Previously posted info on a couple of grad transfers, Joshua Solomon from Columbia and Cole Hebble from UMass.
Here are more incoming transfers for the 2023 season:
Jay Beshears from Northwestern. He played all outfield positions and first base and pitched for the Wildcats. He batted.335, hit 10 homers, and drove in 46 runs in 2022.
Alex Gow comes in from Kenyon University. He pitched and played first in 2022. On the mound he threw 66 innings, struck out 99, and had a 1.75 ERA. At the plate he hit .293 with 5 homers and 27 RBI in 36 games.
MJ Metz played 3B for Trinity University of Texas. He hit .382, homered 12 times, drove in 58 runs, and stole 23 bases in 2022.
Jason White is a RHP from Belmont Abbey. He tossed 96 innings while striking out 98 and had a 4.69 ERA.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
The fall schedule should be posted soon. It usually begins in mid-October and ends mid-November. It should include a couple of exhibition games against other schools, a couple of team scrimmages, and ends with what they call their World Series in which they divide the team and play a best of 3 series.
Duke has hired Eric Tyler as hitting coach. Tyler is a former ECU player and assistant coach and most recently has been an instructor at Baseball Rebellion in Raleigh.
The Duke incoming freshman class is rated 20th overall by PG. Several of the teams ranked above Duke are there due to the number of signees. Duke has only 12. Cole Young was the highest ranked incoming recruit, but was drafted in the MLB first round and signed. He was not considered in PG’s rankings.
Following are each incoming freshman’s position rankings, according to PG:
Kassius Thomas - #11 RHP
Oliver Santos - #7 LHP
Aiden Weaver - #14 RHP
Andrew Healy - #48 LHP
Edward Hart - #96 LHP
Owen Proksch - #94 LHP
James Tallon - # 67 LHP
Andrew Fischer - #17 3B
Gabriel Nard - #88 SS
Vincent Fattore -#88 OF
Tyler Albright - #163 OF
Roman Digiacomo -#52 C
Matt Mervis, former Duke player, a nondrafted FA in 2020 who signed with the Cubs has been named the teams hottest prospect of the month by Pipeline. He's listed as the Cubs #21 prospect. In the last 24 games at AAA he's hit .292/.360/984. For the season across 3 levels he's hit, .309/.368/.590 with 25 homers, 35 doubles and 96 RBI. Future looks good for the former Blue Devil.
GoDuke!
Mervis hit a walk off homer in the 2-1 win for the Iowa Cubs last night.
Another former Dukie to keep an eye on is Joey Loperfido. He is batting.319 with 12 homers, 61 RBI, and 31 SB at Class A Fayetteville and high A Asheville this season in the Astros organization.
Duke Baseball fall schedule is as follows:
NC State @ DBAP
Friday, September 30 @ 5pm
@UNC
Friday, October 14 @ 5pm
The team World Series, in which the team is divided into 2 teams and play a 3 game series is November 3rd, 4th, & 5th at Jack Coombs Field.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Duke may have a 6'8 left handed pitcher that also plays basketball. TJ Power wants to play 2 sports.
"Power is also left-handed pitcher who throws in the upper 80s and is hoping to play both sports in college."
“I’m looking at trying to play both,” he told ZAGSBLOG. “At all these schools, I’ve talked with the baseball coach and all that so it will be kind of a dialogue between the two coaches when I get on campus, but yeah I’m trying to play both a little bit.”
The more important dialog, of course, will be with the hoop coach. This past season, Duke baseball played 26 games (roughly half its total) before April 1...I guess the question is would Jon allow TJ to do some throwing in Feb and March, otherwise it probably wouldn't work.