The Pipeline Builder

Pete Alonso can still hear it.

Instinctually, some players like to pick up a ball sitting still with their glove. Doing so at Plant High School means you'll run laps as a consequence. Coach Dennis Braun doesn't waste time barking the order. Because, in his mind, picking up a ball with your hand or glove may not come across as a big difference, but the little details are what truly matter most.

“If there’s a ball standing still, you have to pick it up with your hand,” Alonso said. “There’s things that obviously I still hear in the back of my head from time to time.”

Some two hours down the road, Braun and his stern yet professional culture has been one of the secret foundations of the success of the Florida Gators baseball program. He has been at Plant, a Tampa powerhouse that's produced everyone from Kyle Tucker to Hall of Famer Wade Boggs, for 21 years. Along the way, he's sent Florida some of the school's most prolific players. That won't end soon: Jordan Olivia, a catcher at Plant, is committed to Florida as a part of its 2027 recruiting class.

From Preston Tucker to Jac Caglianone, every major leaguer to come out of Plant under his tenure has ventured to UF. Even Tucker, who was selected fifth overall in the 2015 MLB Draft, committed to play for Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan before heading into the draft.

The most recent draftee, Caglianone, who was selected sixth overall by the Kansas City Royals in the 2024 MLB Draft, had the most prolific career at Florida out of those from this pipeline. In just under three seasons, he set the Florida home run record with 75.

“But they had just won their first natty in 2017, and my sophomore year was in 2019,” Caglianone relayed through MLB.com from Grandstand’s questions. “[I] got an offer from [former UF assistant coach] Craig Bell, and my high school coach was like, ‘Don’t commit too early. You have time. It’s not going anywhere.’ I was like, ‘OK,’ and the next day I was wearing a Florida shirt to school.”

He made the call early in his sophomore year of school, which was partially a product of his environment.

Braun takes a hard-nosed approach during his practices, even during pregame batting practice, which Caglianone said both reminds him of and helped him prepare for O’Sullivan.

“If we were walking on the grass too long during BP, he’d be like, ‘stop grazing,’” Caglianone said. “Super old school, very hard on his guys but in the best way possible.”

O’Sullivan and Braun are both similar in their toughness and the standards they hold their programs to. That allows players to fit in at UF as seamlessly as they have. Subsequently, O'Sullivan has been able to sign players out of Plant with virtually no in-state competition.

“People ask me all the time, you know, ‘How come I don’t have that relationship with Florida State or Miami?’” Braun said. “And the simple answer is: they don’t call. Florida State? The new coach hasn’t called me one time, so there’s no reason to have a relationship with them.”

He also pointed toward college being different from high school baseball because the mentality is to win at all costs and ride the hot hand. For O’Sullivan, Braun’s opinion is valuable in the recruiting process given it isn't far too dissimilar to his.

“If you have Braun’s stamp of approval, then Sully typically goes after him,” Alonso said.

Alonso was one of the guys who earned that stamp, and it paid off during his three seasons at UF.

He hit a career .316 with 23 home runs and 124 RBIs, leading the Gators to the College World Series twice (2015 and '16). His collegiate success helped him get selected in the second round of the MLB draft by the New York Mets. He’s currently in his eighth MLB season, and after spending his first seven with the Mets, he’s in his first with the Baltimore Orioles. Among those from the Plant pipeline, he’s assembled the most successful MLB career, highlighted by hitting 53 home runs in his NL Rookie of the Year season in 2019.

However, Braun gives his stamp of approval in different ways, as shown with the case of former player Mitchell Wydetic.

The second baseman wasn’t going to get much playing time at Plant, so Braun said he could coach the junior varsity team as a senior. He also gave him a phone number to call to see about being a student manager for the Florida baseball team, which allowed Wydetic to stay involved in the sport well after his playing days.

After his time at UF, where he served as the head student manager for the Gators baseball program from 2018-19, Wydetic has continued career as a baseball coach. He started as an assistant coach at St. Petersburg College, then joined Saint Leo as an assistant coach with the hitters and infielders. He followed his current head coach Rick O’Dette from Saint Leo to Florida Southern in 2024 for the same position.

Through it all, his time with Braun directly translates into his work.

“I think the biggest lesson is there’s no detail that is too small, no job is too small,” Wydetic said. “It all matters because it’s all a part of the same program.”

To his point, Braun models his practices the same as O’Sullivan does at Florida. Why? The two are in regular communication.

“I usually call him when they are in the playoffs and talk about some things, and then we will talk in the summer about players,” Braun said.

