2015 Perfect Game High School Baseball Preview Index | Florida HS Region Preview
On February 20, 2012, the Gulliver Preparatory School Raiders debuted at No. 4 in the Perfect Game National High School Preseason Top-50 Rankings.
Long recognized as having one of the top programs in Florida, Gulliver Prep received the lofty preseason ranking based on the return of five seniors that had signed letters of intent with NCAA Division I schools – four with the University of Miami – and who had helped the Raiders to a No. 44 ranking in the final PG National HS Top-50 Rankings in 2011.
The Raiders got off to a slow start that spring and never really recovered. They had dropped to No. 12 when the poll of March 9 was released, to No. 19 by March 27 and No. 29 by May 1. When the next poll was released on May 8, they were out of the Top-50 altogether and finished the season at 17-10.
Gulliver Prep has had one of the most storied and successful programs in the Perfect Game High School Florida Region since it began winning FHSAA district and regional championships in the late 1990s.
And now, boasting a roster that features 14 seniors and nine players that played big roles on last year's team, the Raiders have returned to the PG Top-50 for the first time in nearly three years, coming in at No. 19 in preseason rankings.
“I really think this might be the best team we’ve had at Gulliver since I’ve been here,” seventh-year head coach Javy Rodriguez told PG over the telephone early this week.
While Rodriguez and his players are excited and honored to re-enter the Perfect Game National High School Top-50 Rankings for the first time in 21 months, they also know there is no such thing as riding a calm surf in the PG Florida Region.
Ten Florida High Schools have found a spot in the PG Top-50, with No. 2 IMG Academy (Bradenton), No. 5 Park Vista (Lake Worth), No. 10 Tampa Jesuit and No. 15 Olympia (Orlando) nestled-in comfortably ahead of Gulliver Prep.
The Raiders have games scheduled this season with Tampa Jesuit, No. 33 American Heritage, No. 35 Lake Mary and No. 42 Killian, not to mention a much anticipated rematch with unranked Key West.
Rodriguez assembles a regular-season schedule that he hopes prepares his team for the postseason. He likes to play back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday which he feels can develop mental toughness.
The Raiders, for instance, travel to Orlando where they will play Orangewood Christion on Friday, Feb. 20 and turn around and play Lake on Saturday, Feb. 21. Later in the schedule, they play Tampa Jesuit on Friday, April 10 and then face Berkeley Prep on Saturday, April 11. Those are four very good teams.
“I’m always trying to do that and get them ready to play those tough, back-to-back games; that’s what you need to win a state championship here,” Rodriguez said. “It’s always tough, and we’ve had our chances in the past and haven’t done it. I’m hoping this is the year; I believe this is the year.”
The players love the challenge both the schedule and the high expectations bring, especially those like right-hander Davis Brown, a senior who carries a 4.24 grade-point average and has signed with Amherst College in Massachusetts.
“I think I’m prepared (for college baseball) because the level of competition in Miami is so high,” he told Jennifer Delacruz from the Coral Gables News recently. “It’s kind of like you’re already playing in college because you’re playing against a lot of guys who will get draft and go very far.”
There certainly does seem to be a lot of firepower on this Gulliver Prep team with so much talent returning from last year’s squad that finished 20-9 after losing to Key West in the FHSAA Class 4A regional semifinals. Rodriguez is going to enjoy exceptional depth with this year’s squad, especially with the pitching staff.
The senior Brown and senior right-hander Michael Gonzalez are back after logging a lot of innings as juniors, and senior Evan Kravetz – a 6-foot-8, 245-pound uncommitted left-hander – will also be part of the starting rotation. Senior left-hander German Marcos, senior right-hander Palmer Phillips and sophomore righty Robert Touron – ranked 133rd nationally in the class of 2017 – will also contribute from the mound.
The top position players and offensive weapons returning are senior middle-infielder Oscar Marchena, senior outfielder Brian Nido, junior outfielder Giovon Soto and sophomore third baseman Raymond Gil, a special talent. Gil, ranked No. 71 nationally in the 2017 class, was a member of the USA Baseball 15u National Team last year and the 14u National Team in 2013.
