Freshman phenom: Clemson’s Seth Beer already one of college baseball’s best hitters

A true freshman less than four months removed from high school, Seth Beer has not only become the Clemson baseball team’s best hitter, but one of the best hitters in all of college baseball.

Through the first 31 games of his collegiate career, Beer has a batting average of .425, 14 home runs and 39 runs batted in.

All of this has come in his first semester as a college student. Beer, 19 years old, graduated from high school in December, enabling him to enroll at Clemson in January and begin his college baseball career early.

While a typical freshman enrolls in the fall, giving him a semester to get acclimated to college life while participating in fall ball, Beer was thrown directly into the fire – and has looked nothing but comfortable.

“He’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Clemson coach Monte Lee said. “Every time somebody says Seth Beer, I say he’s the best freshman I’ve ever seen, and he is.”

Beer has long set his sights on competing in sports at a high level, but baseball was not always his sport of choice.

In his younger years, Beer was so good at swimming that he was on track to compete in the Olympic Games. He trained alongside Caeleb Dressel, a sophomore at Florida who broke the world record for the 50-yard freestyle in February. As a 13-year-old, however, Beer decided to turn his attention to baseball after a conversation with former MLB pitcher Paul Byrd, who then coached his travel team.

“I called him, and he told me ‘Seth, you got a great, great swing and I really think you can make it someday in the future,’ ” Beer recalled. “I said ‘Coach, I believe what you got to say,' and I said ‘I’m going to put down the goggles and pick up the bat more' and just keep it going.”

Beer ultimately returned to the pool for three years, as a member of the swimming team at Lambert High School in Suwanee, Ga., where he also emerged as a star on the diamond. As a sophomore coached by Jamie Corr, Beer was the most valuable player on Lambert’s baseball team, which won a state and a national championship.

Corr, who coached Beer for one year before leaving Lambert to become the head coach at Florida Southwestern College, said Beer’s baseball talent was evident from the moment he began working with him.

“He had plus power … but what really amazed me was his advanced plate discipline and his ability to identify pitches so quickly,” Corr said.

Beer was not only a star hitter at Lambert, but also a starting pitcher who could throw a fastball between 88 to 93 miles per hour, Corr said.

Had Beer stayed at Lambert for his senior season, he likely would have been a first-round selection in this year’s MLB draft.

Instead, Beer gave up his draft eligibility to enroll at Clemson, where he is set to play at least three years of college baseball before regaining draft eligibility in 2018.

Clemson assistant coach Bradley LeCroy, who recruited Beer to be a Tiger along with former head coach Jack Leggett, admits he had doubts about Beer ever playing collegiately.

“The whole process, in the back of your mind, you’re thinking ‘This is not going to happen. This is not going to happen,’” LeCroy recalled. “I pinch myself every day when I walk out on the field and I see him in the batting cages or in right field.”

Coaching Beer has not required much work, LeCroy said, because “he’s a natural superstar.”

“He creates ultimate backspin on the baseball,” LeCroy said. “It’s why his ball carries so far. There’s a lot of other guys on our team that are a lot stronger than him in the weight room and stuff, but they don’t have the leverage and they can’t create the backspin like he does.”

Beer is on pace to have one of the best seasons for a hitter in Clemson history.

“I’ve been coaching for 16 years, and I’ve coached a number of guys that have played in the big leagues, and I’ve never seen anybody hit like that,” Lee said of Beer.

Beer earned National Player of the Week honors from Collegiate Baseball for his performance in four games between March 7-13, in which he hit four home runs and one double and had 10 RBIs.

Aaron Fitt, a national writer for D1Baseball.com, said he has not seen many midyear enrollees start their careers as impressively as Beer has.

“If you were to rank the freshmen right now, he’d be No. 1,” Fitt said.

This story was originally published April 16, 2016 at 8:13 PM with the headline "Freshman phenom: Clemson’s Seth Beer already one of college baseball’s best hitters."