Cal Poly baseball opens season with Brooks Lee projected as a top-5 MLB draft pick
The college baseball season is back and fans this year once again get to fully enjoy Cal Poly’s park with no COVID-19 restrictions — while watching a top Major League prospect to boot.
With significant renovations over the past couple of seasons all but complete at Baggett Stadium — including its $10 million, 1,600-square-foot clubhouse and new press box behind home plate — fans won’t have any specific protocols while attending games at a ballpark some say is looking more like a minor league stadium these days.
Cal Poly starts its season Friday at 6 p.m. with a home three-game weekend series against Washington, and then its conference schedule begins on March 18 against Cal State Northridge.
Projected to finish fourth in the Big West Conference, the Mustangs are hoping to exceed expectations while fielding an experienced squad featuring a player many consider the top prospect in college baseball, if not the country.
Coach Larry Lee’s son, Brooks Lee, is projected to be a Top 5 Major League Baseball draft pick this year by most baseball publications. The switch-hitting redshirt sophomore shortstop is draft-eligible after this year.
Lee had a breakout season and led the team offensively in 2021, hitting .342 with 10 home runs, 57 RBIs and a school-record 27 doubles.
In all, Cal Poly returns 22 players from last year, including seven position starters and all but three pitchers. And they have added transfers from colleges including Boise State, Cal and Washington State.
Among Cal Poly’s key returners are designated hitter Matt Lopez, second on the team with a .341 average last year, to go with 26 RBIs in 39 games, and fifth-year senior Tate Samuelson at third base, who hit .275 with six home runs and 39 RBI.
Top starters are right-hander Drew Thorpe, who posted a 3.79 earned run average and a 6-6 record, and lefty Travis Weston, who had a 5-6 record and a 3.28 ERA with three complete games.
“I never know how we’re going to do during the season, but after watching our players in the fall, I think we should swing the bat much better than we have in the past few years,” said Cal Poly Coach Larry Lee. “We have some high-level defenders, but also have some guys mixed in that need to continue to develop defensively.”
Lee said it will be exciting to have a normal fan season, after last year’s disruptions.
“Last year, for two-thirds of the season we were without fans, and then we were lucky enough to have limited fans, but it still was great,” Lee said. “So, I just I think it’s a great opportunity for fans to come out and and hopefully see some quality baseball.”
Brooks Lee stars at shortstop in likely his last year
Larry Lee said his son, a projected first-round draft pick in 2019 out of San Luis Obispo High School before choosing to attend Cal Poly, has proven his skill at every level.
“He does quite a few things at a high level, both from a mental standpoint and from a baseball standpoint,” Lee said. “But it’s also a game where you’re going to have your stretches of struggling. That’s part of the game that you need to be able to handle also.”
Brooks Lee was named Big West Co-player of the Year last year.
Listed at 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, Lee was selected to play in the prestigious Cape Code League last summer, where he hit .405 with six home runs.
He was the first player in 19 years to hit over .400 in a league comprised of college baseball’s elite players, according to Cal Poly’s sports information staff.
He also tried out for a spot on Team USA’s collegiate squad last summer, hitting .306 in intrasquad games, which he called “one of the coolest experiences.” And he competed in a three-game series versus the U.S. Olympic Team in July, going 3-for-10 with a home run.
“Just wearing USA across your chest, whether you play or not, is still a really special experience,” he said.
The switch-hitter is ranked as the No. 1 shortstop in the country by D1Baseball.com and stands to earn anywhere from $6 million to $8 million through a signing bonus if he’s a Top 5 Major League Baseball pick after this season.
“He is a confident kid,” Larry Lee said. “He’s not arrogant or cocky on the outside, but he has a presence on the field. But he understands it’s a very difficult game and it’s a big world out there. It’s not just about what you do in the States. You’re competing against the entire world.”
Brooks Lee made the right decision to play for his dad at Cal Poly out of high school, he said. College has allowed him to mature as a person, learn how to cook and live on his own, while getting stronger and faster on the field. He’s fully healthy after a leg injury he suffered as a freshman.
“It’s just a little more relaxed,” Lee said of his mindset entering this year. “I feel like just trying to do the same thing I did last year. That will help us win more games and just continue to try and better myself every day. For me, I like being even-keeled and not riding that emotional roller coaster.”
