Former Waterloo High School pitching star Erik Kaiser has signed a free agent professional baseball contract with the New York Mets, his family confirmed Friday.

“We’re all pretty excited,” his mother Karen Kaiser said. 

The 6-foot-5 hard-throwing righthander went 1-0 with 10 strikeouts in five innings pitched during an abbreviated season this spring as a junior at Vanderbilt University.

“It all came about quickly over the past couple of weeks,” Erik Kaiser told the Republic-Times on Friday.

Erik said he will be training locally until the Mets give him instructions on where to report.

“Every kid that plays baseball dreams about playing professionally, so I mean I was really excited,” Erik said of his new opportunity. “I don’t think it has even set in completely for me yet, if I’m being honest.”

Erik, a 2017 WHS graduate, is the son of Jeff Kaiser, who played for Missouri State and then in the San Francisco Giants organization.

Erik’s former WHS teammate, fellow hard-throwing righty Cole Milam, signed a free agent contract with the Boston Red Sox in June following a successful spring at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.