Baseball

Nico Perrino

RHP Eric Arnett was the first Big Ten player taken in this week's MLB Draft.

Indiana baseball is on the rise! After completing what has been quite possibly the best season ever for the Hoosiers on the baseball diamond, the MLB draft offered up the choice to a record 7 Hoosiers this week to potentially end their collegiate careers and move on to the next level.

Three of the Hoosier’s seven draftees were taken in the first round in this years MLB first-year draft. Junior Pitcher Eric Arnett was taken 26th overall by the Brewers, Junior Catcher –and also a spotlight player by myself in my pre-season baseball assessment- Josh Phegley was taken 38th overall in the supplemental 1st round, and Junior Pitcher Matt Bashore was taken by the Twins as the 46th overall pick in the supplemental first round.

In addition to Arnett, Phegley, and Bashore, the four other players to get a call were Redshirt Sophomore Pitcher Joey O’Gara as the 938th overall pick to the Marlins, Junior Infielder Jake Dunning as the 987th overall pick to the Giants, Redshirt Sophomore Outfielder Kipp Schutz as the 566th overall pick to the Orioles, and joining Dunning with Giants is Junior Outfielder Evan Crawford who was picked 267th overall in the 9th round.

7 players is the most players drafted in one year in Indiana History, just topping the 6 drafted in their 1996 Big-Ten Championship campaign.

All the Hoosier draftees have NCAA eligibility remaining, and they have until August 17th to decide if they want to stay another year at Indiana, or forgo their eligibility and take the penultimate step towards their dreams of reaching the majors.

This years draft comes after a string of accomplishments for IU. The Hoosiers won their first Big-Ten Tournament Championship since 1996 this year (who called it?) over Minnesota as underdogs, making it their second championship in program history. The Hoosiers outscored their opponents in the Tournament 47-9 on the backs of probably the best sub-group on any team at IU, their pitchers, and earned themselves a regional bid to Louisville in the process where they unfortunately didn’t manage to win a game.

Probably the biggest honor afforded to the team this year, though, was winning AllBigTen.com’s Sexiest Male Team tournament in which they won by a landslide with close to 1,000 votes in the final round. Although there was no plaque or trophy for such an award, surely the victory added to the “swag” of the team as they stepped onto the diamond for all their games, potentially contributing to some crucial wins – who knows?

The selections add some questions though as to how the team may fare next year. All the selections except 1 were recruited by coach Tracy Smith, and 3 of the 7 taken were pitchers who contributed to a deep and dangerous lineup and bullpen for the Hoosiers. Potentially without these players, the team will have some holes to fill next year and the menacing lineup that we saw this year will have to be replaced with underclassmen pitchers such as Wyatt Hoff and Blake Monar, but as was stated earlier, these players have until August 17th to decide whether or not to forgo their eligibility, so nothing is set in stone yet.

Don’t forget that the Hoosiers current home, Sembower Field, is up for major construction here in the next few years, making a measly 2,500-seat ballpark into a state of the art baseball complex in line with Ohio State’s baseball stadium. The construction was set to be underway already, but Sampson’s buyout postponed the groundbreaking and right now there are only promises as to when the construction will begin. Anyone who attended one of this years free home games knows that a renovation is direly need, and judging by this years success, surely deserved.

The prospect of a new stadium and the successes of this year should give Tracy Smith and the coaching staff a good product to pitch to recruits, look for more updates on this and those who choose to pursue a career at the next level here at AllBigTen.com around August 17th. Stay tuned.