Cole Percival was drafted by the Diamondbacks in the 31st round out of Riverside Poly High School in 2017, but he chose to go to UC Riverside to play for his dad, former Angels closer Troy Percival. That ended up being a good thing for the Dodgers.
Three years later, as Maria Torres of The Athletic explains, Percival was faced with a tough choice. The UCR baseball program seemed likely to be cut and Percival hadn’t been drafted in the pandemic-shortened 2020 draft, so his options were to transfer and play his last year of college ball somewhere else or try to sign with a team for the $20,000 allowed amount.