Ivan Melendez, the “Hispanic Titanic,” honored at Bobby Bragan gala
He’s the Golden Spikes Award winner, the Dick Howser Trophy winner and Baseball America’s Player of the Year.
Yet those collegiate baseball honors don’t aptly fit Ivan Melendez profile as much as the Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger Award does.
“It’s special because it represents what I try to do on the field and off the field,” Melendez said this week. “I don’t want to just dominate on the field, I want to dominate off of it, too.”
The University of Texas slugger, nicknamed the “Hispanic Titanic,” has earned many accolades after his 2022 season when he batted .387 with 32 home runs and 94 RBIs.
On Thursday, the 22-year old accepted the Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger Award (BBCSA) presented by SR Bats at its annual gala the Fort Worth Club. Unlike the other awards which are based solely on statistics and on-field play, the BBCSA is based on performance at the plate, academics and personal integrity.
He graduated from Texas with a degree in corporate communications. If this baseball thing doesn’t work out — and there’s no reason to think it won’t — then he has a backup plan in life.
A standout at Coronado High School in El Paso, he went on to play at Odessa College for two years before landing at “his dream school” in Austin as a member of the Longhorns. It is there where he began posting huge statistics and gaining national attention.
He batted .319 with 13 home runs in 2021. After turning down a contract offer from the Miami Marlins who drafted him in the 16th round that summer, he returned to the Longhorns.
“I wanted to return to the Longhorns, get my degree and increase my draft position,” he said.
He certainly did.
His huge season earned him accolade after accolade.
The Arizona Diamondbacks selected him with the fourth pick in the second round in the 2022 draft. After signing for $1.4 million bonus, Melendez spent a month playing professionally for Arizona’s rookie league team and their Class A affiliate in Visalia in the California League.
He’s now back in his hometown of El Paso this winter, living again with his parents — both career educators, and preparing for his first full professional season.
His offseason routine includes working out, hitting in the batting cage several times each week. He’ll report to instructional camp in Scottsdale, Ariz., in January, then return there for spring training in February. There’s a good chance he will start the season at one of the Diamondbacks’ Class A affiliates (Visalia or Hillsboro, Ore.) or the Double-A affiliate in Amarillo.
Texas Tech’s Hunter Hargrove won the initial BBCSA in 2017. Dallas Baptist’s Devlin Granberg won in 2018; Texas Tech’s Josh Jung won in 2019. The BBCSA had no winner in 2020 due to the fact that the COVID-19 virus cut that collegiate baseball season short. Connor Norby from East Carolina University won in 2021 when the award began accepting nominees beyond the state of Texas for the first time.
The award is named after Robert Randall “Bobby” Bragan, whose professional baseball career spanned 73 years as a player, coach, manager and executive. He established the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation in 1991 which awards annual scholarships. Bragan died at his Fort Worth home in 2010.