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| Webster starting pitcher Matt Mulhearn (pictured), Adrian shortstop Ryan Dorow and East Texas Baptist Starting pitcher Sayers Collins appeared on the Team of the Week list the most times. d3photography.com photo by Steve Frommell |
The D3baseball.com Team of the week will be entering its fourteenth season in 2025 and we took time to look at the the players that we have honored for more than a decade. 126 different teams have been honored with a low of five in the Covid year of 2022 to 13 in four different years.
We have called out 1766 names from 338 different schools since the first awardees in 2012. Three players have appeared on the list the most times (five). Adrian shortstop Ryan Dorow (once in 2015 and twice in 2016 and 2017) and Webster starting pitcher Matt Mulhearn (once in 2018 and four times in 2021). The lastest five time honoreee was East Texas Baptist pitcher Sayeers Collins who appeared in the 2021 list and twice in 2022 and 2024. A total of 269 players have appeared at multiple times (five-times - 3, four times - 12, three times - 45 and two-times - 209). Hayden Tsutsui made the team in all four years that he played for Carelton. Mulhearn made the team for a record four times in 2021. In one case, Colin McCarthy was named twice with two different schools. He made the team in 2012 with Catholic and 2014 with Johns Hopkins. Jack Hollinshead, Wittenberg earned the honor three weeks in a row with Rob Marinec, North Central (Ill.) making the team in 2018 and again in 2022, four years between appearances on the team of the week.
It would surprise nobody that the majority of the performances are done by the senior class at a 42% clip (880 players). The trend of players with more experience making the list more often holds as the junior class had 656 players, sophomores with 373 spots and 179 first year players making the team. A small number of graduate students (34) have made the teams with 90% in the years post-Covid.
Three schools have earned a awardee at each of the eight positions (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, DH, P) . They are Adrian (26 awards), Cortland (43 awards), George Fox (15 awards) and Marietta (22 awards). With 43 award winners, Cortland is tops among all schools.
Accounting majors will quickly notice that our configuration of four infielders, three outfielders, a catcher, designated hitter and four pitchers (three starters and a reliever) leaves us with 152 extra players. Occasionally, there are two candidates for a position that cannot be separated and in these cases two names will be named for a single position. This has happened in 20 cases with infielders and 31 times with outfielders. Ten additional catching and four designated hitter slots were awarded. It is easier to add an addition pitcher and sometimes the pitching staff can swell to pasat the standard four man pitching staff. A total of 104 additional pitchers were added over the years, 35 relievers and 59 starters. The remaining three spots were for utility players.
The Team of the Week has the usual players listed but that does not prevent us from honoring some exceptional performances beyond the usual awardee and position. In one case the entire Stevens relief staff was honored as a group when they put together a perfect 10 innings with 19 by strikeout at the start of the 2014 season. In 2019, Occidental's Michael Netzel earned a spot with three extra-base pitch hits, the only time so far that we honored such an accomplishment.