BATON ROUGE, Louisiana: Former LSU pitcher Bryce Collins became the 12th member of the Tigers’ 2023 National Championship team to sign a free agent contract with the Chicago White Sox.
Collins, a Valencia, California native and right-hander, started his college career at Arizona before transferring to LSU before the 2022 campaign. During his tenure at LSU, he made 36 appearances in his career (two starts), going 5-2 in 49.0 innings with 56 strikeouts and a.214 opponent batting average.
He had a 5-4 record in 71.1 innings (44 appearances, 6 starts) with 72 strikeouts and a.227 opponent batting average during his whole collegiate career at Arizona and LSU.
Collins threw for Arizona in 2019 after being selected by the Minnesota Twins in the 2018 MLB Draft as a senior high school player. However, he missed the 2020 and 2021 seasons due to an arm injury. After recuperating from the injury, he pitching career at LSU was successfully restarted in 2022.
In the spring of 2023, Collins graduated from LSU with a degree in history and was twice named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll.
During seven bullpen appearances from March 21 to April 23 of 2016 season, he pitched 9.1 straight shutout innings with 13 strikeouts, seven walks, and one hit. In the last 2.1 innings of LSU’s victory over Kentucky on April 15, he struck out four Wildcats and allowed only one hit while walking one.
On April 11, Collins earned a victory over Tulane by pitching 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up no hits, two walks, and two strikeouts.
On April 23, 2022, he earned his first career SEC victory over Missouri after pitching 2.2 innings of relief and holding the Tigers to one run on three hits, no walks, and four strikeouts.