Don't look now, but Duke baseball is around the corner

And you might not recognize the digs. But you will recognize the talent.

January is my least favorite month. It’s cold, it’s dark and it seems to go on forever.

So, what was I doing Friday talking baseball?

Duke baseball to be exact. Media kickoff. Outdoors. College baseball starts off as a winter sport, before becoming a spring sport and ending as a summer sport. Which doesn’t include fall practice with a scrimmage or two thrown in.

It’s been pretty cold in the Triangle recently. Highs around freezing, lows in low teens, blustery winds, a couple of modest snowfalls. But Duke has been practicing through all that.

Brrr.

Ben Miller is Duke’s starting third baseman and one of the best players in college baseball. He’s from Durham but played at Penn before coming back home as a grad student.

He also has the coolest mustache. Think vintage Rollie Fingers. Or close, anyway.

Miller told us it wasn’t all that cold. And then dead-panned “until you hit one off the end of the bat.”

But it wasn’t just the weather that got our attention. We were conducting interviews in a construction zone. Beginning last summer Duke began a long overdue Coombs Field upgrade.

It’s not finished but will be ready to play when the season kicks offs, February 15, Duke hosting Cincinnati.

It had better be.

Duke will be doing lots of hosting. Duke won’t leave the state of North Carolina until visiting Stanford on March 14. There’s one game at Campbell, everything else at Coombs.

No regular season games at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, although the Bulls will host the ACC Tournament this May.

About that upgrade. Much improved dugouts. New field. Lower outfield fences, moved in a little. Chris Pollard told us not a band box but not a place where fly balls will go to die.

There will be luxury boxes just outside the fence in left center. New seating on the hill behind first base. Capacity around 1,500. Season tickets for the first time. Improvements in restrooms and concessions next off-season.

Pollard’s 13th Duke team should be worth the trouble. Website D1baseball has Duke ranked 11th. Duke has the desired blend of talented freshmen, key returnees and transfer additions.

Which doesn’t mean there aren’t holes to fill. Closer Charlie Beilenson was an All-American. Pollard says Duke will replace him by committee, at least at the beginning. The Mets selected lefty Jonathan Santucci 46th in the 2024 draft.

Duke has been bullpen-centric the last few years but Pollard says the goal this season is to get back to a more traditional approach, with three weekend starters, a midweek starter or two and a bullpen that stays seated until the middle of the game.

Figuring out who slots where is the biggest task of those first few weeks at home.

Duke lost lots of home runs from last season, Zac Morris (18), Devin Obee (16), Logan Bravo (17) and Alex Stone (13) among them. Look for Georgetown transfer Jake Hyde (13 homers in 2024) to start at first base, Princeton transfer Nick DiPietrantonio hit 17 homers last season. He’s an infielder. Ben Rounds batted .403 at Harvard last season. He looks like the starting left fielder.

It should be noted that Pollard has a very high hit rate in the portal.

Duke has another nationally ranked freshmen class. Infielder Jeff Lougee and pitchers Henry Zatkowski and Max Stammel made positive impressions last fall.

But I’m most excited about the returnees from last season. There are some real studs here. Miller batted .360 last season, with 15 dingers. His OPS was 1.083. Shortstop Wallace Clark had an .897 OPS. Right fielder A.J. Gracia had a .999 OPS, with 14 home runs as a freshman. Pollard says that sophomore catcher Macon Winslow has the best tools of any catcher he’s recruited.

But Kyle Johnson is the WOW guy. A sophomore from Leesburg, Virginia, Johnson is one of the best two-way players in the game. He should be in the mix for Friday starter and will be in the field when he’s not pitching. He and Gracia spent last summer with the Collegiate National Team Training Camp and both have been named to numerous 2025 pre-season All-America teams, as had Miller.

Duke won the ACC Tournament last season but still missed out on being named one of 16 teams to host the first weekend of the NCAAs. Maybe Coombs had something to do with that and maybe the upgrades will help Duke get off the bubble. Duke has been talking about kicking in the College World Series door for some time and spending thsat first weekend at home instead of somewhere like Norman, Oklahoma is a great way to start that journey.

But first Duke has to make sure they’re in the conversation. Lots of question marks. But the answers seem to be at hand.

But Pollard notes that Duke has 11 pitchers who’ve started in college bal