Oregon State Captain Nick Madrigal Named To Baseball America’s Preseason All-American First Team

On Monday, Baseball America, one of the country’s leading baseball information resources, released their NCAA Division I Pre-Season All-American Teams and Oregon State sophomore infielder Nick Madrigal was one of two players from the Pac-12 (Stanford pitcher Colton Hock) selected to the the Pre-Season All-Amercian First Team. Madrigal is expected to be one of the Beavers’ key pieces heading into the 2017 season, despite being recently cleared from a torn labrum injury.

As a second baseman a season ago, Madrigal saw 49 games of action in which he held a .333 average and knocked in 29 RBI’s. His standout play garnered him the 2016 Pac-12 Freshman of the Year Award, as well as being named to Baseball America’s, Louisville Slugger’s, Perfect Game’s, and D1Baseball.com’s Freshman All-American Team. He also was named as a Pac-12 All-First Team choice and included on the conference’s All-Defensive Team.

For this upcoming season, Madrigal is projected to move to the shortstop position, in order to help balance a reworked Beavers roster. However, he starts the season as one of the two team captains, along with junior pitched Drew Rasmussen, who will be asked to bring Oregon State back to the NCAA Tournament. The Beavers were infamously omitted from the tournament field a season ago, the first time they had missed the big dance since 2008, despite a solid 35-19 record.

Oregon State kicks-off their season on Friday, February 17th at 12 PM PT against Duke in the “Sanderson Ford College Baseball Classic” in Surprise, Arizona. The Beavers will then play the likes of Gonzaga, the Blue Devils again, and Indiana over the course of a four-day span. The games will all be available for radio broadcast on Beaver Sports Network. The team’s first game against a Pac-12 opponent will come on March 16th, when Oregon State travels to Phoenix, Arizona to square-off with Arizona State, in a three-day triple-header.