Miami Baseball Preview

Against most odds, the University of Miami baseball team went to the College World Series before bowing out in the losers’ bracket last season.

This season, with pretty much the same team, the Hurricanes are looking for their first National Championship since 2001.

Ranked sixth in the country (according to Collegiate Baseball), Miami (42-26, 17-13 in the ACC) brings back its top arm in the rotation in junior Scott Maine (12-3, 4.57 ERA) and its bat at the top of the lineup in sophomore Jemile Weeks (.352 AVG, 6 HR, 40 RBI).

Maine was drafted in the 23rd round of the 2006 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft by the Colorado Rockies, but optioned to return to Coral Gables for the 2007 season.

Center fielder Jon Jay (.361, 6, 46), which started every game for the Hurricanes last year, was drafted 74th overall by the St. Louis Cardinals – perhaps to replace Jim Edmonds when he retires – and will not be back for his senior season with Miami.

Other players, the total is 10, that aren’t a part of this team are outfielder Tommy Giles (.339, 9, 45), third baseman Danny Valencia (.324, 9, 61), catcher Eddy Rodriguez (.318, 9, 34), infielder Walter Diaz (.284, 0, 12) and pitchers Chris Perez, Jon McLean, Andrew Lane, Marcelo Albir and Ricky Orta.

After pitching the last five innings in relief to get the Hurricanes passed the Ole Miss Rebels in the Oxford Regional and into the College World Series (with a little help from Valencia’s grand slam), Perez was also drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. Perez, however, was drafted 42nd overall.

Perez and Jay were two of seven players from the 2006 Miami team to be drafted and sign a professional contract.

The three biggest losses out of the bullpen are Perez, McLean and Orta – in my opinion, Lane didn’t throw enough innings to be missed.

Perez was among the elite as closers. He was 4-1 with a 1.79 ERA and 12 saves. He threw 55.1 innings, and five of those were in Game 3 of the Oxford Super Regional. He had a strikeout to walk ratio of nearly 2-to-1.

McLean made 28 appearances, going 1-0 with an ERA of 3.92. He threw in 41.1 innings and struck out 29 batters.

And Orta appeared in 18 games, starting five, but was the workhorse of that bullpen. He threw in 53 innings, going 2-2 with a 6.11 ERA. He struck out 47 batters while only walking 23.

The bats will be missed too. Valencia’s 61 RBIs may not have seemed as a big deal since freshman Yonder Alonso led the team with 69, but 14 of Valencia’s RBIs came in Regional and Super Regional play which led the team. Weeks was second with 12. Of the top five that led the team in hitting last year, four will be gone (Jay, Giles, Valencia and Rodriguez).

The most important question – of course, I am a little biased because I myself was a catcher – is: Who is going to handle the pitching staff?

In 42 games behind the plate last season, Richard O’Brien Jr. allowed two passed balls, and threw out 2 of the 13 runners (15 percent) which attempted to steal on him. Compare that to E-Rod, who was 15 for 38 (39 percent), and that percentage is awfully low.

Of course, you could argue that some of those were stolen against the pitcher, but unless you were at every game and followed every pitch, there’s no way to find out.

Could Jim Morris go with redshirt freshman Ben Vazquez out of Coral Gables Senior High? Quite possibly. However, he could also opt for true freshman Jason Hagerty from St. John Vianney High School in St. Louis.

Catcher is a position which you would, ideally, like some leadership at. I am not saying that a freshman can’t come in. But in college, much like the pros, someone who has been around the pitching staff usually flourishes behind the plate. With almost an entirely new staff coming in, however, Vazquez and Hagerty are not at a disadvantage because they would have just as much time to work with them as O’Brien Jr.

Speaking of Morris, he has been the guiding light for this program since he came here from Georgia Tech in 1994. He has since captured his 1,000th overall win and got his 600th win as a coach for Miami during the Lincoln Regional with an 11-2 win over San Francisco. The Hurricanes won the Lincoln Regional, the 13th straight Regional title for Miami, and went on to win the Oxford Super Regional.

The only other coach to achieve 600 wins is Ron Frazier. He went on to win another 671.
The Hurricanes have the NCAA record in consecutive post-season appearances (34), regional titles (13) and Super Regional appearances (8).

Though most of the team is the same, the roster is filled with a lot of freshmen and sophomores that have yet to see action at a Division 1 level. Fourteen of the 32 members on the roster as of Jan. 14 saw playing time last year. The other 18 players, however, are just freshmen and sophomores.

Prediction
So, after reading all of that, all that’s left is a prediction.

This team looks like (remember, I am saying looks like) it could make it to the ACC semifinals. With Maine as their No. 1 and Weeks as the No. 1 man in the line-up, the Hurricanes are in good shape. The rest of the arms, though, better hold up. The bats will be there, they always are.

A semifinal appearance would almost guarantee that Miami will be hosting a Regional and possibly a Super Regional bracket. If they host, they’re pretty much a lock into the College World Series. That’s a lot further down the line, though.