Jason Savacool, the former Onondaga County high school star pitcher, is on his way to the St. Louis Cardinals. The announcement came Monday afternoon, during the sixth round of the second day of the Major League Baseball draft.
Savacool played for Baker High in Baldwinsville as starting pitcher from 2017 to 2020. He was the 2019-2020 season Gatorade player of the year and spent time on the 18U (18 and under) USA National team. As a high schooler, he was also invited to MLB and USA Baseball’s Prospect Development Pipeline League, where he led the league in strikeouts per nine innings.
After being ranked the no.19 best right-handed pitching prospect in the nation his graduating year, according to online scouting service Perfect Game, Savacool decided to continue his career at Maryland University, where he was an All-American last year.
With the Terrapins, Savacool posted a career 4.2 ERA over 46 games that he started. In his first year, he was named to the BIG 10 All-Freshman team, while his most dominant season so far was his sophomore year, during which he posted a career best 2.93 ERA and another career best with 10.2 strikeouts per nine.
Nicknamed “The Doctor,” for his surgically precise pitches, Savacool helped lead Maryland to the program's first BIG 10 Championship in his junior season (2023), but his overall performance — 4.22 ERA and 8.9 strikeouts per nine — was less consistent than the previous year. Savacool’s draft stock likely took a bit of a hit as a result.
The college junior was drafted 185th overall in a star-studded 2023 draft class, and is the first pitcher from Central New York since Patrick Corbin, who went to Cicero North Syracuse High School, to have been ranked this high in the Major League draft in more than a decade.
Savacool is expected to join the Cardinals organization next year for spring training.