Lee said his father doesn’t treat him any differently than the other players on the team, and they have a close bond.
“It’s different now than high school when he’d give me advice because now I go to his office (to assess his performance),” Brooks said. “I’m sure I’ll look forward to his calls in pro ball, even some nights where I’m not that happy. This year, it’s really just about trying to have fun playing with my dad and then just trying to win every single game.”
Planning for the draft
Brooks Lee said he hasn’t ruled out a return to play at Cal Poly for one more season after this year, but he’ll “most likely” enter the draft and get his professional career started, he said.
“The reason why I went to college was to prove that I was going to be a higher pick than what they thought I was out of high school,” he said.
Lee said he had a lot of communication with MLB teams in the fall, but that has stopped as he enters the college season.
“About three weeks out from the (July) draft, after the season is over, that’s probably when I’ll really start to think about it,” he said. “It took me until the last day before the draft to make a decision. So, it won’t be as hard this time, but it’s still the same thought process.”
Lee said the money is hard not to think about, but that’s not his focus.
“It’s pretty exciting,” he said. “I think everybody, whether they say it or not, definitely thinks about that. But to be honest, I just enjoy playing baseball, so that whatever team I go to and whatever the money is, it doesn’t matter.”
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Larry Lee said the summer experience was a good test for his son.
“Going out and playing in the Cape and on the Team USA collegiate team around the best players in the country, it was a measuring stick for him and it gave him a lot of confidence,” Larry Lee said. “And that’s what happens when you go to those places. You come back and you feel different about yourself and you continue to develop and you see what what your strengths and weaknesses are and you work on those weaknesses.”
While a lot of teams have Lee projected as the No. 4 draft pick, Just Baseball has Lee going No. 1 overall to the Baltimore Orioles in its mock selection.
Should he go No. 1, the switch-hitting shortstop would follow in the footsteps of current big league stars such as Bryce Harper, Dansby Swanson, Gerrit Cole and Carlos Correa.
Other past No. 1 draft picks include Hall of Famers Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Chipper Jones.
“It’s a really cool experience,” Brooks Lee said. “The draft obviously hasn’t come yet, but I’ve got pretty good feeling about that. It’s crazy.”
Finding team success
As for the team, after inconsistent stretches last season, Cal Poly is hoping to get off to a better start this year.
The Mustangs lost three of their first four games, and then a middle stretch saw them drop nine of 10 before they regrouped to win seven straight and 11 of their last 12.
“We can’t afford to get off to a slow start and then start playing good baseball,” Larry Lee said. “We have to win baseball games early in the season.”
Samuelson said he too is hoping for a hot start.
“In all my years here, we’ve always started like crap,” Samuelson said. “I think this year, we’ve really had an emphasis, especially in practice, about coming out strong.”
Samuelson said he wants to be a “hit collector” for the Mustangs this season, and he’s not worried about power numbers.
“I want to try to get on base as much as you possibly can, whether it’s getting hits, walking, moving a guy over, or getting on whatever way I can,” Samuelson said. “I think my my personal stats will take care of themselves.”
Larry Lee said that his pitching staff, anchored by Thorpe and Weston, provides proven day one and day two weekend starters. They’ll return bullpen arms in Dylan Villalobos and Kyle Scott.
“We’re really looking for some answers try to get a deeper, quality bullpen, and right now that’s kind of our Achilles heel,” Lee said. “But I think we’re just looking forward to getting the season underway so we can use it as a measuring stick instead of playing intrasquad games all the time. You kind of have an idea, but you really don’t.”
Brooks Lee isn’t the only Cal Poly player with MLB draft hopes this year.
Thorpe, a sophomore, is expected to be drafted in the top five rounds, Lee said. Players become draft eligible after their junior seasons or when they turn 21.
“When they become draft eligible, if they’re ready, and they’re a high enough draft pick for a major league team that will invest enough money in you, then it’s time to go,” Lee said. “As a program, I’d like to lose three, four or five players every year to the draft.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Cal Poly baseball opens season with Brooks Lee projected as a top-5 MLB draft pick."
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