Mystery Man: Cam Leiter Awaits MLB Draft Fate

Cam Leiter walked off the mound at Dick Howser Stadium in Tallahassee on March 28, 2024 feeling as good about himself as a pitcher as he ever had.

Since his junior year of high school at Central Regional, Leiter steadily raised his game with each outing and on that Friday night in early spring, he pitched the kind of game that catapults a pitcher with his tools and pedigree toward the top of draft boards of Major League Baseball organizations.

It was not a perfect outing, but it was an exciting one for any scout looking for a big arm with strikeout stuff and even more room to improve: 5 2/3 innings, three hits, three runs (two earned), three walks and 12 strikeouts. As the for the radar gun, Leiter lit it up with a 98 mile-per-hour fastball.

That dominant outing for Florida State in an 8-3 win over Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) rival Louisville remains the last real game in which Leiter has pitched. After that start vs. Louisville, Leiter started experiencing discomfort in his right shoulder and after resting and building up on several occasions, he underwent surgery in October of 2024 and missed his entire junior season with the Seminoles.

“You never want to jump into shoulder surgery, so I just did my best to try to work through it,” Leiter said. “I was hoping maybe I could come back for the tournaments but it just didn’t improve the way it needed to.”

On the surface, it sounds like a missed opportunity caused by a poorly-timed injury, but Leiter’s name has remained on the minds of MLB scouting directors as day one of the 2025 MLB First-Year Player Draft approaches.

On Tuesday, Leiter threw a bullpen session in front of personnel from 23 Major League clubs at the Boras Corp’s Miami facility. In his first showcase for scouts of any kind since the Louisville game in 2024, Leiter reminded those in attendance what they were missing.

“It went really well,” Leiter said. “I hit a 96 (miles-per-hour), my secondaries had some good properties, good shape and I just felt really comfortable.

“I just wanted to let teams know that I’m still alive and still pitching.”

Scouts have been waiting to see Leiter all season for good reason. Despite missing half his sophomore season with the shoulder ailment, he entered the fall with a reputation as, perhaps, the best draft-eligible right-handed pitcher in the country in 2025. The general sentiment surrounding Leiter was that, if he demonstrates he is healthy, he could remain in the first-round conversation.

“I understand that I’m a unique case in the draft,” Leiter said. “I know on a lot of team’s models as far as my pitch shapes, spins, velocity, there was a lot of good stuff coming out of my sophomore year. It seems like there is some buzz within the last week, so we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully, people are surprised when they hear my name.”

Even after missing the last year-and-a-half, Leiter is ranked within or close to the top 100 prospects by Baseball America (87), MLB Pipeline (114) and ESPN (106) and none of those rankings have been updated since Leiter’s showcase bullpen in front of MLB scouts on Tuesday.

The Family Legacy

The benefits to being a part of the Leiter Family are obvious when it comes to pitching. Cam Leiter’s two uncles – Al and Mark – both spent more than a decade pitching in the Major Leagues, with Al winning two World Series and setting the record for most career strikeouts by a player born in New Jersey. Since retiring, Al has also carved out a successful career as an on-air analyst for MLB Network and the YES Network.

Cam’s father, Kurt Leiter, was also a standout pitcher as an amateur. He pitched at Oklahoma State University and signed with the Baltimore Orioles out of college, making it as far as Double-A.

Al and Mark Leiter both have sons who pitch in the Major Leagues and Cam is hoping to eventually join them. Al’s son, Jack, was the No. 2 overall pick out of Vanderbilt in 2022 and is a starting pitcher with the Texas Rangers. Mark Leiter Jr. worked his way to the Major Leagues as a 22nd round pick by the Philadelphia Phillies out of the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and has pitched out of the bullpen for the New York Yankees this season before a leg injury recently landed him on the injured list.

The Rangers connection came in handy when it was time for Cam to go through surgery. Leiter went to Dr. Keith Meister in October 2024 for his shoulder surgery, which Leiter called a “clean-out” operation that did not require inserting any physical anchors in his shoulder. Meister is the team physician of the Rangers.

“I was out of a sling in a matter of days with full mobility,” Leiter said. “It wasn’t like some of the shoulder surgeries you hear about like the labrum or rotator cuff, where they are actually doing something to change your body. With shoulders, it’s usually twelve to fourteen months to recover. I’m eight months post-op now and I’m ready to go.”

For all the perks of being a Leiter, it would seem the drawback is that the baseball Leiters have an all-too-familiar history with shoulder surgeries. Both Mark and Al suffered from a torn rotator cuff, with Al throwing just nine innings during a three-year stretch from 1990 and 1992 and Mark missing three entire seasons during his minor league development before finally debuting for the Yankees in 1990.

Cam could ask his uncles for encouragement while overcoming his injury, it was not hard to find the silver lining when comparing injuries.

“When Mark and Al got out of their surgeries, it was months later and they couldn’t throw a ball 45 feet,” Kurt Leiter said. “With Cam, he was throwing 90 miles-an-hour again within a few weeks, maybe a month or so. It was really encouraging, but it was also frustrating because I know he has felt like he could pitch, but there are things you run into with the shoulder when you’ve gone through surgery and you really have to make sure you are going through each step of the rehab plan.”

