Florida Gators Lose Two to Transfer Portal

The Florida Gators had two players enter the transfer portal on Friday.

Florida Gators Landon Russell enters the transfer portal / Cyndi Chambers Sports / USA TODAY

Florida Gators’ pitcher Grayson Smith and two-way utility player Landon Russell have both entered the NCAA transfer portal, per Swamp247’s Jacob Rudner. 

With no role increase likely for either next year, it makes sense why both entered their names. 

Smith is a 6-foot-2, 210-pound freshman right-handed pitcher who appeared out of the bullpen 15 times this season for the Gators. However, he only pitched a total of 17.2 innings over those appearances and held an 8.66 ERA while striking out 25 along the way. 

Smith’s best performance of the season came on March 16 against Texas A&M. In this outing, he threw 2.2 innings and struck out six batters while giving up zero runs. 

One staggering note on Smith’s season was his inability to keep runners off the base path. He issued 11 walks and gave up 19 hits, resulting in 17 earned runs over his 17.2 innings of work. 

In addition to Smith, the other Gator transferring is uber-utility player Landon Russell. Russell joined the Gators after spending just one season at Gulf Coast Community College. 

During his time at GCCC, Russell slashed .305/.414/.497 with six homers, 39 RBI and 18 stolen bases in 47 games. Also, Russell joined the Gators with the potential to be a two-way player. 

With Gulf Coast Community College, he made 13 appearances as a pitcher with a .245 opponent average and 29 strikeouts. However, it never panned out for Russell in the Orange & Blue. 

With the Gators, he slashed .115/.172/.231 in 26 at-bats. He did have a triple, double and two RBI, but couldn’t find consistency to get more at-bats. 

On the mound, he had a 9.00 ERA in four appearances. Across these four appearances, Russell gave up five hits, three earned runs and struck out four in three innings. 

Despite these losses to the portal, Kevin O’Sullivan has begun reforming his roster for next year by already adding four new bats in former Miami utility player Blake Cyr, former Jacksonville infielder Justin Nadeau, former Texas Tech infielder Landon Stripling and former Stetson outfielder Kyle Jones through the portal. 

It seems now that Kevin O’Sullivan is reverting back to the more modern approach of building with experience after an up-and-down year for the Gators who used many youngsters throughout the campaign.