'Part of who I am': Diamondbacks third-round pick Daniel Eagen embraces small beginnings

Diamondbacks pitching prospect Daniel Eagen barely remembers having cancer.

But when his horrible migraines at age four did not go away, his parents took him to a doctor and, then, a hospital. They soon discovered that Daniel had a cerebellar astrocytoma, which is a type of brain tumor. Fortunately, doctors caught it early, but the matter was still urgent. Eagen had surgery to remove the tumor and spent a week in the hospital recovering.

For many years after, Eagen had follow-up appointments to make sure that the tumor did not return. All of those scans came back clean. Eventually, there was no need. Eagen was declared cancer-free.

But Eagen still remembers walking the halls of that Durham, North Carolina children’s hospital, knowing that he had overcome his illness; knowing that many of the other kids that were there had it much worse.

“I developed a new perspective of my life where, even as a cancer survivor, I am very blessed with the opportunities I have had throughout my life, especially now being able to play professional baseball,” Eagen said.

“I always think about how there were other kids in that hospital with me with hopes to live out their dreams, and might not ever get to.”

At age 21, Eagen is living out his dreams already.

With the 102nd pick in the 2024 #MLBDraft, the #Dbacks select pitcher Daniel Eagen from @BlueHoseBSB.

Follow all of our Day 2 action: https://t.co/d9RKlIPnP5 pic.twitter.com/GhKSbq0fGM

— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) July 15, 2024

In July, the Diamondbacks selected him in the third round of the MLB draft. About a week later, he signed a contract with the team. It was in that moment, as he put pen to paper, when it began to hit home: He was going to be a professional baseball player.

Eagen was not heavily recruited out of high school, in part because the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out his senior year. He landed at Presbyterian College, a Division I university in Clinton, South Carolina with a student body just north of 1,000.

The Diamondbacks made Eagen the highest draft pick in school history. He wears his small beginnings as a badge of pride.

“I feel like it’s every part of who I am as a person,” Eagen said, “embracing that small-school mentality. I’ve always been the underdog pretty much my whole life.

“To be a part of a group for that program that is putting Presbyterian on the map and getting it the recognition it deserves, it means the world to me.”

Six Presbyterian College alumni have played in the majors since the school was founded in 1880. The most recent one to appear in a big-league game was Lou Brissie, a left-handed pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and Cleveland Indians from 1947 to 1952. According to Presbyterian’s site, Brissie nearly had his left leg amputated after fighting in World War II; he wore a leg brace throughout his major-league career.

In 2024, Eagen was part of just the second multi-player draft class in Presbyterian history. His teammate, outfielder Joel Dragoo, was also selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the seventh round.

But while Eagen finished his time at Presbyterian on a high note, his first two seasons were a different story. As a freshman, Eagen had a 7.63 ERA in 43 2/3 innings. He then lost almost his entire sophomore season to a UCL sprain in his right elbow that required extensive rehab.

Finally healthy again, Eagen looked like a different pitcher as a junior. In 14 starts, he went 6-2 with a 2.67 ERA, 0.99 WHIP and a league-leading 121 strikeouts compared to 28 walks over 77.2 innings. His velocity spiked, touching 95-96 mph. His strikeout total set a single-season record at Presbyterian. He was named the Big South Conference pitcher of the year.

“Being able to throw healthily just gave me all the confidence in the world to go out and do what I sought out to do that season,” Eagen said. “The spring was just carefree baseball. I was out there doing my thing, wasn’t thinking about too much.”

Eagen credits Presbyterian head baseball coach Elton Pollock — who attended Presbyterian himself and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1995 — for much of his success, both on and off the field.

“There’s really no words to describe the impact that he has,” Eagen said of Pollock. “He’s one of the best people that I’ve ever met.”

Pollock helped restore Eagen’s Christian faith, and helped him keep perspective during a sophomore season in which he basically did not pitch at all. Pollock assured Eagen that his time would come. Eventually, it did.