The most recent addition, Florida freshman outfielder Cash Strayer, is another Panther that O’Sullivan was able to bring in with virtually no in-state competition. The reason Strayer decided to sign at UF was simple.

"It’s obvious what school is the best in the state of Florida," he said.

Strayer said he received some guidance in his recruiting process from Caglianone. Multiple former Panthers-turned-Gators also voiced the same sentiment to Strayer during his recruiting process.

He now looks to follow in Caglianone’s footsteps, as he hit .272 with four home runs and 26 RBIs this season. After getting to campus, he and Caglianone remained in touch. 

“I’ve talked to him a little bit since getting here, like just checking in, how everything’s going,” Strayer said. “And just seeing how they’re doing in pro ball, and just like little chats, just catching up.”

They didn’t overlap at Plant, but the way Strayer and Caglianone communicate showcases the bond that past and present Panthers have developed.

That continued cycle of players does not happen by accident. Players will come back to Plant, which allows current Panthers to interact with their predecessors who played at UF. Seeing Tucker and Alonso coming back to Plant to hit batting practice was special for Caglianone, who now fills the same role for Strayer.

Similarly, seeing all the players that have made MLB from Plant on the high school’s wall in left field of Plant's Wade Boggs Field has given Strayer a sense of belief that he could be next. Caglianone had the same belief as Strayer, telling Braun in ninth grade that he was also going to add his name. On Feb. 2, Caglianone fulfilled his prediction, as his jersey was retired, commemorated by earning his spot on the wall.

The fence is the ultimate measure of success at Plant, as 11 big-leaguers have their names plastered against the yellow poster on it. Braun said having that fence in the outfield can play a part in athletes being more motivated for early-morning workouts when they can see their ultimate goal realized.

But even while Braun has coached players in the major leagues, baseball isn’t the only aspect of the players’ lives he focuses on. In his eyes, developing his athletes as people is equally as important, if not more so, to their success on the field.

“You have to not just develop as a baseball player,” Alonso said. “He develops the character, responsibility and accountability over everything.”

The player, the talent — that all still matters. And, even then, Braun still had to coach and develop their on the field abilities. Some of his interactions with Caglianone were not typical coach-to-star player dialogue.

“It was not all through love, I can tell you that,” Braun said. “I gotta be hard on them, and me and Jac had our battles because he did not run.”

During a practice his junior year of high school, Caglianone, the Florida baseball home run leader, did something that he has rarely done – hit a ball weakly off the bat. Instead of running the play to first base, Caglianone jogged out of the batter’s box.

What followed came as a shock to Caglianone: Braun threw him out of practice.

“I knew it was coming from a good place, but I just remember staring him down and being like, ‘Dude, really, are you serious?’” Caglianone said. “But if that doesn’t sum up Braun, I don’t know what does.”

All of these relationships between UF and Braun, though, trace back to a single recruiting inquiry. If not for a phone call from O’Sullivan to former Florida player Preston Tucker back in 2008, this pipeline would not have opened.

Braun was coaching a summer league team, and they had a pitcher O’Sullivan wanted. In that same group was Tucker, which is where the relationship started.

O'Sullivan was originally recruiting Tucker to play at Clemson, where he was the pitching coach, but he kept his interest in Tucker when taking the Florida job. He told him he had a chance to compete to be his starting first baseman as a freshman.

“I felt like it was a very smooth transition,” Tucker said. “I felt like it was right along, like most college programs are run today. I think a big thing for high school guys going into college, there is a lot of shock with how much you are going to practice and how much you are going to play and what is expected out of you. For me, that kind of stuff was already expected.”

Tucker blew any personal or external expectations out of the water over four years at Florida. He became the school’s all-time RBI leader (258), all-time hit leader (341) and third all-time in home runs (57).

With Braun and O’Sullivan leading their programs for so long, it allows players to clearly know what’s required to improve. Braun keeps his expectations at Plant high, which allows his players to go to colleges or professional leagues and have success. 

Caglianone, most notably, is starting to emerge in his first full season in the majors, hitting .274 with 14 homers through June 24. That included a stretch where he homered six times in five games, including a two-homer game in his first trip to Tropicana Field – where he once watched MLB games as a kid – with the Royals in front of family and friends.

“If you have success and stick to what Braun taught you, no matter where you go you are going to succeed,” Tucker said. “But you know, at Florida, the programs are run just about the same. You know what you are going to get.”

The alums still stick together and come back to their roots at Plant. Around the end of the year, there’s a Plant Alumni breakfast to help bring the generations of the baseball program – many of them who also played at UF – together. 

"Hopefully the pipeline keeps growing,” Caglianone said.