Georgia baseball lands its second transfer portal pitcher

The Haverstraw, NY native took the mound 21 times in 2026, primarily serving as one of Maryland’s main relievers.

Of those 21 times, 18 of them came in relief, where he held opposing batters to 47 total hits and a .235 batting average.

At the beginning of May, Maryland moved Cespedes out of the bullpen and into the starting rotation, where he started his final three outings, going at least six innings in each start and totaling a combined 22 strikeouts and four walks.

His best outing of the season was on May 16 against Penn State, He went six innings and allowed just four hits, two runs (all earned) and struck out a career-high 12 batters.

Cespedes joins Long Beach State transfer Luke Howe as the second transfer pitcher to join the Bulldogs for the 2026-27 season. Howe announced his plans to come to Athens on Wednesday, also on Instagram.

After pulling off the No. 1 transfer portal class a season ago, Georgia will once again be one of the more active teams this offseason as it will be replacing numerous key pieces from this College World Series team.

Since the transfer portal opened on June 1, the Bulldog coaching staff has been working double duty getting ready for a run in Omaha while trying to recruit.

“You better have a good time management plan,” UGA coach Wes Johnson said on Thursday. “You’ve got to work on obviously getting prepared for Texas, and then you’ve got to work on getting prepared to replace your team, making phone calls, so I don’t think it’s changed a ton from what I was doing then to what I’m doing now.”