Four of MSU's five senior/grad transfers expected back for 2021 season

Four Diamond Dawg pitchers are expected to return to Mississippi State

It appears most all of Mississippi State baseball’s seniors and graduate transfers are going to take the NCAA up on its offer of a do-over.

Bulldogs head coach Chris Lemonis confirmed to Sports Illustrated’s Cowbell Corner on Friday that four of MSU’s five senior/grad transfer players from the 2020 roster intend to return to Starkville for the 2021 campaign, pending what happens with next week’s MLB Draft and the ensuing undrafted free agent signings.

Right now though, Lemonis and the Bulldogs are planning for pitchers Spencer Price, Riley Self, Carlisle Koestler and Jack Eagan to all be back on the MSU roster next year. The lone senior/grad transfer not expected to be back is pitcher David Dunlavey, who has decided to go to law school.

The returns of Price and Self give MSU an experienced, talented pair of high-leverage-situation relievers in the bullpen. The two have both battled injuries throughout their Bulldog tenures and seen ups and downs, but both Price and Self were enjoying career revivals in 2020 before the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic shut down the season. In fact, Price and Self weren’t just reviving their careers, they were putting forth their best-ever efforts.

In Self’s first three seasons, he’d never had an earned run average under 3.51 and he was coming off a 2019 in which his ERA was up to 4.91 with opponents hitting .336 against him.

Compare that to the seven games Self pitched in during 2020 where Self posted a 1.17 ERA with just a .111 opponent’s batting average over 7.2 innings.

As fantastic as Self was, Price was even better. In a word, Price was dominant.

Just two years removed from Tommy John surgery, Price had an ERA of 0.00 when the season ended. He’d pitched 7.1 innings without allowing a run. In fact, Price only surrendered one hit for the year as opponents hit a microscopic .043 against him. Price struck out 10 and walked only one. He also notched a pair of saves.

Like Self and Price, Koestler also brings a veteran presence back into the fold for MSU, though Koestler could help the Bulldogs in multiple ways as he did in 2020.

Koestler, who came to MSU after playing at Southeastern Louisiana in 2019, played in five games for the Bulldogs last year and started three of them. Overall, he finished with a 4.42 earned run average over 18.1 innings of work and finished the season strong as he allowed only two runs and five hits over his final seven frames.

Eagan didn’t see action in 2020 as he worked his way back from an ailment, but he is expected to give the Bulldogs left-handed help out of the pen in 2021 as he did in 2019. In 2019, Eagan boasted a 3.09 ERA over 23.1 innings of action. Opponents hit just .164 against him.

Dunlavey's MSU career concludes after just one season with the Bulldogs. He came to State as a grad transfer from Furman and had a 1.69 ERA over 10.2 innings last year.

All of Mississippi State's seniors/grad transfers are eligible to return in 2021 as earlier this year, the NCAA granted all 2020 spring-sport athletes an extra year of eligibility to make up for the lost seasons caused by the coronavirus pandemic.