{"id":5824,"date":"2026-07-17T10:49:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T10:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/17\/juco-slugger-vance-celiberti-commits-to-michigan-baseball\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T10:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T10:49:08","slug":"juco-slugger-vance-celiberti-commits-to-michigan-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/17\/juco-slugger-vance-celiberti-commits-to-michigan-baseball\/","title":{"rendered":"JUCO slugger Vance Celiberti commits to Michigan baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"post-613401\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Michigan baseball team may have already secured a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-baseball-transfer-ryan-schwartz-utility\/\">trio<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-transfer-noah-sheffield-from-florida-sta\/\">project<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/sun-devils-cooper-clouser-heading-from-hometown-to-michigan\/\">players<\/a> from top NCAA programs through the transfer portal, but that didn\u2019t stop it from snagging a more proven offensive commodity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After flashing eye-popping batting statistics with Pasco-Hernando State College in the NJCAA Division II, redshirt freshman first baseman Vance Celiberti will play for the Wolverines in the 2027 season. Celiberti announced his commitment on <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/VanceCeliberti\/status\/2063745201953206596\">X<\/a> June 7 before sources confirmed his impending transfer Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A dominant force in the Florida JUCO landscape last season, Celiberti led all qualified FCSAA DII hitters in home runs, extra-base hits and total bases. He broke the Bobcats\u2019 program record with 20 long shots in 62 games, nearly sweeping conference <a href=\"https:\/\/thefcsaasports.com\/sports\/bsb\/2025-26\/Baseball_Awards#tourney2\">awards<\/a> with first-team All-FCSAA, first base Golden Glove and Tournament MVP honors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With Celiberti, Pasco-Hernando won a Region 8 championship and earned a berth in the NJCAA DII World Series, where it finished <a href=\"https:\/\/www.njcaa.org\/sports\/bsb\/rankings\/DII\/index\">sixth<\/a> in the end-of-season national poll. Celiberti will likely compete for playing time at first base and designated hitter with junior Matt Ossenfort and redshirt sophomores Cade Ladehoff and Cooper Mullens.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Celiberti\u2019s presence could juice up a lineup that struggled to consistently produce splash plays last season. His versatility at the plate \u2014 producing nine sacrifice flies along with his 39 extra-base hits \u2014 makes him a candidate to bolster a Michigan lineup that hit just 45 home runs and often resorted to small ball in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Between Celiberti and incoming catcher Cooper Clouser, the Wolverines add a new pair of left-handed hitters to their clubhouse \u2014 offering Michigan coach Tracy Smith additional chess pieces to construct the matchup-based lineups he frequently employs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s not a guarantee that Celiberti will maintain his output at the Division I level, but his reliability and power give the Wolverines coaching staff an outline of what to expect from him.<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .entry-content --><\/p>\n<p>\t<!-- .entry-footer --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Michigan baseball team may have already secured a trio of project players from top NCAA programs through the transfer portal, but that didn\u2019t stop it from snagging a more proven offensive commodity. After flashing eye-popping batting statistics with Pasco-Hernando State College in the NJCAA Division II, redshirt freshman first baseman Vance Celiberti will play [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[731,5139,769,5136,222,5137,5138],"class_list":["post-5824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-baseball","tag-celiberti","tag-commits","tag-juco","tag-michigan","tag-slugger","tag-vance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5826,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5824\/revisions\/5826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}