Around the Diamond: MiLB Rebels shine; Ole Miss braces for MLB Draft impact

Ole Miss baseball is tied with three other teams for the third-most prospects (9) in Baseball America’s Top 500.

LSU and Tennessee are tied for the most with 13 apiece.

The question, of course, is how many of those highly-billed signees will actually make it to campus. The two-day, 2024 MLB Draft opens on Sunday.

Outfielder Slade Caldwell and infielder Owen Paino enrolled at Ole Miss in the summer as roommates. They’ve been training for weeks.

Caldwell, though, is widely expected to hear his name called within the Top 40 picks. Paino, another draft risk, is a candidate to start at shortstop for the Rebels next season.

Ole Miss has been an MLB prospect factory, of sorts, for 25 years under head coach Mike Bianco. Caldwell and others will try to follow in the footsteps of such current MiLB Rebels as Tim Elko, Jacob Gonzalez, Doug Nikhazy and Dylan DeLucia, among others.

Elko and Gonzalez are with the Birmingham Barons, the AA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. The Barons are in the midst of a near-week-long series in Pearl, Mississippi, against the M-Braves. The Braves hosted an ‘Ole Miss Night’ in their honor on Thursday.

“Ole Miss has got one of the most exciting and supportive fan bases in the country,” Elko said Wednesday.

Elko was talking to Brad Logan. Elko was MiLB ‘Player of the Month’ in June. He’s slashing .292/.335/.432 through 79 games and some 300 at-bats this season.

“For them to come out here and we haven’t been there for two, three or four years and cheer us on is pretty cool.”

Nikhazy has made three starts since his promotion to AAA Columbus (Ohio) by the Cleveland Guardians. He hasn’t allowed a run — earned or unearned — through his 17.0 innings. Opponents have mustered all of six hits and a .109 average against him. He has 19 strikeouts.

“I’ve made some adjustments, mechanically, and I’m kind of getting back to some stuff I think really contributed a lot to my success — at least when I was at Ole Miss,” Nikhazy told the Ole Miss Spirit’s Jake Thompson last month.

“Just feels like I’m in a really good spot. Now it’s just me trying to replicate that stuff on a daily basis, which sometimes can be harder than it seems. I’m in a good head space; a really good place and just happy.”

Dylan DeLucia was the MVP of the 2022 College World Series, which secured Ole Miss its first-ever national championship.

He, too, is in the Guardians organization. DeLucia made his second start for Low-A Lynchburg Thursday night, allowing one run over 3.0 innings with four strikeouts. DeLucia‘s covered 10.2 combined innings in his four starts since a return from an ACL injury. He’s surrendered three runs on seven hits.

Former Rebels slugger Kemp Alderman clubbed his third home run in the span of a week for the Miami Marlins’ Single-A affiliate, the Jupiter (Florida) Hammerheads.

“Hopefully I’ll get my chance up (in the majors) in the next year or so,” Elko told Logan. He went to spring training with the White Sox. “I’ll be able to know some of those guys already.

“(The national title’s) something I’ll never forget. I feel like I learned so much about what it takes to have a winning team and good culture. I hope to help to carry that on the best way on any of the teams I play on.”