Zeldin Looks to Make His Mark with Minnesota

For college athletes in the early 2020s, the pandemic loomed as a death knell to their amateur careers. Within days, COVID rendered the playing fields barren and there was no telling when the games would resume. But one silver lining for scholar-athletes earlier this decade was that they were granted an extra year or two of eligibility due to the extenuating circumstances. And pitcher Brian Zeldin, a native of Marietta and alum of Pace Academy, was one such beneficiary.

After a marvelous career — as both a starting pitcher and outfielder — at Pace Academy during which the ballclub finished as the 5-AAA State runners-up his senior spring, Zeldin matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania. But his 2020 freshman campaign at UPenn amounted to one bullpen appearance as the action halted in mid-March and the following season was comprised of a truncated 14-game slate due to Ivy League restrictions. It was a downright maddening situation, but a unique opportunity soon arose when the NCAA announced that pandemic-affected athletes, such as Zeldin, could have an extra couple seasons of eligibility.

As Zeldin established himself as an effective bulk-inning reliever for Penn — even though his junior season was essentially a wash as he had to undergo Tommy John surgery — he fell on the radar screen of the University of Georgia. Shortly after graduating in May 2023, Zeldin joined the vaunted Bulldogs program as a graduate transfer and contributed out of the bullpen to a pair of NCAA tournament-qualifying squads.

After No.7-ranked Georgia bowed out of the NCAAs last spring, Zeldin’s baseball career was at a crossroads: He actually had the chance to do one more go-round at Athens because his junior year was wiped out due to injury, but wasn’t inclined to play another year of college ball. Not with the prospect of joining an MLB organization no longer being a pipe dream.

“I kind of got the sense that if I wanted to go and follow my dreams of trying to be a Major League Baseball player, that the best route was to go play professionally,” Zeldin explained.

Zeldin bet on himself and did indeed sign a pro contract — just not with a big-league team. After none of the 30 MLB franchises selected him at last July’s MLB Draft in Atlanta, Zeldin headed to Lexington, Ky., for a summer of independent league baseball.

Despite finishing with a tidy 2.61 ERA against quasi-big leaguers, no one in the big leagues came calling for his services as summer yielded to autumn and the holidays approached. But Zeldin, who earned a degree in healthcare markets and finance from UPenn, wasn’t quite ready to pursue business school or his first full-time job. The young man from Marietta knew he was capable of making high-leverage appearances — at least in the Minors and perhaps beyond — and stayed true to his professional goals.

“It [pitching well for an independent league baseball team] kind of gave me some reassurance in myself. I knew that there were teams that were interested, just that no one was really making moves at that time,” added Zeldin. “I was in Atlanta at home with my family and just grinding. I was working hard to improve my stuff so that when my time came, I could make a good first impression.”

At last, Zeldin’s time came this past February when the Minnesota Twins inked him to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training. And after a brief stint with the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels — Minnesota’s Single-A affiliate — Zeldin was fast-tracked to the franchise’s High-A affiliate, the Cedar Rapids Kernels, for whom he owns a respectable 4.22 ERA at this hour. As Zeldin was undrafted and is not among the Twins’ elite prospects, there is no specific timetable for his ascension through the ranks of the organization. The next step — if there is a next step — would be the Double-A ballclub in Wichita, Kan., but in all likelihood, Zeldin would have to prove that he can consistently retire Single-A batters across a larger sample size before there’s another promotion.

“I don’t have anything specifically communicated to me from the organization, it’s more so ‘I’m going to go and do my best every single day and try to get outs and go from there,” Zeldin, whose father played college ball in Binghamton, N.Y., and currently works in commercial real estate, acknowledged.

Though Zeldin has a clear pathway to one day donning a big-league uniform, the road ahead is a bumpy one. The Minor League lifestyle is incredibly arduous, full of long and monotonous bus rides through the hinterlands, roadside motels, fast food, low pay, sparse crowds, and great uncertainty. Understandably, many participants can’t justify hanging around past a couple seasons. But Zeldin’s of a different ilk and appears laser-focused on chasing his dream — even though there are relatively few undrafted players gracing big-league diamonds.

“Honestly, it [the Minors] really hasn’t been much of an adjustment. They set us up great.”

There are even fewer active Jewish big leaguers and should Zeldin carve out a solid career at the Minor League level, it seems feasible that Team Israel could be interested in bringing him aboard for the next World Baseball Classic in 2030.

“That [World Baseball Classic] would be really meaningful. That would be truly an honor, taking on something of that magnitude, something bigger than yourself.”