2022 Roster Discussion

Advertisement
Per Stock at 247, we picked up JUCO OF Zach Levenson from State College of Florida. He also confirmed the addition of Burke.
Also notable that Levenson was Class of 2020 and is listed by PG as 19 years old, so not draft eligible next year. Really a direct replacement for Born classwise.
 
.975 OPS and 12 HR's last season. Yes, please.
Context is important when it comes to Juco players, where insane offensive numbers are the norms.

He hit .291/.395/.585 for his team. 17.0% K%, 11.7% BB%.

McLennan Juco, the national champion, hit .317/.416/.545 as a TEAM.

The average Juco recruit who goes D1 in my database hit .314/.425/.541 with 17.3% K% and 16.2% BB%.

Most likely, the kid is a depth piece.
 
Returning IF: Kayfus, Izarra, Pitelli, Morales

Incoming IF: Burke, Wallen, Garcia, Gonzalez

Returning OF: Rosario, Long

Incoming OF: Levenson, Carrier, Villegas, Gonzalez, Gutierrez

Returning DH: Gates

Returning C: Perez

Incoming C: Romero, Jones

Returning P: Palmquist, Rosario, Garland, McFarlane, Dubberly, Bodanza, Walters, Arguelles, Regalado, Fairweather

Incoming P: Gallo, Torres, Ziehl, Ligon, Anello, Rossow, Schlesinger, Henry
 
Advertisement
So, no CDC - sort of what I expected, unfortunately. I assume this is based on enrollments w classes starting today?
 
Three returning everyday starters. A few of the incoming freshmen or returning sophomores will really have to step up if we are to have any hope of scoring runs. Although, it couldn't be much worse than last season's under-achievers.
 
Advertisement
Jim Martz: To the Miami Hurricanes’ baseball fans who think the sky is falling on the baseball program because more than a dozen players have left the program, consider this: The sky also is falling at Florida, Florida State and throughout the nation.
The Gators have lost nine in the transfer portal, six of them pitchers, and seven others have signed pro contracts. The Seminoles reportedly have lost seven starters who played at least 40 games last season.
And two traditional powers who played in the College World Series in June have been hammered by the portal. Arizona lost 14 via the portal, including star freshman Jacob Berry, who hit .352 with 17 home runs and moved on to LSU. National champion Mississippi State lost 12 to the portal.
So this is college baseball in the era of the transfer portal and the COVID-19 pandemic that led to players gaining an extra year of eligibility.
At UM, nine players have transferred to other schools through the portal, two decided to stop playing baseball, and four with eligibility remaining signed pro contracts. The latter is a typical number, but the transfer portal that has had an impact in basketball and football is now turning baseball upside down.
Time to bring back the great Abbott and Costello routine of Who’s on First, What’s on Second ...?
“It’s over 3,000 kids who transferred this summer,” Miami coach Gino DiMare said in an interview with CaneSport.com. “There are 300 schools, so that averages to 10 players per program.
“It’s a perfect storm. The COVID hit and backed everybody up because it gave everybody an extra year. Everybody has an extra year you weren’t counting on. For us, we had a number of seniors who graduated. They normally without COVID might have been gone after 2020 because they were draft eligible.”