The three transfers/move-ins – all NCAA D-I commits – look to be the real deal and have an immediate impact on the Raiders’ fortunes. They are senior right-hander Alex Valverde, a Miami signee ranked No. 497 nationally and No. 75 in Florida (class of 2015); junior shortstop Javy Valdes, another Miami recruit ranked Nos. 107/21 (2016), and junior catcher/first baseman/third baseman Pedro Pages, a Florida Atlantic commit ranked Nos. 405/70 (2016).
Rodriguez describes this team as a “very loose” group off the field but one that is all-business when it gets between the lines. “These guys are always together,” he said. “They hang out together, they go to movies together; they go to dinner together and go to each other’s houses all the time. It’s a great group of kids.”
And he has another weapon his shed this spring, as well. Former New York Yankee All-Star Jorge Posada has a son, Jorge Luis, in the program as a freshman playing on the junior varsity team. Posada has joined Rodriguez’s staff as the head coach for the JV and has also been helping out with the varsity.
Posada declined an interview request from PG for this story, indicating that he wanted all the attention to be on the kids and not on him. But his presence is going to be significant, as he showed when he spoke to the varsity squad after a preseason scrimmage. What Posada told the team, according to Rodriguez, was something along these lines:
You guys are out here thinking you’re just going to show up and expect to win a championship. Guess what? It never happens that way. Even when the greatest teams are put together they don’t win championships just by showing up. You guys have to pay way more attention to detail and do things the right way so that in games it comes naturally.
Right now, you guys are not detail-oriented. You’re thinking about hitting the ball over the fence, you’re thinking about how good you look; you’ve got to do things better than that. Your attention to detail has to be much better; everything has to be much better. You win championships by paying attention to details.
It is that work ethic and acute attention to detail that Posada is bringing to the Gulliver Prep program, according to Rodriguez. The young Raiders players can look at and listen to a man who played 17 seasons with the New York Yankees, was a five-time All-Star and Silver Slugger Award winner and played in 29 postseason series, including six World Series (the Yankees won four of those World Series).
“Who’s going to tell him, ‘No, that’s not how you do it,” Rodriguez said with a laugh. “He comes here and he’s at practice and he’s working hard and he’s hitting fungos; the other day he was working with the catchers so they could see how he does things. When you have that work ethic, that’s the reason he was able to do what he did for so many years.”
Gulliver Schools, a private college preparatory day school located right in Miami, enrolls more than 2,200 students in Pre-K through 12th grade with a baseball program that is first available to sixth-graders. Most of the players from each class have been playing together since the sixth grade, which certainly can add to a team’s cohesiveness.
Rodriguez is himself a graduate of Gulliver Prep and helped the Raiders to a state runner-up finish his senior year in 1999. He went on to enjoy a brilliant four-year career at the University of Miami, where he helped the Hurricanes win College World Series National Championships in 1999 and 2001.
He ranks second all-time in career hits and stolen bases and last year was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame; the 36-year-old recently played in an alumni game and he walked and stole a base. A fifth-round pick of the Anaheim Angels in the 2002 amateur draft, Rodriguez played five minor league seasons before an eye injury forced him into early retirement.
His mission now is to pass his personal experiences on to his players with the hope they will strive to reach the top by emulating his actions.
“I try to create an atmosphere of a winning program, something that kids want to be around and they want to come to Gulliver to play,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t ever go out and get a kid. Everybody wants to come here to play and once they’re here nobody wants to leave; that’s the kind of atmosphere that I want. I’m very proud of that; it’s been a lot of years in the making.”
The Gulliver Prep baseball program was by no means in dire straits when Rodriguez took over in 2009. Raiders’ teams won nine district championships between 1997 and 2008; five regional titles between 1999 and 2007; finished as state runner-up in 1999 and won a state championship in 2004.
The Raiders won both district and regional championships and finished as state runner-up in Rodriguez’s first season at the helm. District championships followed in 2010 and 2011 with a regional title in 2010. Those levels of accomplishment have not been reached in the last three seasons.
This is the year that changes, the people within the Gulliver Prep baseball community firmly believe. This is the year the Raiders regain their rightful spot near the top of the PG Florida Region hierarchy and climb the PG Top-50 Rankings instead of falling out.
“I just feel the kids that are new to the team are buying into the system – hey, this is the way we’re going to win,” Rodriguez said. “Now I have a guy like Jorge (Posada) that is a proven winner and he’s kind of repeating the same things that I’ve been saying for the last two or three years, and now it’s really sticking in their heads – hey, this is the way it has to be.”