photo by: Hartford Yard Goats

Collin Baumgartner pitches for the Hartford Yard Goats in this undated photo at Dunkin' Park in Hartford, Conn.

Collin Baumgartner was all set to go to law school. He had been playing his sixth-year senior campaign at Kansas, he says, “more to have fun and kind of look at it as my last season.”

Then the Colorado Rockies signed him as an undrafted free agent after the 2023 MLB Draft.

Now, less than two years later, it looks like he may make it to the big leagues before he would even have had the chance to sit for the bar exam.

His former KU coach Dan Fitzgerald has said he thinks Baumgartner will pitch in the majors this season. KU pitching coach Brandon Scott, who originally recruited him to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville when he started his career back in 2018, said Baumgartner can be “literally waiting by the phone for a phone call, and that’s truly how close he is.”

“I’d much rather be playing baseball than go to law school,” Baumgartner told the Journal-World in a recent interview, “but I’ve just been riding it out, enjoying it and taking each day as it comes.”

He knows he has more work to do to get where he wants to go. He also knows he can only “take care of what I can take care of.”

“I think it’s hard,” Baumgartner said. “A lot of guys always joke about playing GM and trying to figure out when you’re going to move and all that stuff. I learned you can’t do it.”

A native of Brighton, Illinois, Baumgartner was Scott’s first-ever Division I recruit when the coach arrived at SIUE from Wabash Valley College.

By the time the pair made the move to join Fitzgerald at KU, Baumgartner had already earned a degree and an MBA. He would have been on his way to another advanced degree at Saint Louis University had he not done quite as well in his lone year as KU’s Friday night starter. Baumgartner was a second-team all-conference selection and went 6-1 with a 3.62 ERA, helping lay the foundation for the success Fitzgerald and the Jayhawks have experienced in the two years since his departure.

“It means a ton,” Baumgartner said. “I have nothing but the utmost respect for Coach Fitzgerald. For him to kind of give me a chance at KU was everything for me because I feel like I wouldn’t be here today without him.”

Baumgartner, who also credited KU for giving him a chance to play farther from home and at a higher level of competition, parlayed that season into the deal with the Rockies, which he called a “breath of fresh air.”

“It gives you a little chip on your shoulder,” he also said of his undrafted status, “because there’s a lot of guys that were picked before you and a lot of guys who got paid a lot more than you.”

He pitched just six times between the Arizona Complex League and the High-A Spokane Indians in 2023, but truly shone when he got to start the 2024 season in Low-A with the Fresno Grizzlies. Baumgartner did not allow an earned run the entire month of April.

He got called up to Double-A Hartford in late May and took some time to settle in; he said at first he felt like he needed to somehow mold himself into a different kind of pitcher than he had been at lower levels.

“I was wrong,” he said. “I kind of went back, I learned a few lessons earlier in the season and then just remembered what was working for me.”

He then did not allow an earned run again between June 29 and Aug. 13, over the course of 13 separate appearances.

Indeed, what made Baumgartner’s success particularly interesting was that he earned it as a relief pitcher, not the inning-eating starter he had been in college.

“I think it’s more of a sprint than a marathon,” he said. “As a starter you kind of need to conserve a little bit. In the back of your mind you know you need to give your team five or six innings.”

That’s not the case when you can “blow it all out” for the entirety of a relief appearance, as Baumgartner said. He also enjoys treating every day at the park the same, knowing you could have to pitch on any given occasion, and that mental adjustment seems to have served Baumgartner well to this point.

“What he’s been able to do last year and this year in Double-A is just a testament to a kid that wants something and is willing to do whatever it takes to get it,” Scott said.

“It’s a ton of talent up here,” Baumgartner said, “so you got to be your best every day and if you’re not you’ll find out quick.”

Through Friday, six games into an eight-game swing against Binghamton for Baumgartner and the Hartford Yard Goats, he had accumulated a 2.33 ERA in 54 innings at the Double-A level over the course of about a year with 69 strikeouts.

“He’s punching guys out at a higher rate than he did in college, and he’s doing it with just a ton of fastballs at that level,” Scott said. “They just can’t seem to hit it.”

Baumgartner says he knows, though, that he can’t be a “one-pitch pitcher” in order to rise through the Rockies’ organization, as much as he relies on the fastball. He also wants to continue to take good care of his body as he proceeds through his professional career.

Baumgartner said he’s grateful to Scott for “the chances he took on me and the confidence he gave me to continue to pitch.” Scott, meanwhile, is awaiting what he is certain will be “one of the most enjoyable moments of my coaching career.”

“There’s a lot of things in life that I look forward to,” he told the Journal-World, “but at some point going to a big-league field and watching Collin Baumgartner pitch is about as high on the list as it gets for me.”

photo by: Hartford Yard Goats

Collin Baumgartner of the Hartford Yard Goats stands in the dugout in this undated photo at Dunkin’ Park in Hartford, Conn.