Everything Miami Baseball Head Coach J.D. Arteaga Said Ahead of Opening Weekend

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The Miami Hurricanes are prepared to have a bounce-back season, and coach J.D. Arteaga plans on bringing the program back to relevance.

Last season was the first losing season in 50 years and now the expectations are to be atop the ACC but first they start with Niagara.

Here is what coach said before opening weekend:

Opening Statement...

"It's an exciting time no matter what level you're at. Opening day is always a special time whether it's little league, or high school, or college, or professional baseball, it's a start of a new beginning. And it's exciting, especially not just for us as a staff, but we've got 29 new players on our roster. So I'm sure that's been talked about quite a bit. I think we've got the largest number of portal transfers of any team in the country. We've got 15 portal transfers along with 14 freshmen. So that's 29 new players that this is gonna be the first time playing at the light and the excitement that that brings. So we're all very excited. We love the team that we've got right now, the chemistry. Day one, it really stood out how close they are in the clubhouse and how much they do together off the field, that's always a good sign. The more time teams spend off the field together, the better teams are gonna be on the field. So we're very excited about it.

"Our pitching staff is as deep as I can remember, 21 years as the pitching coach. I don't remember ever having a bullpen and a staff as deep as this one. So we look at some of the changes and improvements we've made. That's definitely one thing that really stands out. The thing we set out to do this offseason is to bring in some offense to protect Cuvet and then hit around them so teams couldn't pitch around them. We felt that we've done that as well. We've addressed a lot of holes that we had and we felt we had and I think we've done a great job. Credit to my staff going out this summer and being able to plug those holes and improve the team and the program the way that we did."

On building chemistry with large amount of new players...

"I think it's where college sports is today. I think it's about rebuilding a roster every year. Maybe not as drastic as we had to do this year, but it's becoming more than normal and that's something that we worked really hard. Laz Gutierrez with our mental skills and really every Wednesday in the fall, it was no baseball, actually. It was all up in the classroom. We were really building team chemistry and stuff like that, doing different exercises. It's a big part of it."

On incoming transfers...

"We set out from day one, it's not about the sexy name or the big names. It's trying to find guys that have performed in the past, maybe coming from a mid-major or a school of different levels that they want to prove to themselves and other people that they can do it at a power five. So the maturity that they brought was the biggest change, especially from last year. We had a very young team last year, young roster, especially pitching staff. The maturity level they brought in and they understand. For a lot of these guys, this is their last chance to play college baseball. For some, maybe playing baseball period. So I think the way they take every day and then the opportunity to get better and then the appreciation to be here is the biggest difference that we've seen so far."

On lineup surrounding Daniel Cuvet...

"Whether you hit second or third or first or fourth, he's always gonna be the focal point, I think, for any other pitching staff. I'm a big believer in having a left-right combination. And as a former pitcher, I know it's uncomfortable when you get a lefty and a righty back-to-back. It really doesn't give you a chance to get comfortable with your secondary stuff, right? You might throw a changeup to a righty and then a breaking ball to a lefty. But having a lineup that's left-right, left-right, you don't get that comfort level. I think we have the guys who do that. As far as the order, whatever we start with on Friday, it's going to be different a few weeks down the road I'm sure."

On platooning at positions...

"In a couple positions maybe. Maybe in right field. The other positions I think are pretty much set. Right field and maybe first base will be opportunities to platoon somebody."

On comfortable knowing the team...

"Never really comfortable as far as far as figuring it out if that's the right word. I know what we're going with. We're going to put a lineup out there Friday and hopefully there aren't too many changes. That means guys are doing their job and we're having success with it. But there's always ups and downs, there's always injuries, there's always different things that come up throughout the season that forces some changes and sometimes those changes that you're forced to make are the right changes."

On large amount of new players..

"It's been fun. Just the enthusiasm that they bring to the field every day. It's been a really, really fun group to work with. The first challenge will be Friday night when the first lineup goes up and there's only nine hitters in the lineup and only one pitcher on the mound. That's when chemistry gets tested a little bit, but I think with the maturity level that I've seen so far--that's something you have to battle no matter what--but this is a very mature older team that I think we're going to be okay with."

