Former Phillies Prospect Returns To Baseball

A former Philadelphia Phillies draft pick is giving reaching the Majors another shot after signing a deal with another NL club on Monday.

Per The Athletic, the Chicago Cubs signed right-handed pitcher Sam McWilliams to a minor-league deal.

He may not be a name familiar to Phillies fans. But, back in 2014 he was the team’s eight-round pick out of Beech High School in Hendersonville, Tenn.

Since then, McWilliams has played for six different organizations, been traded twice, selected in the Rule 5 Draft, designated for assignment once and stepped away from baseball in late 2022 to take a job as a sales representative with Blast Athletics.

Per The Athletic, it was that job that got him back on the radar with Major League teams, and the Cubs will be the one to take the chance on him.

After he was selected by the Phillies, he was quickly sent to their Gulf Coast League rookie team, where in nine games (five starts) he 2-3 with a 5.40 ERA. In 25 innings he struck out 10 and walked six.

In 2015 he remained with the Phillies in the GCL, where he started seven games and went 0-2 but lowered his ERA to 3.27. He showed some promise as he struck out 21 and walked five in 33 innings.

Perhaps it was just enough promise to get traded. That November the Phillies dealt him to Arizona to acquire pitcher Jeremy Hellickson, who turned out to be their Opening-Day starter for 2016.

That also sparked McWilliams’ itinerant career. Arizona traded him as a player to be named later in a 2018 deal with Tampa Bay. The Rays lost him to Kansas City in the Rule 5 Draft later that year. The Royals returned him to Tampa Bay after a horrible Spring Training, but McWilliams got to Triple-A Durham.

But, after he couldn’t break through to the Majors, he went into free agency in 2020, signed a Major League deal with the New York Mets but was designated for assignment in June by the Mets while he was at Triple-A Syracuse. That led to finishing 2021 with the San Diego Padres’ Triple-A affiliate in El Paso and starting the 2022 season with the Cincinnati Reds, where he pitched in Double-A before he left baseball.

McWilliams is 34-45 with a 4.41 ERA for his minor-league career.