The younger generation of Leiters in the Major Leagues has also been a resource for Cam Leiter. When Cam moved to Bayville from the Vancouver area before the 2019-20 school year, he began spending more time working out with Mark Jr. was rehabbing from his own injury – a torn UCL that required Tommy John Surgery in March of 2019.

Cam and Mark have since worked out frequently during the offseason and Cam has picked up the splitter from Mark Jr. Cam has favored a straight changeup in year’s past but has moved toward the splitter during his rehab.

“I’m always playing around with my pitch mix, especially working with Mark,” Cam said. “He has been trying to get me to go to the splitter for a while and I’m finally starting to work it in.”

Cam Leiter said he has also added a sinker to his repertoire, giving him two new pitches to work in with his four-seam fastball, curveball and slider.

“I remember hearing an interview with (Houston Astros pitcher and 2025 All-Star) Hunter Brown and he said adding the two-seam fastball to pair with his four-seem has been huge for him,” Leiter said. “I think I have some similarities to him as a pitcher and I thought that made a lot of sense listening to him talk about it. Hitters can’t sit on one fastball, which makes both pitches even tougher to hit.”

School Pride

Heading into the 2025 season, Leiter felt as though he was close to returning to the mound, but he was still not far enough along in his rehabilitation to be medically cleared. He was torn between his desire to get back on the mound to help his Seminoles team and his long-term career goals.

“I told (Meister) my goal is to pitch until I’m 40,” Leiter said. “As bad as I wanted to be on the mound this spring, I know I can’t be too short-minded. It was really tough not being able to compete with my guys, especially during tournament time. I thought I could maybe be finishing my rehab right around the start of the ACC Tournament, but it was just a really tight window based on my rehab schedule.”

Leiter transferred to Florida State after a year at the University of Central Florida, where he struggled early in the season before settling in and solidifying his spot in the Knights rotation. Over Leiter’s final eight starts of his freshman season, he pitched to a 2.57 ERA with 51 strikeouts, 20 walks and 24 hits allowed in 35 innings.

His struggles during the early part of his freshman year were the only true adversity Leiter had to face since settling in at Central, where he was a two-time All-Shore selection and the 2022 Shore Sports Network Baseball Player of the Year.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned in dealing with adversity, whether it’s not pitching like I want to or going through an injury, is you can’t get stuck looking back or looking too far ahead,” Leiter said. “Everyone goes through their own battles and for the people who handle it, you just keep stacking days. You can’t worry about what people think.”

With rapidly-improving command and velocity by the end of 2023, Leiter drew significant interest in the transfer portal and chose Florida State.

Leiter said he has been told by his representation at the Boras Corp that he is eligible for a medical red-shirt season were he to return to college baseball next season. That would give him a chance to pitch for the highest bidder in the portal, but Leiter has already made it clear that if he does choose to return to school and prove himself for the 2026 Draft, it will be for Florida State.

“It was important to me that I keep my eligibility (in college),” Leiter said. “It would be special to go out and show what I can do on a college mound. I didn’t get to leave the legacy I wanted at Florida State. I’m really thankful to FSU and all the coaches there who have been in my corner, so to be able to go back and represent the school for one more year, I would consider that a great opportunity.”

Lights, Cam, Action: The Draft Approaches

Leiter returning to Florida State, remains the less likely outcome based on his positive showcase on Tuesday and the growing appetite for teams to take a risk on a player who could pay off. At an athletic 6-foot-5, 230 pounds with a track record of throwing 98 miles-per-hour, a five-pitch mix and four relatives with MLB experience on his family tree, it is hard to fathom 30 teams letting Leiter make it through day 1 of the MLB Draft, which will last 105 picks on Sunday.

Kurt and Cam now live in Tampa, which is where Cam was born in January, 2004. Cam’s mother, Nicole Caldwell, is from the Pacific Northwest and Cam grew up there for most of his childhood prior to moving back to Bayville for his sophomore year of high school. While his two cousins have completed their journey to the Major Leagues first, Cam is the only Leiter of his generation to pitch at the same high school that his father and uncles attended.

“He does stuff on the mound that none of us could do,” Kurt said of Cam. “Athletically, he does some things that I don’t think everybody sees, but they are next-level. His mechanics are almost flawless. And he is better mentally than us, speaking of me and my brothers. It’s at the point that, when we talk about pitching, I’m listening to him now.”

The last 15 months have not gone according to plan and the lost time due to injury may have cost Leiter several million dollars in signing bonus money, but the dream of joining his two cousins in the Major Leagues is now back on track.

“There is no Plan A,” Leiter said. “I feel like I have multiple good options, so my mindset is to sit back, let Sunday unfold and then see where we’re at. I would love to join an organization that is excited to bring me in and help me develop, but if going back to school and proving myself for 2026 is the best option, I would be excited for that too.

“Really, I’m just thankful to be in this situation and I’m excited to see how it all unfolds.”