By Jonathan Owens | jonathan@rantnc.com
Last summer was a whirlwind for Sanford’s Luke Craig. One minute, he was helping UNC-Wilmington win the Coastal Athletic Association tournament and the first game of the NCAA Regional against Georgia Tech.
A few weeks later, the Arizona Diamondbacks drafted him in the seventh round of the 2024 MLB Draft and shipped him off to training camp. A month after that, he was on the mound for the Visalia Rawhide, the Diamondbacks’ Single-A affiliate in the central valley of California.
“Last year was pretty wild,” Craig recalled from the Diamondbacks’ Spring Training in Scottsdale, Ariz., in late February. “It all happens quickly. It was all in a blink of an eye.”
He made seven appearances for Visalia last year, compiling a 1.13 ERA and striking out 11 in just eight innings of work. He said it was a culmination of a dream he had his whole life.
“(Playing professionally) was always the dream and the goal for me,” he said. “That’s something I work for every day. Mentally, I’ve always believed I was going to make it.”
A conference MVP with 101 career strikeouts at Southern Lee High School, Craig had a remarkable junior year at UNCW that propelled him up the draft board. He allowed just one run over his last 15 innings pitched in 2024 as a redshirt junior, compiling a 4-1 record (including a win against College World Series-bound N.C. State) and 1.83 ERA to earn First Team All-CAA honors as a reliever.
Analysts expected him to go in the 8th to 10th round pre-draft. He said he spoke with every team but one and worked out for several, including the Royals.
“The draft was obviously an unbelievable feeling,” he said. “I got a call initially that I was going to the Royals in the eighth round. Then I got a call back about three minutes later that we were going to the Diamondbacks with the next pick (in the seventh).”
He’s still adjusting to the pro game, he said: “There’s not as much room for error. The little things always matter in college, but they matter a lot here. Mistakes that you maybe got away with in college or high school, you can’t get away with that anymore. You have to be somewhat of a perfectionist.”
Craig was part of a rotation that included four future Division I pitchers in his senior year at Southern Lee, along with Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Thomas Harrington. That squad had its dream season cut short by the COVID pandemic. The Cavaliers seemed destined for a deep playoff run — until the whole world came to a stop.
He said he stays in touch with his Cavs teams, and they still talk about what might have been.
“It still hurts to talk about it to this day,” he said. “It was an unbelievable team — not just the talent we had but the group of people that we were with every day. It just sucks that we got cut short mainly for that reason.”
He hasn’t been assigned to a team for the upcoming season yet but thinks he’ll be in High-A with the Hillsboro Hops. His ultimate goal is to play on the biggest stage, but he’s taking it one day at a time.
“I’m trying to be where my feet are and make it (to the big leagues) as quick as possible,” Craig said. “I’m just trying to succeed every single day. I’m focusing on all the right things. If I have a good year and continue to move up, that’ll all
handle itself.”