son of Al) and Kumar Rocker, are the consensus most likely players to be selected No. 1 overall in July’s draft.
Casparius has slid down to No. 15 on the strikeouts list since then, largely because he missed a start when UConn had to cancel eight games while on COVID pause. But he’ll continue to amass K’s the rest of this season, beginning on Saturday in the first game of a doubleheader.
“It’s something I try not to think about too much, but it’s part of my game,”
Casparius, a 6-foot-1, 210pound junior said. “I’m somebody who has strikeout stuff. I’m not trying to strike everybody out, but work deep into two-strike counts and keep guys offbalance. I think the numbers will continue to climb and kind of stay where they’ve been at. It’s something I’m really proud about. It’s something pretty cool to be at the top of a list, with guys who are obviously superstars in college.”
Casparius boasts a fastball that typically sits between 91-93 mph but can get up to 94-95, along with two different breaking balls and a changeup he doesn’t often
use.
“He’s got a really good fastball he can locate, up and down,” Penders noted. “He gets a lot of swings and misses with his fastball. A lot of (major league) scouts and front-office people are amazed at the numbers of strikeouts he’s getting on his fastball.”
Indeed, Casparius (4-3, 3.36 ERA) is on the radar of numerous big-league organizations. Earlier this week, Baseball America’s list of Top 300 MLB Draft propsects listed Casparius at No. 175. That would equate to about an early sixth-round draft pick, and is about in line with where other mock drafts/rankings have him at this time, give or take a few rounds.
“Honestly, it’s something I try not to think about,” he said, “(But) I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about it. I think anybody in my position or any kid that has the opportunity to get drafted is thinking about it. But I’m just proud of being able to compete and focus on one game at a time, going 1-0 every single day. The better I pitch, it gives our team a chance to win, but it’s also just about being consistent and pitching at the caliber I believe I can pitch at.”
Casparius ranks as Connecticut’s all-time high school hits leader and was a two-way player as a freshman at North Carolina, hitting .316 while posting a 1.69 ERA in 10 mound appearances. But after struggling a bit at the plate and the mound as a sophomore, he transferred to UConn after and had sit out of last year’s abbreviated season after failing to get an NCAA waiver.
Now, Casparius is 100% committed to pitching.
“This is the role I wanted to do,” he said. “I had the opportunity to hit this year, and for the first time in my life, I really just wanted to commit to one side of the ball, which was pitching. It’s not like I don’t miss hitting, but I’m really focused on pitching. It’s obviously what I want to do at the next level and kind of put all my eggs into one basket, rather than for the past 10-15 years of my life doing both.”
This year’s MLB Draft will be held later than usual, from July 11-13, in conjunction with the All-Star Game. It will feature 20 rounds, which is half of what it’s been in most recent years, though far more than last year when the draft was limited to just five rounds for various pandemic-related reasons.
That’s somewhat ironic, because Casparius strongly considered going pro last season, particularly if he had been drafted. When he wasn’t, even UConn’s coaching staff believed he still might turn pro. But Casparius elected to give it one more old college try.
“I thought that I’d made such a huge jump in terms of my development in pitching, it felt wrong not staying at the university,” he said. “For me, personally, I thought that I worked way too hard to sign for $20,000 as a free agent when I had coaches and my advisor telling me it could be ten to 30 times that amount just based on what I could do and what my ceiling could be.”
Indeed, while undrafted free agents typically signed for $20,000 last summer, the No. 175 overall pick in 2019, for example, signed for $700,000 (though the slot value for that pick was $284,200).
But returning to play a season for his state school was hardly all about the money for Casparius. UConn was the preseason favorite to win the Big East in its first season back in the conference, and Casparius truly believes the Huskies, who have been a bit inconsistent at 18-14 overall, have the talent to reach the College World Series for the first time since 1979.
And even if the Huskies fall short, Ben Casparius has no regrets.
“It was the best decision I’ve ever made, and probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing on a field and traveling with this group of guys,” he said. “I wouldn’t have changed that for the world.”