Husky Baseball: Brigham taken in 4th Round of MLB draft

One sign of a program’s growth in college baseball is having players get drafted in the MLB draft on an annual basis. On the top of that when you have players get drafted highly it is even bigger bonus. It is an even bigger bonus because tells potential recruits for Husky baseball that you play and have a legitimate shot to develop into a high draft pick.

Junior right-handed pitcher Jeff Brigham on Friday was selected in the fourth round of the 2014 MLB draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers and was the 129th overall pick. Brigham, had an excellent junior season for Washington as he went 7-4 with a 2.90 Earned run average.

Brigham was also a model of consistency all season long by getting deep into games by more often than getting into the 6th and 7th inning. This ability to pitch deep into games on Sundays was critical to the success of the Huskies.

The underrated factor to this story for Brigham is two-fold. First, he steadily got better with each season that he was in the Washington program. To go from a freshman season of just five starts and an earned run average of almost 5 to the NCAA tournament as a junior is a great accomplishment.

The other thing is Brigham’s ability to come back from missing the 2013 season due to an arm injury. To miss a full season in any sport is not easy but especially for a pitcher. Brigham took advantage of the time off and it was clear that he was stronger in 2014.

With being drafted as this high it will be a big surprise if Brigham returns to the Washington program in 2015. Most high draft picks get education benefits along with their slotted signing bonus. It will be interesting with rounds 11 thru 40 of the MLB draft taking place on Saturday to see where players like Tyler Davis and others on this 2014 Husky baseball team end up going.