On message to hitters surrounding Daniel Cuvet...

"They've all got their own role. Their role is not to protect Cuvet. Don't get me wrong, that's not what they're here for. But they all have got a job to do and whether you're a lead-off guy to get on base and then get in scoring position for not just Cuvet, but whoever's hitting behind Cuvet. Everyone always has a job to do. It's more about having the players with the ability right to do damage around him and they're going to get better pitches to hit. If you're hitting in front of him you're going to get better pitches. If you're hitting behind him, you're going to get more opportunities. So in the long run, everybody does their job and he gets more pitches to hit as well."

On benefits of roster overhaul...

"I think we've got the right guys, whether the best guys, stat-wise or mobility-wise, I don't know that yet. But we've got the right guys as far as attitude and makeup, character and that's what we set up for. We set out to get the right guys and buy into what we're trying to do. And not just get individuals that just worry about themselves and what their stats look like and what their playing time looks like. Again, we feel really good about it right now."

On Friday's opener...

"Friday's an exciting day and last week was a tough week. It's kind of like that hump week, it's our Wednesday? We're tired of intrasquadding, we're tired of doing bunt defense, single and double cuts and stuff like that. Getting through last week was the biggest obstacle and keeping that enthusiasm and excitement. We had one bad day last week where they addressed it and they recovered very quickly. Now this week is really looking forward to Friday, just fine tuning all these small things that line up with the pitching rotation and when they're throwing and what the rules are going to be. But again, we've been going at this since August, it's not like it starts Friday. Friday is the first, I guess, measuring stick to see where we're at. And Niagara's a very good team and we're excited to have them down here. I'm sure they're going to be real excited to have great weather and be outside for the first time. But for us, we started back in August."

On the pitching rotation...

"We're going with Nick Robert Friday night and Griffin Hugus on Saturday and Brian Walters up on Sunday. That'll be our rotation for the first weekend and we'll worry about Tuesday's starter after the weekend and see what we're at after all that."

" I think everyone has their own challenge. "I think Nick Robert had a really nice year for us last year," Arteaga said. "I've always said he was kind of pitching out of position. He's more of a starter as far as his repertoire. He's more of a contact guy. We put him in a situation where it wasn't probably the best situation for him to succeed, but he dealt it great attitude and he did give us great effort and did a good job. But he's more fitted to be a starter and he's got the most experience--crazy to say with 40-some innings under his belt of the rotation. The other starting rotation guys, Griffin's coming into a new league and he had some success at Cincinnati. But this is first year as a pitcher-only. He was a two-way guy for Cincinnati. And then Brian has never been stretched out past four innings and his past Sunday he went five innings for the first time," Arteaga said. "And you can see, he got to the fifth inning. So coming off an injury, he got hurt really early a sophomore year and took maybe an inning or two. Last year was limited in his innings as well. So yeah, the stuff's there and the name Walters might be like he's been around forever. Most of those innings were by Andrew and not Brian. They all got their own obstacles to go with and this is just what we felt like was the best rotation to go with in the beginning."

On growing into role as head coach going into second season...

"The thing last year was the players and the how to deal with the players and talk to the players. And it wasn't so much me, I was always the same and I was always a players' coach as the pitching coach and players always came to me, and that was the type of relationship I had. I was the same person last year, but I guess with the title change, there was a barrier there. The players wouldn't just come to me all the time. So I had to go out of my way to kind of create that relationship with them. We all learned and I learned from that a lot of mistakes last year. That's something I've worked on more than ever this year and really trying to keep that same type of relationship where it's a personal relationship first, and success in the field comes with that. That was always my key to my success as a pitching coach. Again, I didn't make any changes last year, but because of the title, I felt that the players reacted to me a little differently so I've gone out of my way to create that bond."

On midweek games...

