In the last 13 months, if you’ve been voted the best college baseball player in the nation, proved you could hit homers out of a non-hitters’ park and become a fan favorite in just seven home games, you could only be Amarillo Sod Poodles infielder Ivan Melendez.
The 6-foot-3, 225-pound Melendez has so quickly made his mark in Amarillo that larger than life monikers only seem natural to apply. And he already has at least one, the “Hispanic Titanic” going back to his days at the University of Texas.
Making an impression leading to such an imposing nickname is nothing new to El Paso native Melendez, at least over his last three years of playing competitive baseball.
“It’s been around for a while,” said Melendez of his nome de baseball. “I don’t think much of it. Everybody calls me by some type of name except my name. I guess it’s cool to have that in the clubhouse.”
Whatever people want to call Melendez, it needs to stand out, since he’s been doing exactly that in Amarillo. Since making his Class AA debut with the Sod Poodles at Hodgetown after the four-day break for the All-Star game, Melendez has been easy to pick out from the crowd.
Melendez hit a home run in his first game with the Sod Poodles against Frisco to open the season-long nine-game homestand. He had a pair of two-homer games in the series against Wichita, ending the series by blasting a 489-foot bomb to left-center, the third longest homer by a Sod Poodle in Hodgetown history.
With six homers in seven games, it’s easy to see why Melendez got the call up from Hillsboro in Oregon, the high-Class A affiliate for the Sod Poodles parent club Arizona Diamondbacks. In that regard, Melendez has been as good as advertised.
“I don’t try to live up to the hype, I just try to take it day by day,” Melendez said. “Whatever the outcome is, it is what it is. It’s definitely a better hitting environment here than it is in Hillsboro.”
That’s the consensus from anybody who’s played in both places. The thing is, Melendez put up numbers in Hillsboro which would be respectable almost anywhere.
In 58 games at Hillsboro, including home games at a spacious field, Melendez batted .270 with 18 home runs and 43 RBIs.
His power was no secret to anybody in the organization.
“We knew about him last year in the draft and being a Golden Spikes Award player,” said Sod Poodles manager Shawn Roof of Melendez. “That’s obviously a prestigious honor so you know he’s pretty good. I saw him in spring training and he did a lot of things that really impressed you. He had something like seven days in a row where he hit a home run (at Hillsboro).
“Right about the All-Star break we realized it was pretty soon he might be coming.”
In nine games at Hodgetown, Melendez and his new home stadium have proved a perfect marriage. Whether it’s pulling the ball or finding the power alley in right center, Melendez has taken advantage of the conditions.
While Hodgetown might give hitters an advantage, the increased quality of Double-A pitching mitigates that. The talent might not be that different than in Class A, but it’s just more consistent.
“It’s the same kind of baseball but everything’s a little bit cleaner,” Melendez said. “Pitchers up here have slightly better stuff, but it’s 95 (MPH) and you’re still facing that in high (Class) A.”
The move up to the next level has helped players such as former Sod Poodles shortstop Ryan Bliss, who has since been called up to Triple-A Reno. Bliss led the Texas League in hitting before he was called up during the All-Star break.
In terms of run production at least, Melendez was expected to replace Bliss, and in that regard he hasn’t disappointed.
“You never know how a guy’s going to react to a new level,” Roof said. “He’s been as much as advertised. Our farm director Josh Barfield said ‘You’re really going to like this guy. I know you’re losing Bliss, but you’re going to like this Melendez guy.’ He was right and it’s fun to pencil him in the lineup.”
There were two times Roof didn’t pencil in Melendez during the nine-game homestand, since the Sod Poodles are developing players for the Diamondbacks and need to look at the entire roster and every position. That’s the policy in most organizations.
Last Thursday, though, when the Sod Poodles posted their starting lineup against Wichita on Twitter, it was revealed that Melendez wasn’t on it. That led to some emails to the Sod Poodles front office inquiring as to why their big slugger was sitting.
In less than one week on the roster, Melendez was already a fan favorite who was missed by fans when he wasn’t in the lineup.
“I know it comes with being in my home state, but we’re scheduled to have an off day every week,” Melendez said. “You can’t change that because everybody gets at least one. You want to go out and play every day. I wouldn’t want to say they’re disappointed, but it’s something I enjoy looking forward to, having people want to watch me play.”
Roof won’t break professional protocol to cave to demands for Melendez to play.
“I don’t know what the fans here are expecting,” Roof said. “Obviously we have things to do as far as the organization goes. We have 28 guys on the roster and he’s a fan favorite. He’s been putting on a show for them.”
Five years ago, putting on a show at the pro level was just a dream for Melendez. A graduate from El Paso Coronado, Melendez drew no interest from pro scouts or Division I schools, and settled for junior college ball at Odessa College.
That was a huge building block in the developmental pyramid for Melendez.
“It was definitely a development,” Melendez said. “I felt like I had the ability to play Division I. I had some people looking at me but I never really got an offer. Maybe it was the competition I was facing.
“I enjoyed going the juco route. I played every day. I was trying to advance to Division I and get a scholarship and I did.”
That came when he was playing for a summer team and got noticed by Texas, one of the nation’s most perennially powerful programs. In 2021, Melendez played in 59 games for the Longhorns (although only seven in the field) and batted .319 with 13 homers and 51 RBIs.
The Florida Marlins took notice and drafted Melendez in the 16th round that June. Melendez decided to stay in school because of an extra covid year and felt he needed to play in the field more to improve his draft stock.
That strategy worked, as he played all 67 games that year at first base, batting .387 with 32 homers and 94 RBIs, making him a blue chip prospect. The Golden Spikes winners was the 43rd player selected in the draft by the Diamondbacks.
“I was hearing top three rounds,” Melendez said of his draft expectations. “I thought it was pretty realistic to get drafted in the second round. I take it day by day and can’t really control that. I don’t think ‘Oh, I’ve got to get out of here’, I just think I’ve got to play well today.”
Melendez has divided his time between first and third on the field, but it’s his bat which will take him far. Yet, Double-A ball has exposed some flaws in Melendez at the plate.
He’s been kind of feast or famine at the plate, as he’s hitting .257 and struck out 16 times in 35 at-bats. Until he concluded the scoring in Wednesday’s 9-1 win at Midland with an RBI double, all his previous eight RBIs had come via the homer.
Melendez doesn’t mind taking the strikeouts with the long balls.
“I obviously hear that all the time, but who doesn’t strike out?,” Melendez said. “That’s kind of hard, but obviously putting more balls in play would be good.”
Putting them over the fence is even better.