FIU senior outfielder Pablo Bermudez ended last season as the Sun Belt Conference Co-Player of the Year. This year, Sun Belt coaches named him the preseason Offensive Player of the Year, which starts this weekend for FIU with a series at Rice.

College coaches’ pats on the back haven’t caressed Bermudez into complacency after Major League Baseball teams’ front offices dealt him a slap into reality last summer.

“If anything, I’ve got a bigger chip on my shoulder this year after not getting drafted,” Bermudez said. “Playing with the confidence to show people that I deserved it last year. I’m going to prove that all the teams that didn’t pick me last year that I should’ve been picked last year and the team that picks me this year is going to have a great addition to their team.”

After Bermudez led the NCAA Regional-appearing Panthers in hitting (.373), runs (63), stolen bases (17), walks (51) and fielding percentage among starters (1.000), it seemed a fait accompli that Bermudez would be drafted. The 12-game hitting streak with which he closed the season would end with the career of the Miami Springs High graduate.

Coach Turtle Thomas gave Bermudez a fare thee well and permission to return to FIU for batting practice after the draft.

But all the draft — which pounds viewers with round-after-round of names streaming from Lawrence Central High to Lawrence, Kan. — did was leave Thomas with one more layer of hitting depth on a 2012 roster he thinks doesn’t have much of it.

“Position-player-wise and pitching-wise, it’s not like we have a lot of extra bodies lying around,” Thomas said. “We need guys healthy, playing well for us to be a good club. We need a stellar year from each one of them so we can perform as well as we have in the past.”

Despite a rising batting average each season — .319 to .331 to .373 — Bermudez’s main offseason area of emphasis concerned precision at the plate. Two years ago, he struck out 63 times, walked only 33 times and finished with an on-base percentage of .410. He bettered that to 49, 51 and .488, respectively, last season.

Although Bermudez will take the 51 walks, he would like to take the 49 strikeouts and toss them into a nearby mud puddle.

“What I worked on most was keeping my eye down while I’m hitting, watching my pitches, being selective at the plate, just trying to have more walks than strikeouts, getting on base, doing what I need to do as the first batter,” Bermudez said.

“My sophomore year, I struck out way too many times,” he continued. “Last year, coach told me we need you to walk more times than you strike out. You should try to get it to two walks for every strikeout.

“Last year, I couldn’t do it. I led the team in walks, but I still wanted to improve on that even more.”