Iowa RHP Anthony Watts to enter the transfer portal
The Iowa Baseball season came to a close less than a week ago, but there’s no rest for coaches in college athletics. Transfer portal season will be in full swing soon enough and the Hawkeyes are starting to see a couple of names depart from the roster. The latest entry comes as a bit of a surprise. Right-handed pitcher Anthony Watts announced on Friday afternoon that he plans to enter the portal after two seasons with the program.
In two seasons at Iowa, Watts appeared in 45 games, posting a 3.90 ERA over 85.1 innings, including 103 strikeouts to 52 walks and 59 hits allowed. He finishes his time at Iowa totaling 12 outings with at least 2.0 scoreless innings pitched, including tossing 4.2 scoreless innings against Rutgers this past season.
What this means for the Iowa pitching staff…
It’s shaping up to be an interesting offseason for the Hawkeyes when it comes to starting pitching. They are very likely going to lose both Cade Obermueller and Aaron Savary to the MLB Draft, while Reece Beuter announced his goodbye to baseball on Instagram, despite having one year of eligibility remaining. That means Iowa will be replacing their entire starting rotation from this past season and Anthony Watts would have been one of the favorites to earn one of those three spots. Instead, the Hawkeyes will really be starting from scratch. The transfer portal has been good to Iowa in the past, with top-of-the-line arms like Adam Mazur, Reece Beuter, Anthony Watts, Will Christophersen and others coming to Iowa City from the portal.
