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MLB

Shields Named Carolina League Pitcher of the Year 

Southpaw is first Fireflies player to win League Pitcher of the Year Award
By John Kocsis Jr.
September 16, 2025

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Columbia Fireflies, in conjunction with Major League Baseball and The Carolina League, announced today that David Shields has been named The Carolina League Pitcher of the Year. The 19-year-old also was named to the Carolina League All-Star Team. Shields is the first Fireflies player to win

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Columbia Fireflies, in conjunction with Major League Baseball and The Carolina League, announced today that David Shields has been named The Carolina League Pitcher of the Year. The 19-year-old also was named to the Carolina League All-Star Team.

Shields is the first Fireflies player to win a Pitcher of the Year Award. He’s also the Fireflies only All-Star in 2025 and joins Blake Mitchell, who was Columbia’s lone representative during the 2024 season.

Shields was placed on The Fireflies roster May 13 after one outing with The ACL Royals. He put The Carolina League on notice in his debut with the Augusta GreenJackets. The Pittsburgh native went four scoreless innings with five strikeouts against the divisional rival.

The 2024 second-round pick wasn’t done there. He started 18 games during the regular season for Columbia and finished with a 3-1 record to combine with a 2.01 ERA over 71.2 innings of work. Shields struck out 81 (10.17/9 innings) and maintained an impressive 1.02 WHIP.

The southpaw was among the League Leaders in a variety of categories. Among pitchers who worked at least 70 innings this season, he finished second in ERA to Melvin Hernandez (2.00). He finished with the third-lowest walk percentage in the circuit (5.2%) and also had the second-highest strikeout percentage (28.2%). He was the only player in the top five in the Carolina League in both of those categories. His WHIP was fourth in the League behind the leader Caden Scarborough (0.92). Finally, even when he allowed contact, Shields was great at limiting hard contact and was top-20 in the Carolina League in ground ball percentage.

Shields best run of the season came from July 18-August 26. The lefty went 27.1 innings without allowing an earned run. He whiffed 38 batters during the run. He also pitched in Columbia’s first-ever playoff game and earned the win in five one-run innings. He added a career-best eight strikeouts in the contest, which took place on his 19th birthday. Shields is also set to pitch Game Two of The Carolina League Championship Series tonight at Segra Park at 7:05 pm.

The Fireflies come home for Game Two of the Carolina League Championship Series against The Lynchburg Hillcats. The game is tonight at 7:05 pm. Fans can purchase tickets for just $5 at FirefliesTickets.com.

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