Ole Miss baseball's Jacob Gonzalez set for encore after All-American freshman season
Few freshman have a season like the one Jacob Gonzalez had a year ago.
The Ole Miss shortstop put up blistering numbers at the plate and was one of the most reliable defenders in the country and was named the National Freshman of the Year by D1Baseball for 2021 and earned several All-American honors.
With the 2022 campaign set to begin next week, Gonzalez has seen the All-American accolades continue to roll in throughout the preseason. With all the attention, expectations and hype from last season carrying over the question is can Gonzalez deliver an encore performance equivalent to 2021?
Gonzalez hit .355 a season ago for 93 hits, 55 runs batted in and 12 home runs in 262 at-bats.
“That’s the unfair thing of sports, right? Once you do well the expectation is what’s next?,” said Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco of the preseason expectations for Gonzalez. “Do you hit .400 now? Do you hit 20 home runs? I think Jacob is smart enough that you can’t just look at it that way. You just got to go out and play and look at certain areas of your game. If it’s defensively, if it’s to cut down strikeouts, if it’s to hit the ball the other way. Whatever that is for you to try and improve that way. The stats are the stats.”
One area that was a concern, offensively, was the strikeout rate. The Rebels struck out 570 times in 2021.
“I think we’ll be much better than last year,” Gonzalez said. “We cut down on strikeouts in the fall. So, hopefully that will make our offense better. … Hopefully that means we’re putting the ball in play more.”
The offense is eye-popping alone, but it was Gonzalez’s defense was also at an All-American pace.
On the field, Gonzalez had a 93.3 fielding percentage and committed only 15 errors in 67 games. He along with second baseman Peyton Chatagnier combined for one of the best middle infields in the country with Chatagnier’s fielding percentage of nearly 98.
The Rebels had the eighth best fielding percentage in the SEC a season ago at 97.5, which was also good for 54th best in the country.
“One of the things I think is a goal of ours going forward is wanting to play better defense this year,” Bianco said. “Not that we were poor last year, we were average. To have been an elite team and especially to help the pitching staff out, we wanted to be able to catch it and throw it, and I think we did that this fall defensively as a whole.”
With all the expectations and preseason accolades, Gonzalez is not putting all of that pressure on himself. Instead, he is keeping it in perspective.
“It’s just writing on a piece of paper,” Gonzalez said. “It means nothing, to be honest.”
