Vanderbilt's Jack Leiter Making Plans for the Summer
Nashville, Tn- While the Vanderbilt baseball team might not be playing again this season, some of their players will be headed off to play in summer leagues around the country once the COVID_19 pandemic ends, or is at a point where things can begin to return to normal around for the nation.
One of those players is standout freshman pitcher Jack Leiter.
It was announced on Monday that Leiter would be heading to the Cape Cod Leauge to spend his summer pitching for the Orleans Firebirds.
Leiter, who appeared in four games, made three starts for the Dores, and was 2-0 with a 1.72 ERA while striking out 22, walking eight, and limiting opponents to a .098 avg. over 15.2 innings of work in his freshman season.
The son of former major league pitcher Al Leiter, the younger Leiter was progressing toward earning a position in the weekend rotation for the Commodores, due in part to injuries to both Mason Hickand and Kumar Rocker and the ineffective start to the season by Jake Eder in his role as the regular Sunday starter.
Leiter will return to Vanderbilt whenever the Commodores return to the field as he is ineligible to be drafted again until 2021.
He was selected by one of his father's former teams, the New York Yankees following his senior season in high school, but did not sign making him ineligible until after his sophomore season in Nashville
The Commodores will lose Hickman, unless he were to decide to return if granted another year of eligibility because of the shortened season- which is unlikely because he will be drafted- meaning that Leiter will join Rocker as two of the three weekend starters next season for head coach Tim Corbin.
It will be interesting to track Leiter's performance in the Cape Cod League this season, where there is a good chance he will pick up where he left off in his last appearance for the Commodores this season.
The right-hander was dominating in every outing this year for Vanderbilt, including a 12 strikeout performance in his first career start in a Commodores uniform.