DiMare added, “They (NCAA) didn’t increase the scholarships from a total of 11.7. What would they like us to do, have 50 players and 20 guys on scholarship? It’s impossible, you can’t do it. If people knew what we had to deal with maybe they’d understand a little bit better.
“Got to divide 11.7 among all the players, it is not easy to do. And you’ve got to deal with the draft. That’s why we have what we have.”
DiMare, a former Hurricanes player and long-time assistant coach, became the head coach in 2019 after Jim Morris retired. His first team went 41-20 and reached the NCAA regional final at Mississippi State. In 2020 the Canes were ranked No. 1 at one point and were 10-4 when the NCAA shut down the season due to the pandemic.
This past season they topped the rankings briefly after winning two of three at top-ranked Florida to open the season. The ended the season back at Gainesville, dropping two of three games in the Regional (the Gators went 0-2) and finishing with a 33-21 record.
DiMare pointed out that after the shortened 2020 season “Then the NCAA gives players an extra year and there’s only five rounds (in the Major League Baseball draft), they don’t get drafted. So they come back. Their fourth year was last year, they graduate and they have an extra year. Normally these kids would have been gone in 2020. Now you’ve got a pile of players because you’re bringing all these recruits coming in and you’ve got all these other guys who didn’t have good years, they didn’t get drafted, they wanted to sign. Now what do you do?
“Now the one thing the NCAA didn’t do is they didn’t increase the scholarships. Rosters were unlimited. Now they are limited. It’s going to wean itself down. Having said that we only have 35 players on our team right now. They didn’t increase the 11.7 scholarships. The good news for us is all of our seniors graduated.”
The Hurricanes who signed pro contracts: Adrian del Castillo, Anthony Vilar, Jake Smith and Daniel Federman.
Of those who transferred, only one position player was a starter during the NCAA Regional at Gainesville - senior infielder Alex Toral. He’s headed to FSU following a season in which he hit only .264 with seven home runs.
The others who transferred or left the program:
* Raymond Gil, a senior who was the designated hitter most of the season (.292, 8 HR).
* Victor Mederos, sophomore pitcher who appeared in 12 games, started eight, was 2-3 with a 5.11 ERA. He’s reportedly going to Oklahoma State.
* Chad Born, sophomore outfielder (16 games, 5 starts, .136), returned home to California to a junior college .
*Adam Frank, junior infielder-outfielder, hit .158 in 13 games, transferred to Nova Southeastern.
* Luis Espinal, sophomore infielder, 3 games, 3 at bats, .000. Believed to be at a junior college.
* Gabe Rivera, senior outfielder, .247 average, 33 games, 26 starts, graduated and transferred to Nova Southeastern.
* Tony Jenkins, senior outfielder, played 39 games, started 25, .163, is graduating and believed to be transferring for his last year of eligibility.
* Jordan Lala, outfielder, started 51 games, .229 with 4 home runs, 18 RBI, said last spring he would transfer.
* Jared Thomas, sophomore catcher/outfielder, .208 in 19 games.

