Swiss right-hander Fabio Bundi to play for UCLA in NCAA Division I
Swiss National Team right-hander Fabio Bundi will have the chance to get to the next level in his College Baseball path in the United States. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) signed the 22-year-old on November 12. According to the Los Angeles Times, UCLA accepted Bundi as a student, pending the results of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
Bundi, who played for the Zurich Barracudas, the 2025 runner-up in the Swiss National League (National Liga 1), spent the 2025 season with Monterey Peninsula College. He posted an 8-2 record with a 2.20 earned run average (ERA) and 101 strikeouts in 86 innings during his freshman season. In September, Bundi led Switzerland to 11th place in the European Championship, their best-ever result. He started two games, against Greece and Sweden, and struck out 12 in 10 innings pitched.
Bundi impressed UCLA's head coach John Savage with a 95-mile-per-hour fastball and a 12-to-6-curveball.
"My life is baseball," the LA Times quoted Bundi, who added he "admires" Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto, an Olympic gold medalist and a WBSC Premier12 winner.
Bundi will become the first player developed in Switzerland to compete in the NCAA Division 1 Big Ten Conference.