In today’s era of college sports, talk of programs developing their players is complex, and more than a few fans and pundits may be inclined to deny that it happens at all. However, examples like Samuel Dutton help put the issue into perspective.
The Surge of Samuel Dutton
Dutton has been Auburn’s meal ticket this season, but that has not been the tone of his NCAA career. In fact, anyone looking at the cold numbers from his first three seasons might not think there was a star in him.
But Tiger’s head coach Butch Thompson and his staff saw what Dutton had to offer and put some work on it. The results have been more than satisfactory.
Joe Healy, host of D1Baseball’s “Weekend Waypoints” podcast, described it this way during the most recent edition of the show:
“He’s such a good story, such a good story on a couple fronts, I mean, one is just Auburn needed somebody to be THAT guy, it was such an issue last year for them, so that’s one, and then two, he’s a veteran guy in the SEC, this is not some fresh-faced guy that Auburn brought from D2, or junior college, or a freshman.”
“This is a guy who’s been around the block in the SEC and he just got better. Auburn gave him an opportunity that he wasn’t going to get at LSU, but then, with that opportunity, he’s also gotten better.”
“So, it’s just a really good story, and it goes to show that, as much as sometimes it’s easy to be cynical in this era of college baseball, and talk about how ‘oh, there’s not really a lot of development happening anymore’, like, ‘it’s just player acquisition and player deployment’, and I get that, and there’s something to that, but development is still happening. A guy like Sam Dutton is a great example of where that’s still happening.”
Dutton came to Auburn after three seasons at LSU where he pitched in 57 games, averaging just over 1.1 innings per game. Of those starts, he went 1-2 with an ove 6.00 ERA, 76 strikeouts and 25 walks.
His arrival at Auburn has been literally transformational. He has started all 12 games he has pitched, winning six and losing two, and his ERA (2.37) is well better than his career average. So are his strikeouts (81), strikeout to walk ratio (6.23), WHIP (1.054), hits per 9 innings (7.8) and home runs per game (0.41).
While it’s too early to tell if we’ll see Dutton in the MLB Draft this July, he’s certainly working to get noticed. In the process, he’s leading Auburn through an excellent season with plenty of opportunities.
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The Tigers currently sit in seventh place in the SEC at 13-11. That gives them plenty of room to contend for a conference championship and an invitation to the NCAA Tournament, which they’ve won six times, most recently in 2022.
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