UK Baseball’s Beggs Chosen by Miami in Major League Draft

Kentucky pitcher Dustin Beggs was selected by Miami in the 16th round of Saturday’s Major League Draft.
Beggs, a senior righthander from Roswell, Ga., led UK in victories with a 9-2 record and had a 3.01 earned-run average. Beggs worked 98.2 innings this season and had 80 strikeouts, leading the team in both categories, and opponents had a mere .215 batting average against him.
Additionally, Beggs was named the 2016 Tony Gwynn Classic Most Outstanding Pitcher and named Mid-Season First-Team All-America by Perfect Game after becoming the first player in UK history to win his first seven starts of a season. He also was on the midseason watch list for the USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award for the top player in college baseball. In addition, he was chosen for the Southeastern Conference All-Defensive Team by league coaches. He did not allow a stolen base all season and he picked off nine baserunners, leading the SEC in that category.
A junior-college transfer, Beggs posted a 16-6 record in his two years with the Wildcats – the second-most wins ever by a two-year player. He career winning percentage of .727 ranks third in school history and his 3.32 career ERA is seventh in UK annals.
Off the field, Beggs was named Academic All-America (third team) by the College Sports Information Directors of America. He has graduated from UK with a 3.69 grade-point average in Integrated Strategic Communications.
Beggs is the fourth Wildcat selected in this year’s draft, following Zack Brown (fifth round, Milwaukee), JaVon Shelby (fifth round, Oakland) and Kyle Cody (sixth round, Texas). UK is one of only nine schools who had at least three players selected in the first six rounds of the draft.
For more information on the Kentucky baseball team, follow @UKBaseball on Twitter and Facebook or visit UKathletics.com.
by Tony Neely