Grant Judkins

IOWA CITY — Marshalltown native and University of Iowa senior pitcher Grant Judkins signed a free agent contract with Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics on Monday night.

Judkins, who grew up in Marshalltown before his family moved to Pella, is a right-handed pitcher who was named the 2016 Iowa Gatorade Player of the Year in his senior season at Pella High School.

Judkins compiled a 2.90 earned run average over his four-year career at Iowa, which concluded with an abbreviated spring season in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. He was off to a 2-0 start with 24 strikeouts and only five walks in 21 innings pitched before the season was wiped out in mid-March.

The 6-foot-3, 220-pound Judkins was twice named the Big Ten Conference’s Pitcher of the Week. He was signed by Oakland as a free agent after MLB’s First-Year Player Draft was reduced to only five rounds. The draft was held June 10-11.

Judkins was an academic all-Big Ten honoree in his last three seasons as a Hawkeye.