The Rockaway Wave
Originally published May 24, 2024
After three seasons at Villanova, Nick Lorusso was looking for a change.
The Wildcats compete in the Big East, which is a Division I conference, but not one that’s considered Power Five. Lorusso’s dream was to be a professional baseball player. To give himself the best chance to fulfill that dream, he wanted to move to a Power Five conference. He found that opportunity with the University of Maryland.
“I guess you can probably print this — he’s my favorite player of all time,” Matt Swope, head coach of the Maryland Terrapins, said. “He’s just one of the most well-rounded humans I’ve ever been associated with.”
Swope, who was the hitting coach and recruiting coordinator when Lorusso transferred in, connected with Maxx Catapano, who coached Lorusso in travel ball growing up. Catapano already had other former players and former teammates of Lorusso — Luke Shliger and Bobby Zmarzlak — on Maryland’s roster.
“They wanted him, and obviously, he wanted to go play with his buddies,” Catapano said. “I stressed to him the importance of, once you wanted to go in the portal, you gotta find a coach that you’re gonna click with … and I mean, that obviously happened at Maryland.”
Lorusso already had some decent success at Villanova, hitting .294/.392/.391 over 88 games, but something changed when he got to College Park. Swope called it a perfect fit.
In 62 games in 2022, Lorruso hit .322/.409/.562, a near 1.000 OPS. Lorusso credited the work he did with Swope as the reason behind his huge increase in production. Swope attributed it to Lorusso’s natural talent, but also a way of training called motor preferences.
“That’s a very detailed and long conversation, but essentially, what motor preferences are is we’re able to find 10-to-12 categories specific of how that human wants to move,” Swope said. “This is not biomechanical, it’s based off their brain. So that was all just one fell swoop of connection with me and him and all those different things, and hopefully it’s helped him take him to another level.”
Motor preferences, as Swope described it, is a way of identifying what a player naturally wants to do and leaning into it. Just like in everyday life how some people prefer to walk on their forefoot, some prefer to walk on their heels, and there is no right or wrong, the same can apply to baseball.
“I’m not going to make a player swing down if he can’t swing down,” Swope said. “If he can only swing up … then we’re going to accentuate how he swings up but teach him how to do it productively. We’re not trying to find a weakness or a flaw, we’re accentuating their strengths.”
A 2023 article by Evan Webeck of The Mercury News, a San Francisco Bay Area newspaper, highlighted motor preferences as the reason behind LaMonte Wade Jr.’s success for the Giants. Wade played college baseball at Maryland from 2013-2015, when Swope was on the coaching staff as the director of baseball operations.
For Lorusso, Swope said he is one of those players who naturally swings up, which is more conducive to power. At Villanova, Lorusso hit five home runs in three seasons. In his first season at Maryland, he hit 15 — and that was just the start.
In 2023, Lorusso hit .379/.446/.756, good for a whopping 1.211 OPS over 61 games. He was third in the Big Ten in both batting average and OPS, second in slugging percentage and first in home runs with 26 — two more than teammate Matt Shaw, the 2023 No. 13 overall pick and current No. 43 prospect in baseball on MLB Pipeline. His 105 RBIs were tied for the most in the country with Tommy White of LSU, also known as “Tommy Tanks.”
“He was always good,” Catapano said. “When he was 11, 12 years old I thought he was gonna be a pro. It was that year though it went from ‘this is a good college player’ to like, ‘that was one of the best college baseball seasons I ever saw.’”
Over two seasons at Maryland, Lorusso hit 41 home runs, over eight times more than he did in three seasons at Villanova (albeit in 35 fewer games). Swope sang his praises, calling Lorusso elite, the linchpin of the lineup, and the best breaking ball hitter he’s ever seen.
Lorusso wasn’t just a hitter either, he dabbled in pitching. Ralph Franco, who was the head baseball coach at Masuk High School in Monroe, Connecticut, when Lorusso was there, said the opportunity to be a two-way player contributed to him picking Villanova over UConn out of high school.
A fastball/curveball/changeup pitcher, Franco said Lorusso threw in the upper 80s in high school and while he wasn’t one of his more dominant arms, he was definitely productive.
Lorusso won the team’s best athlete award in his senior season, which Franco said goes to a player who pitches and plays defense.
“He’s just been a phenomenal player from day one,” Franco said. “I’ve been fortunate to have five guys go off and play professional baseball, and he’s right on top of that list with all those other guys as well.”
