A long off-season just got a little longer for Adam Hackenberg.
Meeting with the media before his team started spring practice on Friday, Clemson head coach Monte Lee announced that Hackenberg will be out for at least a couple of weeks with an arm injury.
“We do have Adam Hackenberg, who’s our team captain, and our starting catcher, he’s out,” Lee said. “He has an arm injury. We feel like he could be out for some time. We’re not exactly sure how long quite yet. We expect it to be over the next couple of weeks but it could go into the season that he may not be available and we will do everything we can to get Jonathan French and Cooper Ingle ready to go.”
Hackenberg was beginning to emerge as one of the power bats in the middle of the lineup for the Tigers last season. He hit .295 with three homeruns, three doubles, and 15 RBIs in 17 games and was the No. 41 ACC prospect for the 2021 draft in the preseason by D1Baseball.
If Hackenberg is still out when Opening Day rolls around on February 19, the Tigers will have to turn to Jonathan French and/or Cooper Ingle. French, a sophomore, missed the shortened 2019 season a leg injury.
He came to Clemson ranked as the No. 26 freshman in the nation in the preseason by Perfect Game, the No. 4 freshman in the ACC in the preseason by Perfect Game, the No. 3 ACC prospect for the 2022 draft in the preseason by Baseball America, and the No. 25 ACC prospect for the 2022 draft in the preseason by D1Baseball.
Ingle is a true freshman out of AC Reynolds High School in Asheville. Perfect Game ranked him as a Top-300 prospect overall and No. 24 among all catchers. He was considered the seventh-best player in the state of North Carolina.
