Stetson Professional Athletes

Stetson sent two pitchers to the mound on the final Sunday of the 2026 regular season, and the contrast couldn't have been sharper. Logan Gilbert looked like a man making a case for a massive payday. Jack Perkins looked like a man fighting for his professional life. Both outcomes matter — for different reasons, and on different timelines.

Gilbert's Farewell Tour Gets One More Chapter

Logan Gilbert needed three strikeouts to reach 200 on the season heading into Seattle's Sunday finale against the Angels. He got eight — over four hitless innings — as the Mariners rolled to a 7-3 win. Whether he crossed the 200-K threshold depends on where he stood entering the start, but the performance itself underscored why his impending free agency has become the defining subplot of Seattle's offseason.

Gilbert posted a 3.73 ERA on the year, and the Sports Illustrated report framing Sunday as a potential "farewell" captures the stakes accurately: one year from free agency, no extension in place, and a franchise that has yet to signal it will pay market rate for an ace. The Mariners won the game. The bigger question — whether Gilbert pitches in Seattle again — remains unanswered.

For Stetson fans, the moment carries real weight. Gilbert is the program's most prominent MLB product, a former first-round pick who has developed into a legitimate top-of-rotation starter. Whatever comes next — a Seattle reunion or a move elsewhere — Sunday served as a reminder of how far the DeLand product has come.

Perkins Auctions Off His 2027 Audition

Eighty miles inland in West Sacramento, Jack Perkins had a rougher afternoon. The righty allowed six earned runs over five innings in a 13-2 blowout loss to Houston, pushing his ERA to 6.10 on the season. A 3-12 record in a lost year for the 64-win Athletics is not the résumé anyone draws up.

And yet, Sports Illustrated's piece on Perkins' chances in Oakland's 2027 rotation argues the door isn't closed. The Athletics are rebuilding — the rotation is not a finished product — and Perkins is young enough and cheap enough to factor into next year's plans if he can show improvement. Nine strikeouts Sunday at least demonstrated the stuff is still there, even when the results weren't.

The math is simple and unforgiving: give the A's a reason to believe in a bounce-back, or watch a roster spot go to someone who did. This final week of the season may have been Perkins' last extended audition before front-office decisions get made.

The Stetson Pipeline, in Full View

There's a version of this weekend that reads as a Stetson success story — two alumni pitching meaningful innings in the major leagues in the same afternoon. That's not nothing. The Hatters' baseball program doesn't produce first-rounders every year, and having two active arms in the Show simultaneously is a genuine point of pride for DeLand.

But the divergence in career trajectory is real. Gilbert is chasing a contract that could reshape his life. Perkins is chasing job security. One Hatter is making his case to stay. The other is hoping Seattle makes its case to him first.

Jacob deGrom is supposed to be the Rangers' ace. Right now, he looks like their biggest liability.

The Stetson product turned in back-to-back disasters over the week of Sept. 20–26, allowing 11 earned runs across just 8.1 innings in two starts — outings that have sent genuine alarm bells ringing through the Texas clubhouse with the AL West still in the balance.

It started Sunday, Sept. 20, against the Blue Jays at Globe Life Field, where deGrom lasted just 4.1 innings, surrendering three earned runs while recording only two strikeouts in a 2–7 loss. That was worrying enough. Then came Saturday, Sept. 26, at Target Field, where things got considerably worse: deGrom was knocked around for eight earned runs in four flat innings against Minnesota, pushing his ERA to 4.20 and raising the kind of questions that don't have comfortable answers this late in the season. Per Sports Illustrated, the performance should "terrify Rangers moving forward" — and it's hard to argue otherwise.

The timing is brutal. Texas is fighting for its life in a tight AL West race, and its nominal front-line starter is posting outings that a fifth starter would be embarrassed by. Two starts, two losses, a combined strikeout total of seven, and an average of just over four innings per outing. For a pitcher with deGrom's ceiling and contract weight, these aren't blips — they're red flags.

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The Rest of the Hatters

Not every Stetson arm had a rough week.

Over in Oakland, Jack Perkins quietly put together one of the more impressive lines in the brief: six innings, one earned run, four strikeouts against Cleveland on Sept. 20. The Athletics may be out of contention, but Perkins (ERA: 5.90 entering the start) gave his team exactly what it needed and then some. A six-inning, one-run outing is the kind of start that rebuilding organizations file away.

Logan Gilbert had a tougher go of it in Seattle on Sept. 23 against Houston. The Mariners righty allowed four earned runs in four innings — not a disaster, but not the outing a 12-10 pitcher needs heading into the final week of a lost season. His ERA ticked up to 3.81, and with Seattle sitting at 73–83, the game carried more draft-positioning weight than playoff meaning. Gilbert's season as a whole remains solid, but the Astros tagged him when it counted.

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The Bottom Line

This is deGrom's story, full stop. The Rangers' AL West hopes hinge, in part, on whether their veteran right-hander can find anything resembling his previous form before the calendar runs out. Two consecutive short, ugly starts against playoff-caliber and competitive lineups aren't the résumé of a staff anchor — they're the résumé of a problem. For a Stetson program that produced one of the most electric arms in modern baseball history, watching deGrom stumble through September is equal parts painful and alarming.

The Rangers need answers. They're running out of chances to find them.