"I think last year was just pitching depth and you get a situation where you don't really have a fourth starting pitcher. I think it probably should have been Nick Robert, but because of necessities, he's throwing out of the bullpen on weekends so you're kind of staffing it in the midweek games with a lot of young guys with no experience. Our midweek games, FIU is a tough opponent, FAU is a tough opponent, UCF and if you go in there short-handed on the mound, it makes it tough. We're going to have a set number four starter and a very, very deep bullpen that's going to help us out in quite a bit in the weekdays. No doubt, those years that we were having good years and hosting a regional, I think we were averaging 10 wins on weekdays, going 10-2, 11-1 at the time. So if you got to fight those weekends at the ACC, you better win those weekday games. So I think we're better suited, better prepared."

On Daniel Cuvet's improvement...

"That's a tough one. They talk about the sophomore slump. I think a lot of that is created by expectations and the need, the mentality to do more. He just has to be himself and the moment you start pressing--whether it's after a great freshman year or it's your draft year--the moment you try to do more, be someone you're not, that's what the struggle's going to play. He did not have a great fall offensively or early spring, but the last week-and-a-half, he's really starting to swing the bat a lot better. He's starting to drive the ball the other way and when he's doing that, he's at his best. So he's getting hot at the right time."

On biggest improvements from fall to now...

"Fabio Peralta, since he stepped on campus, has probably had the biggest improvement as an individual player. Nick Robert, he had a really good freshman year. He's had huge improvements, especially in his secondary stuff, which is why he's going to earn that Friday night spot. But, we'll see those improvements and we'll see the mentality once those goals are given. And our job is to get those guys that are in a position to succeed. We unfortunately could not do that for Nick last year because of need, but I think we have enough pieces where we can put guys in the right places to be the best player."

On increased emphasis on analytics...

"It started in the summer. We tracked our analytics team, created a program that tracked every player in Division I all season last year. And it ranked them every week, those rankings, are fluctuating. Our players were included in it. We had an idea of where they ranked amongst the players that might be going into the portal. So when that portal opened and the player would go in, we knew right away if it's a yes or a no on the field. Then all we really had to do is do our homework off the field and try to get some makeup, background checks and stuff like that. That helped us tremendously. And I feel that's why we've got the right players. And then going forward this year, we've got the new KinaTrax system, which I think only three teams in the ACC have that and maybe six or seven in the country that happened. So that's a huge. Everybody claims to have a pitching lab and it's building up to the side where our pitching lab is the game now. There's 18 cameras, the pitcher has eight and the hitters have eight cameras on every pitch, every throw on every swing that you take. So it's amount of research and the amount of analytics and the data that we're getting, this is better than anywhere else. We also have Zach Ripic from across the street. He's a biomechanist study. His job is, is they're going to try to scrubbing all that information down. You understand we've had a lot of this equipment for years, but even on the pitching side, I was in charge of the data stuff and I didn't know how to turn those machines on. I'm just a pitching coach. But with the addition of Eddie Mestre and Jack Olszewski and Zach across the street, now we have a team that's our job. It's all data and the reports are just on our desk and scrubbed down for us and explained in a child's language, which is interesting with what's going on. It's just been a huge advantage for us."

On the season opener...

"Friday's not much of a worry. I think everybody's going to come out and be ready to play. I think sustaining that excitement and enthusiasm throughout the 56-game regular season and the whole season and really the post-season takes care of itself right as far as exciting. We wanted to be out here just at the grind with a 56-game season. It's continue to come out every day with that same attitude they've shown so far. There's no reason for me to believe that's not going to be the case. You probably count on one hand the amount of practices that we didn't show up to for whatever reason. I'd like to see whatever excitement we bring on Friday for the next 55 games will be the same type of atmosphere."

On having more success in home games..

"Home, road or neutral site, a wins a win. We're trying to win every game. We're trying to go 56-0 and I understand that's probably not going to happen. That's always our goal and I told the team, I think in the course of a 56-game season, you might have 10 games where you play a good game and you get beat because the other team played better. The key is those other 46 games of not beating yourself. And if you consistently play the type of game that we can play, we should end up on top of those other 46 games. So it's one game at a time and the only game that really matters and counts is Friday."