Nate Mulberg is making replacing a legend look easy.
Named by Johns Hopkins in July to succeed iconic baseball coach Bob Babb, Mulberg, a former Richmond assistant coach, has guided the Blue Jays to a 30-9 overall record, a 13-5 mark in the Centennial Conference and the No. 8 ranking in the most recent D3baseball.com poll.
Johns Hopkins captured its fourth consecutive league regular-season championship and 15th overall. The team will open the conference tournament as the No. 1 seed by hosting No. 4 seed Ursinus (23-16-1, 9-9) Thursday at 3 p.m. at Stromberg Stadium in Baltimore.
But Mulberg, 34, insisted the Blue Jays’ success stems from the players, assistant coaches and administration, not him.
“If people want to give me credit, that’s great, but the way I look at it is, my job is to help put people in the best position for success,” he said of receiving praise. “And I credit the guys who are on the field for making that happen.”
This might be one of the few occasions when the players disagree with their coach.
“We all knew the success we could have if we got the right coach, and we definitely got the right coach, and he’s definitely kept the momentum from the last couple years going,” senior centerfielder and second baseman Jacob Harris said. “I think it’s something that he should be really proud of.”
The bar for Mulberg was set high by his predecessor. Babb — a 1977 graduate of Johns Hopkins who played outfield, shortstop and first and third base and was an assistant football coach for 21 years — retired in June after a 46-year career that included amassing a 1,346-483-16 record that ranks fifth all-time for the most wins among NCAA Division III coaches.
Under Babb’s direction, the Blue Jays made seven NCAA Division III College World Series appearances and were routinely ranked nationally. Mulberg said continuing that standard of excellence was a priority, but not a hindrance.
“I never really see it as pressure,” he said. “I really see it as a blessing of, ‘Hey, this is what’s capable if we do the right things, we work hard, we prepare the guys in the right way, we recruit the right way, we set the right standards and uphold the standards that have been set here for so long.’”
Mulberg has added his own imprint to the program. He shepherded the purchase of several pitching machines to help batters improve their techniques at the plate and water bags and core velocity belts to instill in pitchers a sense of efficiency in their motions on the mound.
While Johns Hopkins has been one of the best teams in the country at hitting home runs (the offense ranks first with 83), Mulberg said he wants to help the players manufacture “small ball” scoring and stealing bases. He said the objective is to apply pressure to opposing pitchers and defenses.
Mulberg and Babb share a sense of care for their players. Harris said Mulberg aided him in his decision to use his last year of eligibility at Kansas State next spring, while graduate student first baseman William Jaun noted that Mulberg and the assistants ran wind sprints with the players after an unsatisfactory intra-squad scrimmage in the fall.
“I think that’s really rare because it shows that they want it just as bad as we do,” said Jaun, a Cornell transfer who chose the Blue Jays over Case Western Reserve after Mulberg hired Robby Faris, a 2020 Johns Hopkins graduate who was the Big Red hitting coach. “It kind of made it a lot more real that they’re competing, and they have a love for it.”
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There have been a few hiccups. Injuries have taken a toll on the pitching staff, with junior All-American Grant Meert suffering a season-ending torn ACL in the fall and seniors Thomas Cancian and Charles Monterrosa missing the past month because of unspecified ailments.