DII Report ™️: DII baseball player-of-the-year profile, Andrews Opata, North Georgia
Opata is one of the most athletic, all-around players in DII. This year, the numbers backed it up.
(North Georgia Athletics)
It is DII baseball championship week. That means it’s crunch time for some of DII’s best players. So we continue our look at potential player-of-the-year candidates. Before we get to Andrews Opata make sure you get caught up on past profiles:
Adam Paniagua | Brevin McCool | Mikey Scott | Jordan Williams
Andrews Opata by the numbers
Opata has been a steady force in the Nighthawks lineup since his freshman year. Being close to home, I have seen him live quite a few times. Opata is one of the true five-tool players in DII baseball. He has speed, improved bat-to-ball skills, power, and field prowess that makes balls hit to left or right centerfield an almost certain out. This year, all the numbers came together and now everyone knows what I have been saying all along: Opata is good at baseball.
Williams 2025 (through 5/4)
Vitals: 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, 2025 PBC player of the year, he has the speed to disrupt pitchers on the basepaths and close gaps in the field; he is a bit of a free swinger but controls the zone well and is not afraid to be aggressive early in the count.
Stats: .380 batting average (third in PBC) * 1.036 OPS * 83 runs scored (fifth in DII) * 11 home runs * 60 RBI * 40 stolen bases (9th in DII)
Andrews Opata in his own words
Wayne Cavadi: Let's go back to where it all started. Just tell me a little bit about how you wound up at North Georgia.
Andrews Opata: I was playing high school ball at Parkview High School and played summer ball but I just wasn't getting a lot of schools going into my senior year. Then I got a couple of DII schools, North Georgia being one of them. I went on my visit, and I just was so shocked at the facilities and how great the coaches were. Everything just felt perfect for me to go there. I talked it over with my family and I knew this was definitely the place for me to go. I ended up committing in late August of my senior year.
WC: You mentioned the coaches. Obviously, Coach Tom Cantrell has won over 1,000 college baseball games, so we know he's good. Talk a little bit about being with coach for the past three years — the role he's played in your development.
AO: Coach Cantrell, he's done so much for me on and off the field. He has helped me build a lot of confidence as the years went on. He's helped me develop the skills that I was already pretty good at, but he refined it and made it a lot better for me. He just gives his players a lot of confidence. It's so easy to play for somebody who's confident in you and confident in what you can do for the team. He's never hard on us. He just tells us what we need to do. He doesn't put a lot of pressure on us. He just allows us to play the way that we've always been playing our whole lives. It's so easy to play for him, and I love playing for him.
WC: I hate to use the word five-tool player, but you are one of those types of players who is good at everything. So let's start with your approach at the plate. I've seen you a lot. Sometimes I'll watch you and you have no fear swinging at a first pitch while other times I see you wait a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your approach.
AO: I like to evaluate the situation of the game and where the runners are and mentally prepare on deck before I get in the box for what I have to do. My approach doesn't really change from at-bat to at-bat, but I like to be aggressive every at-bat. I like to think that the pitcher wants to be aggressive, too, and get me behind early and get a first-pitch strike. Usually, the first couple of pitches are the best pitches that they'll throw, so I like to be aggressive and attack the first couple of pitches.
If I get late in the count, then I start to be a little bit more defensive. And I'm just like, ‘All right, I just have to move the baseball here. Don't strike out.’ I put the ball in play because if I hit an infield ground ball that requires the infielders to move, I have a good chance of beating it out.
WC: A walk — it can sometimes be a double for you with the speed that you have. Do you like to play with that? Do you like having that speed and playing with pitcher’s heads and helping your teammates out?
AO: I love it because it puts a lot of pressure on them because instead of the pitcher just having to focus on hitters like Jace Bowen and Philip Ard, they also have to worry about me and their timing and short leg lifts to the plate. It ultimately messes with them a little bit and gives our hitters, our two, three, four hitters, better pitches to hit.
WC: It has all come together this year, career highs across the board, a huge power influx, and all the RBIs. For a leadoff guy to have 60 RBIs, that's remarkable. What do you think the big difference was coming into this year as opposed to years past?
AO: I looked back on my freshman and my sophomore years, and I took I did well and just kept on doing that. Then I talked with coach about what he sees me doing better and what I need to focus on going into my junior year. Over the summer, I played with the Holly Spring Salamanders in the Coastal Plain League, and I just really worked on those tools that I needed to get better.
I needed to cut down on my strikeouts, and I needed to move the ball a little bit more, and ultimately just play better baseball. I knew that would come with time. I also knew that mentally, I just had to continue to tell myself that every day is not going to be your best day, but at least if you do one thing well, it'll help you later on in the season. I have my struggles mentally and physically in the game, but I learned that if I was mentally tough, it would help me out. I also hit the weight room pretty heavily and gained 10 pounds before I came back.
WC: Let's talk about fielding because obviously, you play a great center field. You have the arm and the closing speed to get gap hits or a vacuum out there. You're from Georgia. Are you an Andrew Jones fan? Who are some guys that you watch defensively that have helped model your game?
AO: I did like watching Andruw Jones. But I would say, if we're talking currently, I really like the way Michael Harris plays outfield. It's just phenomenal, the way he just goes tracks balls, and steals home runs. I like to watch him play, and I just like to model my game around him and the way he does his stuff, too.
WC: Let's talk about hitting. Who's been your favorite player and who are the guys you watch now?
AO: My favorite player growing up was Chipper Jones. I like the way he handled the bat. It was cool to watch a switch hitter go from the left side to the right side and hit for all his power. He was just a great player for me to watch growing up as a Braves fan. But I would say now my favorite player, I don't even know, it's tough. I would say I like [Fernando] Tatis Jr., I like Michael Harris, [Ronald] Acuña. Those are all guys that I like the excitement that they bring to the game.
WC: Like you, they do a lot. They don't do just one thing. They're multi-talented. Let's talk a little bit about metrics because that's what baseball is these days and how you use them in training. How much do metrics play a role in your training and how much is just good old-fashioned watching video a part of your training?
AO: I do a little bit of a mix of both. I watch a lot of film on myself, and I like to watch a lot of film on the pitchers before the series. I try and pick up on different stuff every time that can help me and stuff that I need to focus on going into each game.
Metrics-wise, I really just leave that to the coaches who give us a little scouting report before every game and tell us the velocity of the pitcher and what the shape of his stuff looks like. But for me personally, metrics-wise, I like to see the exit velocity of some of the balls that I hit because I can tell whether I really barreled a ball, or if I got a little of the hands there. I could feel it. But then if I look at the exit velo, I can say, ‘Okay, if I hit the ball between these ranges and at this distance, most of the time it's going to be this result.’
WC: Are there big-league dreams? What is the ultimate goal for you?
AO: That is the ultimate goal for me. It's been a goal for mine since I was a little kid watching the Braves play in person and on TV all the time. It just seems like a very cool experience to be able to play the game that I love at a high level and be able to make money and just do it as a full-time job.