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Memorable meeting at MLB Draft Combine

Diamondbacks scouting director Ian Rebhan isn’t quite sure how to describe it, but when he and his staff sat down with Eagen at the MLB Draft Combine in June at Chase Field, something stood out.

“When he walked out of the room just after 25 minutes,” Rebhan said, “you just fell in love with the person.”

Previously, the Diamondbacks had not gotten much face time with Eagen because, frankly, he was not on their radar entering his junior year.

During the meeting, Eagen talked not only about his success, but about his failures. He came across humble and self-aware, but also confident. He explained what happened during his low points at Presbyterian, what he learned about himself in the process and how he adjusted his routines accordingly. He also opened up about some of the challenges he faced off the field, including the brain tumor that crept up in early childhood.

“When players can be vulnerable, talk about adversity and talk about how it made them better,” Rebhan said, “I think that’s a good predictor of, like, he’s going to be okay when — eventually, you’re going to struggle in the minor leagues. Unless maybe you’re Corbin Carroll … most people are going to struggle in the minor leagues.

“You could just tell when he walked in the room that he was just a great human being. Some of the things that he’s been through created a little bit of a toughness and like he feels like he has something to prove, which I think is cool.”

The fact that Eagen attended a small school was also a selling point for Rebhan. While he likes the pitcher that Eagen is now, he believes that he may have more untapped potential than some Power-5 starters simply because he did not have access to the same resources.

Daniel Eagen, the pitcher

Listed at 6-foot-4, 205 pounds, Eagen has the build of a durable starter, albeit with some room to add strength. His arm slot is fairly over-the-top, and his arsenal consists of a four-seam fastball, curveball and slider, and he has been working on a changeup.

For the Diamondbacks, one pitch stood out above the rest.

“For us,” Rebhan said, “it was the curveball all day.”

Eagen describes his curveball as a “downer” curve with roughly 12-6 movement. He uses the pitch for swing-and-miss, and he also likes to land it for strikes.

Eagen’s four-seamer has a unique shape with plenty of vertical ride, making it effective up in the zone.

Since his fastball and curveball have mostly up-down movement, Eagen began working on a slider last fall that would give right-handed hitters something that moves away from them. The early returns on the pitch were promising in his junior season, and the Diamondbacks believe that it has a chance to be an above-average offering in the majors.

Daniel Eagen struck out seven in 5.2 innings today, breaking the 100-strikeout barrier in the process.

FB felt rather generic at 91-94, but the CB/SL will make him money. CB has tons of depth and bite at 77-80, SL late sweep at 82-86. Flashed a CH. 4th-5th round type for me. pic.twitter.com/qXpC3LB1o1

— Tyler Jennings (@TylerJennings24) May 11, 2024

One of the main items on Eagen’s to-do list this summer was working on his changeup, a pitch that he believes could legitimize his status as a starting pitching prospect.

“I feel like all good starting pitchers have good changeups,” he said, “and the more weapons I have to get hitters out, the more successful I can be.”

Given his workload in the spring at Presbyterian, the Diamondbacks opted to have Eagen work out at Salt River Fields after signing as opposed to sending him out to a minor-league affiliate.

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Eagen is a Zac Gallen fan

Having grown up in North Carolina, Eagen remembers watching Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen during his time at the University of North Carolina. As time has gone on, Gallen has emerged as a source of inspiration.

Not only does Eagen see similarities between his arsenal and Gallen’s — the rising fastball and 12-6 curve, in particular — but he also likes the way that Gallen goes about the game.

“He’s very analytical,” Eagen said. “Coming from a small school, we didn’t have a ton of analytics to look at. It’s kind of cool seeing how someone like him has benefited from just taking all of this new information in that’s possible because of being in a pro organization.

“I strive to be as much of a student of the game as he is.”

Gallen was a third-round pick himself, and is a prime example of a pitcher that did not got much attention in college or in the minors but became one of the better starters in baseball anyway.

Of course, it would be absurd to expect a similar outcome from a pitcher that was just drafted two months ago. Nonetheless, Eagen is already one of the Diamondbacks’ top pitching prospects, and, given all the adversity that he has already overcome, it would seem unwise to bet against him.

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