CBD Interview with St. Mary’s Eric Valenzuela

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College Baseball Daily continues our series of interviews as we preview the 2016 College Baseball season with Saint Mary’s head coach Eric Valenzuela. He is entering his third season in charge of the Gaels program as they look to rise in the West Coast Conference. You can check out the interview below.

1. Saint Mary’s is coming off a 28-27 campaign while going 10-17 in West Coast Conference play. What are your expectations for the 2016 season?

We made huge strides as a program last year. Obviously every teams goal is to play till the end but we are in year three and understand that its gonna take time to build. Going over .500 and beating some of the good teams we did with 20 underclassman says a lot. There’s lots of excitement and energy as we head into year three. I feel like we have established our culture and have 100% percent buy in from every player in our program. Our coaches have done an unbelievable job of recruiting and developing some of the best players on the West Coast and in the country. Expectations is a word we don’t use very often in our program. What we’ve had to create in our program is confidence. Confidence that every time we step on the field we understand that if we PLAY better that day then our opponent that we will win the ballgame. Its about the PLAY! We now feel that we have the ability and talent to compete at a national/regional type level but we have to prove that come February. So to answer your question about my expectations for 2016: I expect us to compete at a high level this spring and continue to move this program forward with lots of energy, toughness and fight to put Saint Mary’s College Baseball on the map not only on the West Coast but Nationally.
2. The Gaels return their top two starting pitchers from last season in Johnny York and Corbin Burnes. How do you see the rotation coming together for the start of the 2016 season?

We actually return our top three arms with Cameron Neff included in that mix. It has been a fun and very competitive fall for us especially from the pitching side of things. Corbin has really established himself as one of the best pitchers in the country from his great summer playing for the Orleans Firebirds in the Cape Cod League to his great fall this year and still has a lot of work to do to prove that. Johnny York is fun to watch! He is left handed and pounds the zone with four quality pitches and proves to all pitchers of any age that velocity is sometimes over rated. Not only a very good pitcher but holds runners at a high level and fields his position as good as I have seen a pitcher do it. Cameron Neff is equally as good. He was a weekend starter as a freshman two years ago and last year until I shut him down midway through the season due to shoulder tightness. He was scheduled to pitch in Orleans of the Cape Cod League this summer but was shut down due to his shoulder tightness. He is back and 100% which makes our team extremely better. A couple other potential starters that really performed well this fall are Sophomore Drew Strotman, Senior Anthony Gonsolin and Freshmen Jonathan Buckley and Ty Madrigal. All should help at a high level this spring.

3. Have any of the incoming freshmen or transfers impressed you during Fall workouts? Do you expect any of them to break into the starting lineup/rotation this spring?

What’s been fun to see with this group is that we now have some depth where we feel like we don’t have to throw anyone in the fire too soon. Our older guys have really improved and will give us a chance to develop our young guys properly. Seniors like Anthony Villa, Connor Hornsby, Anthony Gonsolin and Ian McLoughlin have made huge strides and understand our system and lead by example everyday. We did in fact have some freshman that played like veterans this fall. As I mentioned before freshman pitchers (RHP) Jonathan Buckley and (LHP) Ty Madrigal had an outstanding fall as did freshman infielders Charles Zaloumis and Connor Thane. All these guys mentioned will get opportunities throughout the spring.

4. Coming into your 3rd season as the head coach of the Saint Mary’s program, what is the biggest difference you have made on the program?

Saint Mary’s has a rich tradition of baseball dating back to the late 1800’s. Great players have come through here and have helped pave the way for the future. The biggest difference I feel was to build a culture of toughness, energy, grit, and unbelievable confidence to compete at a high level. We have had to change the mindset of our current players and change the perception of what recruits feel about St. Mary’s College Baseball. Our philosophy is to recruit and develop the best players in the country. How do we attract the best players on the West Coast and in the country is by providing them the whole student-athlete experience. Offering them a powerful private school degree and developing them into the best baseball player possible and doing it in one of the most beautiful areas in the country. St. Mary’s is not a hard sell.

5. One of the stories in College Baseball has been the decrease in offense over the last ten years but it came back last season with the introduction of a new baseball. How do you feel that this ball has impacted your coaching and recruiting plans?

It has not affected or impacted us at all. If anything the new baseball has given pitchers a head start into what they will be using at the next level. Pitchers are also improving, getting stronger, pitching better, competing at a high level. I think that has a lot to do with it. I am sure there have been some different recruiting philosophies with programs as far as maybe recruiting more power type hitters or even the opposite and recruiting fast skill type hitters. I am sure it differs everywhere.

6. Who has been your biggest influence on your coaching philosophy or career?

I have been lucky to be around some of the best coaches in the country as a player and as a coach. I think being the best coach you can be is by piecing all the information you have learned throughout your career and putting it together as your own with an open door to improve every year. The other blessing I had was to play at two different colleges (Arizona State and Pepperdine). Some of my mentors as a player were Frank Sanchez, Dave Esquer, Steve Rodriguez and Rick Hirtenstiner from Pepperdine and Pat Murphy, Doug Schreiber, Nino Giarratano from Arizona State. As a coach, Rich Hill at USD and Tony Gwynn at SDSU were huge influences in my coaching career and life. Those are coaches with a lot of knowledge that I was able to learn from and now get to compete with. It has been an awesome ride.

7. I might be the only one in the nation that believes in this but would you be in favor of the international tiebreaker during regular season games after 12 innings?

I actually would not be in favor but I do understand why you would feel that. The season is long and the overuse of pitchers have been a hot topic recently but baseball is baseball with rules and traditions having been in place forever. I like it the way it is. Old school!