ECU Baseball’s Notable Transfer Portal Pitching Changes
After a historically poor season for ECU baseball, this young Pirate team has some building to do. Despite making an impressive postseason run, putting up 18 runs on the SEC powerhouse Florida twice in the regional hosted by Coastal Carolina, the Pirates finished the season without ever claiming a spot in the top 25 rankings. The transfer portal hit ECU hard following their heartbreaking loss to Evansville in the 2024 Greenville Regional, robbing them of many quality athletes, including Arkansas’ Friday night ace and MLB Draft prospect Zach Root. After last season’s losses to eligibility, transfer portal, and the MLB Draft, the 2025 transfer period was a monster that ECU could not afford to take hits from again.
Notable Losses
Pitcher Brad Pruett entered the portal after the Pirates’ postseason loss to Coastal Carolina. Pruett, like Root before him, will now be heading to the SEC. Yesterday, Pruett was officially able to announce his commitment to the Georgia Bulldogs. In his recent season with ECU, he made an appearance in 66 innings and dished out 70 Ks. The pitching staff was where the Pirates had suffered the most losses last season. If the young bullpen cannot grow in the postseason, losing an arm like Pruett’s, whose four-seamer reached the low to mid-90s, may cause this team to struggle to climb back into the D1 Baseball rankings that they are usually so familiar with.
However, despite an impressive start to his season Pruett struggled down the stretch. During the regular season he often had a tough time delivering as a starter and as a postseason reliever as well. If he struggled against batters in the American Athletic Conference it’s hard to tell if he’d be successful against those strong, top ranked, SEC offenses. Did ECU dodge a bullet or lose a potential weapon?
Notable Gains
Though they lost pitching talent in the portal, the Pirates also made a grab. Gavin Van Kempen, the six-foot-six right-hander from West Virginia University, will now spend his final year of eligibility on the pitching staff at East Carolina. On a team full of young arms, this is an interesting choice for the Pirates. Van Kempen had an impressive 2024 season where he went 7-1, but his performances in 2025 were inconsistent. Out of high school, he was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals but opted to head to play college ball at West Virginia instead. In addition to Van Kempen, the Pirates have added Frank Ciccone from Saint Joseph’s, and some back-end bullpen arms in Gavin Marley from Lenoir-Rhyne, Joseph Webb from Liberty, and Thomas Paxton from Belmont Abbey. The 2026 season looks to be yet another year of growth in the Pirate bullpen.
