ST. LOUIS, Mo.—The best time to promote a baseball player to the major leagues is when they are riding a hot streak for their minor league team and are primed to make an impact at the game's highest level. Both of those conditions are true for former Villanova star right-handed pitcher
Gordon Graceffo, who had his contract selected by the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday after winning four straight June starts for the club's Triple-A affiliate in Memphis.
Graceffo will join the Cardinals during this weekend's home series against the Cincinnati Reds and is available out of the bullpen beginning on Friday night. He will make his MLB debut the first time he enters a game for the Cardinals and will become the 51
st former Villanova baseball player to reach the major leagues. Several other individuals with Villanova connections also have major league ties. Graceffo was drafted by the Cardinals in the fifth round of the 2021 MLB June Amateur Draft and has been a Top 100 prospect in the sport as well as a Top 10 prospect in the Cardinals system during his minor league career.
The timing could not be better for Graceffo's first promotion to the major leagues. In four June starts for Memphis in the International League, the 6-4 righty went 4-0 with a 2.05 ERA spanning 22.0 innings pitched. Graceffo has been at his best in his two most recent outings, pitching a combined 11 scoreless innings in wins over Norfolk on June 13 (6 IP, 3 H, 1 BB, 7 SO) and Jacksonville on June 19 (5 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 4 SO). Looking at the 2024 season as a whole, Graceffo has made 14 starts for Memphis and is 8-5 with a 3.84 ERA and 70 strikeouts over 75.0 innings pitched. Opponents are hitting .247 against him.
Despite two of his three collegiate seasons being impacted by the COVID pandemic, Graceffo nevertheless stood out on a national stage during his Villanova career. That included his 2021 junior year in which he set a Wildcats single-season record with a 0.963 WHIP while holding opponents to a .221 batting average and a miniscule .262 slugging percentage against him in 82.0 innings pitched. Graceffo was 7-2 with a 1.54 ERA and 86 strikeouts for Villanova in 2021, with his ERA ranking as the fifth-best in a season in school history and his strikeout total ranking ninth in the program record book.
Graceffo was an ABCA All-East Region first team selection and an All-BIG EAST second team honoree for the 2021 season. Over the last 20 years he is the Wildcats only player to earn first team All-East recognition. He was named the BIG EAST Pitcher of the Week on March 8, 2021 after pitching a five-hit complete game shutout over Hofstra. Graceffo was an eight-time BIG EAST weekly Honor Roll selection in three collegiate seasons. He was 14-10 overall with a 2.86 ERA and 145 strikeouts over 179 1/3 innings in his Villanova career.
After the 2021 collegiate season, Graceffo made three starts for the Bourne Braves in the Cape Cod League and allowed just one run in three starts while going 1-0 with a 0.69 ERA and 13 strikeouts to improve his draft stock. Bourne was 24-9 in 2021 and Graceffo would become the first Braves player from that season to make his MLB debut. When he was drafted by the Cardinals in the fifth round of the 2021 draft, Graceffo was the first BIG EAST player to be chosen that year and he became the third pitcher from Villanova drafted by the Cardinals in the previous 10 years.
Graceffo is 23-14 with a 3.59 ERA and 327 strikeouts in 72 games (59 starts) in his minor league career. Prior to the 2024 season, Graceffo was ranked the No. 7 prospect in the Cardinals system by Keith Law of
The Athletic and came in at No. 8 on the team's
MLB Pipeline prospect list. Before the 2023 season he had been ranked the No. 58 overall MLB prospect by
Baseball Prospectus and was No. 79 according to Jonathan Mayo of
MLB.com.
The last Villanovan to reach the major leagues was outfielder
Matt Szczur who appeared in 363 games for the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres from 2014-18. He was a World Series champion with the Cubs in 2016 and finished his major league career with 136 hits, including 31 doubles and 12 home runs. Graceffo will become the Wildcats first pitcher to reach the major leagues since his own college coach
Kevin Mulvey who was a second round draft pick of the New York Mets in 2006 and went on to pitch in the majors with the Minnesota Twins and Arizona Diamondbacks in 2009 and 2010.
Villanova has a long history of producing successful professional baseball players. Six former Wildcats have been active in the minor leagues already in the 2024 season, highlighted by Graceffo and also including pitchers in the Philadelphia Phillies
(Danny Wilkinson), Seattle Mariners
(Jimmy Kingsbury) and Detroit Tigers
(Cole Patten) organizations as well as outfielder
Chris Rotondo (Cardinals).
