KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Six former Vols are set to participate in 2020 instruction leagues for their respective MLB organizations this fall.

Jay Charleston (Kansas City), Zach Daniels (Houston), Zach Linginfelter (Los Angeles Angels), Andre Lipcius (Detroit), Alerick Soularie (Minnesota) and Garrett Stallings (Los Angeles Angels) have all been invited to take part in their organizations’ mini camps.

These instructional leagues will provide minor league players the opportunity to take part in live game action for the first time this year after the 2020 minor league baseball season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

All six former UT standouts were selected in either the 2019 or 2020 drafts, and for the majority of them, this will be their first taste of professional baseball.

Charleston was picked by the Kansas City Royals with the 769th overall pick in the 26th round of the 2019 draft and appeared in 36 games for the Burlington Royals (Rookie Advanced) in 2019. The Longwood, Florida, native scored 24 runs and stole 16 bases in those 36 games.

Charleston led the SEC in steals during his senior season at Tennessee, finishing with 38 in the regular season and 41 total for the year, which is tied for ninth most in program history in a single season. He was the first SEC player since former Vol Chris Burke in 2001 (49) to steal 40 or more bases in a season. His 67 career stolen bases rank fifth all-time at Tennessee.

Daniels was the third UT player selected in the 2020 MLB Draft, going to the Astros in the fourth round (No. 131). The Stockbridge, Georgia, native was in the midst of a breakout year in 2020 prior to the season being cut short, and despite playing just 17 games, he had already set career highs in runs (20), hits (20), doubles (eight), RBI (18) and stolen bases (three).

Daniels was leading the team in batting average (.357), runs, doubles, RBI and slugging percentage (.750) before the season was canceled and was named the Round Rock Classic Most Valuable Player after helping lead the Big Orange to a perfect 3-0 weekend against some of the country’s top competition. During his three seasons on Rocky Top, Daniels combined to hit 13 home runs and drive in 44 runs. He also hit 11 doubles and scored 49 runs.

Linginfelter was the final Tennessee player taken in the 2019 draft. The junior right hander was selected with the 271st pick in the ninth round by the Angels. Linginfelter set new career highs with 16 games started, 68.2 innings pitched and six wins during his junior season while also tying a career best with 71 strikeouts. He was named SEC Pitcher of the Week on March 25 after throwing six shutout innings and striking out 13 batters in a win over Indiana. The Sevierville, Tennessee, native racked up 12 wins, five saves and 203 strikeouts while holding opponents to a .236 batting average during his three seasons in Knoxville.

Lipcius was the first Volunteer picked in the 2019 draft, going to the Detroit Tigers with the 83rd overall pick in the third round. At the time, he was the highest-drafted Tennessee player since current Cincinnati Reds’ outfielder Nick Senzel went No. 2 overall back in 2016 and was the 27th player in program history to be selected in the top three rounds. After being drafted, Lipcius played in 67 games for Detroit’s Single-A affiliate West Michigan Whitecaps, posting a .273 batting average with 32 runs scored, 16 doubles, two homers and 29 RBI.

The Williamsburg, Virginia, native started every game for the Vols at first base as a freshman before becoming the team’s starting shortstop as a sophomore. Lipcius started all 61 games for the Vols at third base in 2019 while setting career highs in runs (51), hits (73), doubles (15), home runs (17), RBI (58), slugging percentage (.586), walks (31), on-base percentage (.399) and stolen bases (10). Lipcius’ 16 regular-season home runs ranked second in the SEC while his 56 RBI and .600 slugging percentage both ranked seventh in the conference. For his career, Lipcius had a slash line of .300/.393/.483 and totaled 190 hits, 122 runs scored, 25 homers and 126 RBI.

Soularie was one of the most productive hitters in the SEC as a sophomore in 2019. The Houston, Texas, native led the Vols in batting average (.357), slugging percentage (.602), on-base percentage (.466) and runs scored (52) while ranking second on the team in hits (70), home runs (11), runs batted in (46) and total bases (118), placing him among the top five in the league in batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. After his breakout sophomore season, Soularie earned numerous postseason honors, including first team All-SEC recognition as well as All-America honors from D1Baseball.com and Perfect Game.

Despite a slow start in 2020, Soularie was hitting his groove entering SEC play before the season was canceled. The preseason All-American led the team with five home runs and ranked second on the squad with 17 runs batted in during the shortened 2020 season. In UT’s final game of the year – a 17-5 victory over ETSU – Soularie had three hits, including a pair of home runs, and tied a career high with four RBI.

Stallings was the second Tennessee player off the board in the 2019 draft after being selected with the 151st overall pick in the fifth round by the Los Angeles Angels. At the time he was the highest-drafted UT pitcher since Bryan Morgado went in the fourth round of the 2010 draft. The junior right hander had a career year for the Big Orange in 2019, leading the team with 16 games started, eight wins, 102.2 innings pitched and 106 strikeouts, which were all career bests. Stallings was the SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year and was also named the SEC Pitcher of the Week twice, becoming the first Tennessee player to accomplish that feat since James Adkins back in 2007.

