By
Pete Pelegrin
Twitter: @Petepelegrin
To say there are "some" new players on the FIU baseball team is an understatement. The Panthers opened practice for the 2018 season Friday night at the FIU ballpark with more than half of its roster comprised of players that weren't at FIU last season.
The Panthers, 31-27 last season, graduated 14 seniors from last year's team and lost three juniors to the Major League Baseball Draft. Overall, FIU had six players drafted to tie for the second most in program history.
FIU welcomed 17 new players to the fold on Friday, including several from the nation's No. 1 2017 signing class.
With all the new faces FIU coach
Mervyl Melendez and his staff have almost an entire new team to work with before the season opener against Missouri, Feb. 16.
"We need to see how much better we can become in three weeks before the season opener," said Melendez, who enters his second year at the helm of the Panthers and 19th season overall as a head coach. "We're looking to see if we can find nine or 10 guys before Opening Day that will give us a good shot."
The majority of the FIU ballclub is underclassmen with just three seniors: pitchers
Andrew George and
Chandler Raiden and outfielder
Christian Khawam.
The Panthers top two starters from last season are back in sophomores
Nick MacDonald and
Tyler Myrick. The duo combined for 13 of FIU's 31 wins last season and earned Freshman All-American honors from Collegiate Baseball Newspaper.
"We didn't finish up as a team where we wanted to," said Myrick, who was 6-2 with a team-best 3.73 ERA. "I think going into this year we have jelled more as a team and have more depth overall. I think those things will help us go further this year."
The leading returning hitter for FIU is sophomore
Javier Valdes, who played both in the outfield and infield last season. Valdes moved behind the plate in the fall and is expected to share the catching duties with freshman Jose Garcia. Valdes was also named a Freshman All-American last season by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper.
"I thought last year we showed signs of being a really good team," said Valdes, who hit .287 with 5 HR and 36 RBI. "But sometimes we showed different things. I'm excited for this year because we have a good team again. I'm looking forward to catching. I think I've adjusted well."
Among the position battles expected to be resolved within the next three weeks before Opening Day are in the outfield, catcher, and the back end of the bullpen
"There are some spots in the outfield that we are looking to see who is going to play where," Melendez said. "Catching has been a battle with Jose and Javy. Both have looked good at times. Clearly that's one spot that we are going to put a lot of emphasis on. The back end of the bullpen is up for grabs. We have three or four guys that looked good in the fall. We need to see them closer to the season to see if they can piggyback what they did in the fall."