In his freshman year at Villanova, he appeared in 16 games (six starts) and threw 41 and 2⁄3 innings with a 6.05 ERA. On a Wildcats squad that went 13-38, Lorusso was fifth in innings pitched and fifth in ERA among anyone with double-digit appearances.
He didn’t pitch again at Villanova, but he did toe the rubber again in his first year at Maryland. Despite being the starting third baseman and the cleanup hitter, Lorusso made eight appearances out of the bullpen.
“It’s not easy to some days come in and prepare, get your throwing in or a bullpen, and then go out and hit, and then start at third base, but then in the middle of the game be taken from third base to pitching, and then go back to third base,” Swope said. “I think that’ll serve him well at the professional level more on the mental side than necessarily anything else.”
In his eight games on the mound for the Terrapins, Lorusso threw 9 and 2⁄3 innings with a 6.52 ERA and eight punchouts.
“I was just a two-way going into high school, and something that I was pretty decent at,” Lorusso said. “And then did it freshman through sophomore year and then did a little at Maryland, but I thought the bat was always my number one priority.”
Even though Lorusso is only a position player now, his experience on the mound is something he carries with him when he steps up to the plate.
“Having the mind of a pitcher definitely helps me in the box,” Lorusso said. “Thinking what they’re thinking changes my approach at some times.”
Lorusso’s agent, Joseph Guzman, said their goal going into the 2023 MLB Draft was to have him taken inside the top 10 rounds. He said there were some teams talking about him as early as the 4th round, but ultimately ended up going to the Mets in the 9th. He was the fourth Terp taken after Shaw, Shliger and Jason Savacool.
The Mets sent him to Single-A St. Lucie to finish the 2023 season and he struggled mightily. In 26 games and 89 at-bats, Lorusso hit .169/.250/.270 with 27 strikeouts to just nine walks. Guzman said despite the hits not falling for him in his first taste of pro ball, Lorusso was never fazed.
“He really believes in his ability and the work that he’s put in,” Guzman said.
He was assigned to High-A Brooklyn to begin the 2024 season — common for college seniors taken in the middle rounds of the draft — and it’s been a completely different story.
In 32 games so far, Lorusso is hitting .275/.364/.483 with four home runs, nine doubles and two triples. His .847 OPS is the top mark on the team among qualified hitters, and he’s also first in hits, extra-base hits and total bases. The strikeout-to-walk ratio has improved to 25-to-17, and it’s something Lorusso said he feels most organizations, including the Mets, value. He even has a 1.072 OPS at Maimonides Park, a ballpark that’s notoriously hard on hitters.
Brooklyn Cyclones Manager Gilbert Gómez, who was also the manager of Single-A St. Lucie last season, said he’s really proud of Lorusso and the strides he’s made.
“Night and day. I think he feels more comfortable, he knows he doesn’t have to prove anything to anybody,” Gómez said. “I felt like last year, he was trying to prove to everybody that he belonged instead of just going with the flow … this year he has been the complete opposite. He knows what he needs, he knows what he is. I think that he understands his game a little more and knows exactly what he needs to do to be prepared for the game, and it’s showing. He’s a really solid just overall professional, and we’re happy to have him.”
He’s split his time between third base and first base actually getting more games at first base. In the seven games he’s played since Ryan Clifford was promoted to Double-A, five have come at first, one at third and one at designated hitter. It’s been a learning process, as he said he feels more comfortable at third because it’s where he has the most experience, but has been expanding his horizons with first.
Lorusso said the biggest thing with baseball is confidence, and he has it.
“The only way I’m gonna lose is if I beat myself,” Lorusso said. “So just knowing that I’m the best one on the field.”
Swope, after seeing the work he did in the offseason to bounce back from his professional cameo in 2023, said that Lorusso is confident and when he’s confident, “there’s no stopping him.”
Catapano said he isn’t surprised Lorusso is mashing in High-A.
“The biggest thing we would always talk about is chasing the ghost of who you want to be when you’re 22 years old,” Catapano said. “He’s the definition of manifesting. He decided ‘I’m gonna be a power-hitting third baseman, and he started lifting accordingly, he stopped focusing so much on speed and being a pitcher. And it was ‘I’m gonna go build the body of Nolan Arenado, your prototypical third baseman,’ and he’s built his body accordingly, and built his swing accordingly. Watching him, obviously, it’s the best part of my day, watching that kid play.”
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