Declaring the time was right, University of Hawaii pitcher Cade Smith reached an agreement on a free-agent contract with the Cleveland Indians.

Smith is the third UH junior to find employment in professional baseball in the past week. Jeremy Wu-Yelland was the Boston Red Sox’s fourth-round pick in last week’s Major League Baseball Draft for First-Year Players. On Sunday, the first day teams could offer free-agent contracts to draft-eligible players, Carter Loewen signed with the San Diego Padres.

Similar to Wu-Yelland and Loewen, Smith relinquished an opportunity to return to UH for a second junior season and take a chance on next year’s 20-round draft. Because of the pandemic, this year’s draft was shortened to five rounds — down from recent 40-round drafts. The NCAA granted a waiver that allows this year’s spring-sport players to retain their class standing for another year.

“A big part of it is me feeling like I’m ready, that I have matured and developed to the point where I’m ready to begin and go after it in professional baseball,” Smith said.

Smith, a right-hander, was 1-0 with a 4.92 ERA this past pandemic-abbreviated season. He averaged 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings. He struck out nine in six innings of relief against Oregon. Smith, who aspires to a post-baseball career in medicine, is a biology major with a 3.95 cumulative grade-point average. Smith said his decision was two-fold.

“This is a unique situation where I’m able to choose the organization I want to go to, and take a team that I think would be a really good fit for me and has really good pitcher development,” Smith said. “Part of being a biology major, I have a lot of homework and not necessarily a lot of time. For me to be able to focus on one pursuit is going to be able to benefit me rather than having my time and energy split between two different ones.”

Five teams showed interest in Smith.

“It was a very unique situation being able to have meetings with guys in player development of various organizations,” Smith said, “and hearing about how they develop players, their philosophies, stuff like that, and to choose the organization I feel is the best for me.”

Smith, who was born and reared in British Columbia, pitched for Canada’s U18 national team. He was the Minnesota Twins’ 16th-round pick in the 2017 MLB draft, but opted to attend UH.

“He’s a great kid, and we’re happy for him,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said. “We’ll root for Cade.”

Smith said he has not been told of his pitching role in the Indians’ organization. “I would hope starter,” Smith said. “We’ll see. I’m excited to get to the facility there and start working.”