IRVINE, Calif. – Loaded with several standouts from the 2010 NCAA World Series, the 11th annual Pro-Line Athletic National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association preseason All-America team is one of the most impressive groups in the two decades of selections.
Returning Dick Howser Trophy winner 3B Anthony Rendon of Rice leads a team of collegiate standouts along with World Series returnees from the last stand at historic Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Neb: champion South Carolina’s CWS Most Outstanding Player OF Jackie Bradley, Jr., and relief ace Matt Price, pitchers Matt Purke, Steven Maxwell, Kyle Winkler and OF Jason Coats of TCU, Florida State’s all-purpose utility standout Mike McGee, SP Gerrit Cole of UCLA, Florida’s Austin Maddox and Preston Tucker, Clemson OF Jeff Schaus, and Oklahoma 3B Garrett Buechele.
Click to see the complete NCBWA Preseason All-American Teams
As Division I baseball looks toward the new 2011 venue in downtown Omaha – TD Ameritrade Stadium – and some innovations in playing rules (a 30-second timer kept between pitches by a digital clock or a base umpire, subject to the NCAA Baseball Rules Committee’s final recommendation) and all the returning talent, the upcoming season promises to be one of the most interesting campaigns in recent history.
Rendon, the 2010 consensus college player of the year as well as Howser Trophy recipient, helped Rice advance to Super Regionals in 2009 as NCBWA Freshman of the Year and to the NCAA Austin Regional last spring. His statistics virtually speak for themselves with a Conference USA-leading .394 batting average, 26 home runs, 85 RBI, stolen bases, and two-time conference player of the year laurels (first freshman ever to garner C-USA top honors in this regard) for coach Wayne Graham’s Owls.
The makeup of the 11th annual preseason All-America squad again includes the heartbeat of American with 17 different conferences and 37 schools represented from every corner of the country.
And if great pitching can get a team deeply into the postseason, defending NCAA third-place finisher TCU is represented well by its trio of returning All-America moundmen.
Purke (first team) was 2010 NCBWA Freshman of the Year with a DI-best 16-0 record, 3.02 earned run average, 116 1/3 innings pitched, and Mountain West Conference-high 142 strikeouts. The sophomore lefty also started and won the Horned Frogs’ first-ever NCAA World Series contest against Florida State. Maxwell and Winkler combined for a 23-5 record on the hill for 2010 NCBWA National Coach of the Year Jim Schlossnagle’s squad.
Bradley, who had two homers and nine RBI during the 2010 CWS as its top player, and Price (5-1, 2.26 ERA, 10 saves for coach Ray Tanner’s Gamecocks) add zest to three teams of current and potential superstars.
FSU’s McGee, another first team member of the Pro-Line Athletic NCBWA post-2010 squad, pitched and batted coach Mike Martin’s Seminoles to yet another trek to Omaha. His .328 average, 17 home runs and 73 RBI were a perfect compliment to 4-1 pitching, 13 saves, 20 appearances, and 33 strikeouts in 27 innings as the bullpen ace for Florida State.
Cole garnered first unit honors on the basis of a 11-4 record, 19 starts, and 153 strikeouts in 123 innings last year. He was a key cog in the Bruins’ first appearance in the NCAA DI diamond championship round under coach John Savage.
By point of comparison, the pre-2010 first team starting pitching staff was a composite 67-12 while its pre-2011 counterpart is a combined 74-11 with one of the top strikeouts-to-walks’ ratios since the NCBWA began selecting preseason All-America units in 2000. Over a dozen of the standouts on all three ’11 teams were either Player/Hitters of the Year or Pitchers of the Year in their conferences last spring.
Most of these preseason standouts will be nominated for the historic 25th annual Dick Howser Trophy, presented by Easton Foundations and the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Area Chamber of Commerce and voted upon by the NCBWA membership. The Howser Trophy will be awarded at a national media setting in 2011 at a date and site to be determined.