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USF baseball senior first baseman Joe Genord was drafted by the New York Mets in the ninth round—268th overall— of the 2019 MLB Draft today.
9 (268): @Mets select South Florida (FL) 1B Joe Genord. https://t.co/Mur8BMRqpi #MLBDraft
— MLB Draft Tracker (@MLBDraftTracker) June 4, 2019
JOEYYYYY! From The Bay to the Big
— USF Baseball (@USFBaseball) June 4, 2019
Our first selection in the 2019 @MLBDraft is headed to the @Mets.
Congrats Joe on an incredible career and we can't wait to see what's to come at the next level. pic.twitter.com/Tz9uZ42gFx
USF has had at least one player drafted in 20 consecutive seasons, and has had one player picked in the first ten rounds in five-straight seasons.
Genord was part of that special 2015 recruiting class put together by former head coach Mark Kingston, and current head coach Billy Mohl who helped turn the baseball program around and help reach a NCAA regional in back-to-back seasons in 2017 and 2018.
The Lake Worth native started 197 of the 204 career games as a Bull and complied a .291 batting average, 43 doubles, 44 home runs, and 164 RBIs in those games.
Genord finishes his USF career third all-time in home runs (44) and his 16 home runs in 2018 are the seventh-most homers in a single season at USF.
Perhaps the biggest indicator of the progress he showed from his freshman year to senior year was his strikeout-to-walk ratio. He struck out 40 times and walked just nine times in 2016, and he had a 1:1 K/BB ratio in 2019 with 33 strikeout and walks apiece.
He earned a first-team all-AAC selection in 2019 after batting .333/.446/.618 with 13 HR and 52 RBI. He was a second-team pick in 2018.
Joe will always be remember for taking the soul of ECU in 2018.
Congratuations Joey Bats.
#ECU Twitter in my mentions over calling Cliff Godwin a fake tough guy. Look at him toward the end of the video..What hell is he gonna do to Joe Genord?
— Nathan Bond (@BullsNathanSBN) January 28, 2019
Next time, don’t give up dingers after telling the batter to get in the box. FOH. pic.twitter.com/9dTH7bCDUH