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Canes Baseball picked to win ACC Coastal by coaches

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Stefan Adams

Stefan Adams

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CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The Miami Hurricanes were picked as the preseason favorite to win the ACC Coastal Division in a poll of the league's 14 head coaches, the conference office announced Thursday.

Miami, which was picked by 12 of 14 coaches as the likely division winner, is looking for its first Coastal title since 2016. The Hurricanes have won the division four times since joining the ACC in 2005. Miami won its first division crown in 2008 and won three consecutive Coastal titles from 2014-16. The Canes finished second in the Coastal a year ago with an 18-12 ACC record.

Miami (93 points) was followed by North Carolina (68), Georgia Tech (66), Duke (65), Virginia (55), Virginia Tech (27) and Pitt (18) in the Coastal Division.

Louisville (97 points) was selected to win the Atlantic Division with 13 first-place votes, and also was the preseason pick for overall champion of the ACC.

The Hurricanes enter the 2020 season as a consensus top-10 team. Miami also was ranked No. 3 by D1 Baseball, No. 4 by Collegiate Baseball, No. 5 by Baseball America, No. 5 by the NCBWA, No. 7 by Perfect Game and No. 7 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.

Adrian Del Castillo and Alex Toral were named Preseason All-Americans by Perfect Game and D1 Baseball, while the duo was joined by teammates Brian Van Belle and Raymond Gil on the Collegiate Baseball Preseason All-America Team. Toral and sophomore right-handed pitcher Slade Cecconi earned spots on the Baseball America Preseason All-America Team.

A year ago, under the direction of head coach Gino DiMare, the Hurricanes won 41 games and returned to the NCAA postseason for the first time since 2016. The Canes earned the 46th postseason berth in program history and reached the Starkville Regional final before falling to No. 6 Mississippi State.

Miami opens its second season under the direction of DiMare on Feb. 14 with the opener of a three-game series against Rutgers (Feb. 14-16).
 
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About **** time baseball is back where it should be. DiMare has me excited for this team again. I was really concerned about the hire at first as it reeked of nepotism (though I do like continuity/keeping it in the family), but he seems like he was the breath of fresh air that this program needed.

Couple that with a few big facilities investments (batting cages, locker rooms) and hopefully we'll be back to consistently being in Omaha.
 
As much as we loved Morris, he lost his edge and fire toward the end. Di Mare stepped away for a bit b/c he didn’t see eye to eye, and they pulled him back in to groom him for HC. Morris did not adapt to the fact that he shouldn’t offer schollies to top 20 round high school kids. They would never come. He missed for 4 years in a row focusing on kids that went in top 10 rounds of draft. DiMare goes after kids who have potential but need more polish, like Toral, coming out of high school who won’t go early, so they go to college to improve their stock. His conditioning program is upgraded, and the stadium upgrades are helping, as well. At the end of the day, it is about hitting and pitching, and when the last guy in the line up belted a home run in the scrimmage, it makes opposing teams pitch to everyone and puts pressure on them. I thought we were gonna continue to struggle due to our higher cost tuition and inability to offer everyone a full time schollie, but he obviously defeated that concern. Omaha here we come!
 
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Dimare Needs Help With Pitching Decisions. How Does He Not Bring In Veliz When Federman Obviously Doesn't Have It At All With The Game On The Line - Absurd
 
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