I’m as motivated as much as anybody to get our program to where I expect it to be, which I promise you is as high as anybody - my expectations for myself and leading this program. I don’t accept what happened last year.
— Gino DiMare

There are two other players who could have come back: Alex Munroe, sophomore left-handed pitcher (6 games, 0-0). “is done with baseball,” DiMare said. And Adrian Del Castillo’s brother Christian, who transferred to Miami last season from Seton Hall, finished graduate school “and wants to get into the business world,” DiMare said. Christian started every game and hit .369.
“You can’t keep everybody and bring in all these guys,” DiMare said “And you didn’t plan for this. How could you plan for this when you’re recruiting guys years in advance? How did you know guys were going to be here for five years. We would never have a guy here on scholarship for five years that I can recall. Normally they’re here for three, occasionally guys are here for four.
“Well known players are going to be in different uniforms. Again the portal allowed this. If you didn’t have the portal then I’m not sure what you’d do, to be honest with you. It’d be a mess on the scholarship side. But the portal has created a mess ... I think moving forward the extra year will be over with. Our sophomore class and the incoming class has nothing to do with getting an extra year, but you still have some leftover guys who have an extra year. Until that gets cleared out, I think you’ll see the portal come down a little bit but the portal is still a mess.
“You’re giving a kid an opportunity to leave at the end of a season and kids nowadays - I’m giving you a reason why our situation - but I can’t deny this - there are going to be kids unhappy they’re not playing. The grass is greener somewhere else.”
DiMare added, “I think you’re going to see more players that are going to transfer. More than you ever have in college baseball, as long as there’s a transfer portal. And you’re going to see that in other sports. I think the numbers will come down when nobody’s getting that extra year.”
As for the Hurricanes’ fans who wonder if the sky is falling, DiMare said, “It’s not falling. We’re disappointed in our season last year. As far as recruiting is going we had the number one class in the country last year, we got a lot of players back from that class. The class from this year should be extremely good.
“The program is in a good place, not where I want it to be. We need to get to Omaha playing for the national championship, but I feel good about where we got the program going on 2019, I felt really good about 2020, unfortunately the COVID situation hit us, I think we had as good a team as anybody in the country, the pitching staff was as good as anybody in the country. We didn’t get to show it. And we lost all those guys - the Friday, Saturday and Sunday starters and the shortstop, our best all around player, Freddie Zamora.
“Last year extremely disappointed, a very long off season for us. We were very young on the mound. The disappointment is we didn’t score runs and that was a veteran lineup.
“I’m as motivated as much as anybody to get our program to where I expect it to be, which I promise you is as high as anybody - my expectations for myself and leading this program. I don’t accept what happened last year. I feel good about our team and where our recruits are in terms of last year and this year. I get that everybody thinks the sky is falling with all the guys leaving but it’s not just a Miami thing. There’s a lot that’s going on throughout the entire country.”
The 2021-2022 Hurricanes return several talented players, including three who earned Freshman All-American honors - closer Carson Palmer, third baseman Yohandy Morales, and righthander Alejandro Rosario. Palmquist, who also made two All-American first teams, will be given a chance to earn a starting spot, DiMare said.
Other returnees include sophomore Dominic Pitelli, the starting shortstop, and sophomore outfielder-infielder C.J. Kayfus, who played in 40 games.
The likely starting catcher will be a player they picked up through the portal, Maxwell Romero, from College World Series runner-up Vanderbilt. Romero, who is from Miramar, started 15 games last season and had 14 RBI and 4 home runs, including one in Game 2 of the CWS against Mississippi State.
In the rapidly changing world of college sports, there’s something else that could be a factor in recruiting and among current players: Name, Image, Likeness. And that raises the question as to whether that would be a way to attract walk-ons.
“It’s all new to everybody,” DiMare said. “It gives the athletes who are here an opportunity to make money through their name, image and likeness. There are a lot of rules players need to be aware of as to what they can and can not do, but this being so new it’s kind of a wide open thing.
“For me to comment on what a walkon player making money - I don’t know how that works. All of our players have the ability to use their name, image and likeness to make money. How that’s going to work I don’t know. We’ve had multiple meetings with our team. Nobody’s involved in that as of now but I’m sure at some point they will. It’s a big umbrella. Anything they do they can’t use the UM brand because that’s obviously protected by the university. It has to be solely on their own.”
So this is the revolving door of college baseball today: transfer portals, extra year of eligibility, NIL.
It really is fitting to bring back what Time magazine proclaimed was the best comedy sketch of the 20th century: “Who’s On First?”
 
We don't think the sky is falling because some role players or underperforming players left: We know it's falling because our head coach is not very good and his players can't stand him.
Would this be considered his 3rd rebuild?

initial with the BVD and Slade…

last year with his upper class men hitters who all regressed

and now these two classes (including #1) he is parading as the saviors
 
Advertisement
Dimare: "We had too many 5th year bums and disappointing veterans"
Capture.PNG
 
Still no official roster posted a week into school. I’m assuming from omission in that article that Bodanza and Dubberly are confirmed back.

Doesn’t seem like anyone other than Toral and Mederos landed on their feet (could make some case for Gil at least staying D1 and likely getting playing time in the field) after transferring.

If Palmquist does get a genuine chance to earn a starting spot, he’s going to earn it.
 
Roster is up but looks like a work in progress. No Carrier, Anello, Henry, Torres, Regalado.

 
Advertisement
I'm optimistic that the fact that there are no staff listed other then the S & C coach means they were all canned like tuna ...
Happy Joy GIF by MASTERPIECE | PBS
 
I noticed Powell late last night and have been hitting refresh every 5 minutes today.

We'll do it live ***** it. Wish they would hurry up and add Lo Carrier.
 
Advertisement
Back
Top