Miami’s Zach Neto: From undersized afterthought to likely MLB draft first-round pick
See you later, Zach.
That’s what the cashier would say to Zach Neto several times a day on his voluminous trips to the Campbell University cafeteria in the fall of 2019. It was common for Neto in those days to eat six meals a day – essentially every other hour he was awake.
The meal plan worked.
After arriving from Miami’s Coral Park High as a skinny 5-foot-10, 160-pound shortstop, Neto got on a first-name basis with the cafeteria employees as he transformed himself into a player who is now known by every baseball scout in the country.
Indeed, CBS Sports predicts Neto will get drafted by the New York Mets 11th overall, which would bring a slot value of $4.77 million to the native of Miami’s Sweetwater neighborhood. CBS Sports’ Mike Axisa raves about Neto’s “excellent contact rates and sneaky-great exit velocities.”
But it’s not just CBS. Jim Callis of MLB.com projects Neto getting selected 14th overall also to the Mets. Baseball America has Neto going 16th to the Cleveland Guardians, which is still a slot value of $3.9 million.
“Zach’s not going to be on the board when the second round begins,” Campbell coach Justin Haire told The Herald recently.
Neto – who is now 6-foot and 190 pounds – is just the second player ever to win the Big South Conference Player of the Year award twice. In 2022, he hit .407 with 23 doubles, two triples, 15 homers, 65 runs and 50 RBIs in 53 games.
He also stole 19 bases in 20 tries, posting a hard-to-believe .514 on-base percentage and a 1.273 OPS.
Neto, 21, feasted on opponents with about the same frequency as his visits to Campbell’s cafeteria.
And he didn’t just pulverize Big South pitching. He did the same thing to Tennessee, which went an incredible 57-9 this year. In this year’s Knoxville regional, Neto went 3-for-5 with a double and a run scored against Tennessee.
Other “Power Five” schools got the same treatment. This year alone, Neto also went 4-for-5 with a homer, a double, two singles and three runs scored in a win over Duke; 4-for-9 with two homers, one double, four runs scored and four RBIs in a two-game sweep over Ohio State; and 4-for-8 with five runs scored in splitting two games against Georgia Tech in the Knoxville regional.
“When scouts are trying to decide whether to invest $3-or-4 million on him,” Haire said, “it’s helpful to see him turn around 98-mph fastballs against Tennessee, one of the most talented teams in college baseball history.”
Neto comes from a working-class, Cuban-American, sports-loving family. His father Joaquin – who taught him baseball – is a mailman. His mother Magali works for AT&T, and they are both Yankees fans.
A Marlins fan growing up, Neto also has an older brother, Andrew, who played baseball for Coral Reef and Miami Dade College, and a younger sister, Meghan, who plays Division III softball in Buffalo.
Neto started his prep baseball career at Doral Academy, but he left after just two weeks.
“I wasn’t given an opportunity,” Neto said.
He felt much more comfortable at Coral Park, where he was a three-time All-District player thanks to a .407 career batting average.
However, he hit just two homers in high school. That fact – combined with his lack of ideal size and a batting stance that included a high leg kick that drew doubts from scouts – left Neto without a single Power Five scholarship offer. He also went undrafted out of high school.
Enter Lazaro Llanes, a Miami scout and coach who for years has taken players on college bus tours as part of the mission of his company, Selective Recruiting.
“If it wasn’t for those trips,” Neto said, “I would never have known about Campbell.”
Neto, who also visited schools such as Ohio State, Wake Forest and Auburn on those bus trips with other local baseball prospects, got to Campbell’s campus in the summer before his junior year. He committed to Campbell on a second bus trip, exactly one year later.
Campbell got a steal.
“There are a lot of great players in South Florida,” Haire said. “It’s easy to get overlooked, especially if you are undersized, although Zach looks the part now.”
Neto gives Campbell’s associate director of strength and conditioning Matt Rodriguez a ton of credit for how he looks now.
Rodriguez, meanwhile, said Neto made a quick adjustment once he arrived on campus in Buies Creek, North Carolina.
“He immediately immersed himself into our weight room and on-field speed-development stuff,” Rodriguez said.
“In terms of diet, Campbell is in tobacco country, Southern cooking. He was used to Cuban cuisine. We had to get him to eat higher-quality nutrients, brown rice for example, which is blander than what he was used to.
“We tell our guys: ‘Your body is your vehicle. You wouldn’t put 89 unleaded into a Lamborghini.”
Neto, though, wasn’t a sports car right away. His first year at Campbell, in 2020, was unproductive. He started the year in a brace after having a cyst removed from his right hand, and his season ended (along with everybody else) due to COVID. He played in just three games as a hitter and one as a pitcher.
“I thought,” Haire said, “his future would be on the mound.”
That summer, however, Neto starred as a hitter in the South Florida Collegiate League. Then he hit .405 for Campbell in 2021, and he took off from there.
Neto, who needs one more year of classes to earn his degree in sports management, handled the pressure this year, telling himself that all the scouts at Campbell’s games were just regular fans.
Haire said Neto reminds him of MLB shortstop Trea Turner, a player he saw a bunch in college while playing against North Carolina State.
“Zach can hit, and he has more natural (power) than Trea even if he is not a true banger,” Haire said. “Zach can throw 93 (mph) off the bump. With a crow hop at shortstop, he’s probably 94-95.
“For pure speed, Zach is an average big-league runner. But his speed plays up because he knows how to steal, and he’s an excellent base-runner.”
Neto, who has kept his leg kick and proven scouts wrong that it can work for him, tends to “pimp” his home runs, and his style comes from his Miami and Cuban-American roots.
“I’m an energetic player,” Neto said. “Cubans tend to be loud, play with a lot of confidence. People think I’m cocky.
“But I just play with swag, and I bring my team with me.”
Neto is also bringing his family with him.
After attending the MLB Combine in San Diego June 16-18, Neto will return to the West Coast with his family for the draft, July 17-19.
In fact, Neto and his family have been invited to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles for the draft, the Home Run Derby on July 18 and the MLB All-Star Game on July 19.
After getting drafted, he will get to hang out with that team’s All-Star(s). If it’s the Mets, for example, Neto will likely meet Pete Alonso. If it’s the Angels, you can imagine selfies with Mike Trout.
As for the teams that pass on Neto, he has a plan for them, too.
“By July 17, I will know who is picking me and who is passing on me,” Neto said. “People doubted me in high school. People doubted me in college.
“The draft might be my next ‘chip on my shoulder.’ I will probably use that and make teams pay throughout my career.”
See you later, Zach. You’re about to fly off the draft board.