At the conclusion of the 2019 regular season, Stallings was the SEC leader in innings pitched (92.1), strikeout-to-walk ratio (7.54) and walks allowed per nine innings (1.27). His 98 punchouts and eight victories also ranked sixth in the league at season’s end. The Chesapeake, Virginia, native had a career earned run average of 3.76 and posted a 16-14 overall record in 52 career appearances (35 starts). After recording just 76 strikeouts in his first two seasons, Stallings saw a massive increase with 106 punchouts as a junior and finished with 182 for his UT career.

Opening Statement

“When you look at this game this week, it’s a great opportunity for us playing against a really good football team. When you look at Kentucky, to me I’m looking at them over the last four or five years, they continue to get better every year. They’re a physical team. They’re very well coached. They play together. They’ve played in a lot of close games and won a lot of close games over the last couple of years. It’ll be a tremendous challenge for us to find out a little bit about who we are. We’ve had a couple of good days of practice here. It’s going to be a fast turnaround with an early kick on Saturday and we’re looking forward to it. We need to play a clean game. We need to play together, and we need to bring a lot of fight and perseverance with us because it’ll be one of those games.”

On other SEC games being postponed and Alabama head coach Nick Saban testing positive for COVID-19…

“It’s the reality. I don’t think there’s probably not any family across our country that has not been affected during this pandemic. Whether it’s somebody losing a family member or somebody getting COVID and missing work and going through the anxiety and trying to get well. We see it every day with our players, with our staff. I send my kids to school. I send them to school because they need it, and I also know that there’s a risk with that, so I get it. I hate it for anybody that has suffered through this. It’s tough times. But, one thing I will say, with the leadership of Greg Sankey and everybody at the SEC office, we’ve continued since March to find solutions, to find the answers to the problems and to give these student-athletes an opportunity to do something that they love to do and try to do it in the safest way possible. Obviously, it has been a tough day.”

On if he feels they’ve been able to fix a lot of the issues that happened in the Georgia game…

“I need to take about 15 of those players over there on Georgia’s defense and put them over here to work against our offense every day to try to fix some of those problems. We made some mistakes in the game, but I’ve talked about this before, they had a lot to do with that. We got whipped in the second half. We admit that and we got to find a way to fix it. I feel like we got people in our program that are trying to find the solutions to our issues and we’re going to work hard to fix them.”

On how much he can sense how well his team will perform in a given week given the unique circumstances of this season…

“The reality of it is, we take a test tomorrow, which will be our third one of the week, and the kids work really hard to get prepared all during the week, at every school. But, until that third test comes back negative, these guys don’t know if they’re going to be able to play or not. There’s just a lot of anxiety, not only through our program but every program. It’s something that we understand. I feel like our team has handled it in a very positive way and we’ve got to continue to do that.”

On the play of freshman OLB Tyler Baron…

“Tyler’s a smart kid, has really good size, has good athleticism, he works hard at practice, he’s got some toughness to him. He’s a guy that got to practice most of fall camp, so he took advantage of it. He knows that he’s got to continue to work hard to improve and he’s working hard to do that every day.”

On the COVID-19 situation at Tennessee …

“We’ve had no positive tests for I think three weeks now. As you can see, it can change in one day. I think our players and our staff and everyone in our program is working hard to follow the CDC guidelines and wear your mask. Again, when you go home at night, I have a three and a five-year-old that are in school. They are wearing their masks, but they also possibly take it off some during the day too. For me, I understand that, but it is something that I think all of us have to make a choice and decide what is best moving forward.”

On J.J. Peterson’s progression…

“J.J. is taking a couple weeks away from the team. He’s not been with us for a couple of weeks.”

On Kentucky’s Eddie Gran’s offense…

“The first thing that you look at in an Eddie Gran offense is their physicality. They’re committed to running the football, and they’ve had success running it against everybody. The creativity that he does each week and how he does it is very impressive to me from a conceptual standpoint, just watching them and studying them. It’s a huge challenge for us, but I think Eddie does a phenomenal job.”

On the challenge Kentucky’s defense brings…

“They play hard. I said this earlier in the day that I had the opportunity follow coach (Mark) Stoops at Florida State, so a lot of those guys that I coached, he recruited. I didn’t have to teach them how to practice. I didn’t have to teach them how to play hard. They were tough. They were physical. They were really good at the fundamentals. You can see it with his Kentucky teams. They give you a lot of different looks. They’ve recruited big, long athletes, guys that have really good ball skills. They play together, give you a lot of different looks, so they create issues.”

On Cade Mays development…

“Cade is really a guy that can play every position on the offensive line. He played right tackle against Missouri and a little bit of right guard. Obviously, we’ve had a little bit of the injury bug up front on the offensive line, so to get the right combination up there he played right guard against Georgia. We’ll continue to work him at right tackle and right guard as we go through the season.”

-UT Athletics