Four Tennessee baseball players officially entered the transfer portal on Friday morning. Outfielder Colby Backus and relief pitchers Austin Hunley, Thomas Crabtree and Brayden Sharp are all in the portal, a source told RTI.
None of the quartet of players had any sizable role for Tennessee this past season making the departures to the portal relatively unsurprising.
Backus spent three seasons at Tennessee after transferring in from Walters State ahead of the 2023 season. He redshirted in 2023 before playing in 49 games and totaling 47 at-bats in his final two seasons. Backus had success in midweek games in 2024 and was a pinch runner and defensive sub threat, playing in the College World Series after Hunter Ensley suffered an injury.
After hitting .387 with five home runs in 2024, Backus hit just .188 this past season. Backus has already played five seasons of college baseball but still have a year of eligibility remaining because of the Diego Pavia ruling giving former junior college athletes who are seniors during the 2024-25 academic year one more season of eligibility.
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Austin Hunley is the younger brother of former Tennessee star reliever Sean Hunley. It never fully clicked for the younger Hunley brother in his three seasons in Knoxville. Hunley posted a 2.79 ERA in 9.2 innings pitched in 2025 but didn’t throw in SEC play.
Crabtree transferred to Tennessee from Pearl River Community College ahead of the 2025 season but things never clicked for the West Tennessee native in Knoxville. The right-handed pitcher posted a 3.00 ERA in 15 innings pitched. Crabtree recorded one out in SEC play.
A two-way player, Sharp only pitched in his two seasons at Tennessee. The left-handed arm posted a 6.75 ERA in eight innings pitched in 2025. He recorded two outs in SEC play, allowing four earned runs in the process.
Tennessee has now lost seven players to the transfer portal with this quartet joining LHP Bryson Thacker, infielder Robinson Martin and 1B Jack Jones. None of the seven were serious contributors last season.
The Vols have landed four players in the transfer portal to this point in Big South Pitcher of the Year Clay Edmondson, SoCon Pitcher of the Year Brady Frederick, Kennesaw State’s Bo Rhudy and MIT’s Mason Estrada.
