Pitcher Tyler Myrick extends FIU’s MLB Draft streak to 11 years as he heads to Giants
For the 11th consecutive year, an FIU Panther was picked in the MLB Draft.
It took until the third day of the 2021 draft, but Tyler Myrick was finally the first FIU player off the board when the San Francisco Giants took the starting pitcher with the 14th pick in the 14th round Tuesday — No. 416 overall — to give the Panthers a draft pick in every year since 2011.
Myrick finished the 2021 season with a 5.43 ERA in 71 1/3 innings. He struck out a career high 67 batters and currently ranks 15th on FIU’s all-time strikeouts list.
Myrick, who redshirted in 2019 after having Tommy John surgery, has one season of eligibility remaining and could return to Miami for a redshirt senior season. He is, however, already 23 and can now earned some guaranteed money from San Francisco despite a pedestrian redshirt junior season.
San Francisco’s third-day flier on Myrick mostly has to do with the right-handed pitcher’s velocity as he recovers from Tommy John. His fastball touched at least 96 mph this year and gives him the potential to be one of the better power pitchers in the draft. In his first two full seasons with the Panthers, Myrick was impressive, too, posting a 3.73 ERA as a freshman in 2017 and a 3.86 ERA as a sophomore in 2018 before injuring his elbow
Myrick, who was a high school standout at Lake City Columbia, did not rank among the top 250 prospects in the draft, according to MLB.com, and there was no guarantee FIU would continue its draft streak this year after the COVID-19 pandemic meant a five-round draft in 2020 and an extra year of eligibility for every NCAA athlete.
Myrick was the lone Panther picked in the draft to keep FIU’s streak alive.
This story was originally published July 13, 2021 at 1:26 PM.
