'He's got the skillset': What to expect from transfer outfielder Ethan Lizama at South Carolina

Marcelo Mayer was the top must-see high school prospect in 2021. Scouts from all over the country were coming to watch the Eastlake (CA) shortstop play as the MLB Draft approached later that summer.

Mayer, who hit .392 with 14 home runs and 45 RBI, became a first-round pick, taken fourth overall by the Boston Red Sox. After a few seasons in the minor leagues, he made his debut with the big league club last month.

That same year, Gulf Coast State College hired Tyler Younger, the Coordinator of Baseball Player Development at Mississippi State, as its next head coach. One of Younger’s newly-hired assistant coaches, Chris Johns, had a friend in the Texas Rangers’ front office, who was scouting Mayer.

While Johns’ friend was primarily looking at Mayer, they reached out to let him know about another player, who hit cleanup for Eastlake but was uncommitted to any college program. His name? Ethan Lizama.

“We got some video, and you watch him swing about twice, and you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good. Why is that guy not going anywhere?'” Younger told GamecockCentral. “So, I mean, we hopped on him immediately and started recruiting him. … That’s kind of how we found him.”

Lizama, a 6-foot-2, 207-pound outfielder from Guam, played two seasons for Younger at Gulf Coast State, where he hit .300 with 17 homers and 96 RBI. His JUCO success brought him to Western Kentucky for the next two seasons, and he was just as good. It led him to choose to play his final season at South Carolina, where he officially committed on June 11.

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With the Hilltoppers, Lizama batted .323 with 24 homers and 102 RBI in 116 career games. He’s coming off a career year in which he hit a team-high 15 homers. He also had 22 additional extra-base hits (18 doubles, 4 triples) with a 1.053 OPS.

Younger believes Lizama will be able to make a smooth transition to playing in the SEC, where the competition level will be higher than ever. He credited his bat-to-ball skills as being “really good” and that he’ll continue to get stronger as a left-handed hitter.

“He’s got the skillset, so it’s just gonna be a matter of seeing that type of arm every day, which is why you have the fall,” Younger said. “I mean, Monte (Lee) does a great job, I think that’s a really good situation for him, having a really good hitting coach. So, Monte will prepare him, but it’s going to be just seeing that level of arm over and over and over, and he’s going to catch on.”

With South Carolina having to replace its entire outfield, Lizama figures to be an everyday fixture in the starting lineup. He mainly played in right field when he was at Western Kentucky. He posted a .975 fielding percentage with 112 putouts, seven assists and only made three errors this year.

“He’s going to catch what he can get to. He’s an okay runner,” said Younger, describing Lizama as an average college outfielder. “It’s not anything crazy, typical kind of power guy. He’s not a slug on the bases, but he’s not a burner either. But yeah, I mean, he’s going to catch what he can get to.”

The other thing that stood out to Younger about Lizama is how much he enjoys playing baseball. He spoke of him as being “an old school guy that just liked to play.” The skills are clearly all there, but this attribute is something he sees helping him plenty at South Carolina.

“That was the biggest thing, just watching him bebop around every day and smile all the time and look like he was having fun,” Younger said. “He could really throw from the outfield and had real bat speed. I mean, you watch him take BP, and he’s just launching balls.”

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