FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
LUBBOCK, Texas — As postseason play begins for many teams across the country, the National College Baseball Hall of Fame has released the initial watch list for the John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year Award.
The award, named for the Washington State star who achieved success as both a first baseman and a left-handed pitcher, will be presented as part of the annual College Baseball Hall of Fame’s Night of Champions on June 28 in Lubbock, Texas.
Players from across the country and representing schools both large and small highlight the list. Among the smaller schools on the list are Central Connecticut State and South Carolina Upstate.
“These may be smaller schools, but the young men from these schools have statistics that stack up against any other school in the country,” said Chris Curbo, Olerud Award co-chair. “They have impressive numbers both on the mound and at the plate, and that makes them very valuable to their teams, regardless of the size of their school or the conference they play in.”
Kentucky standout A.J. Reed has the highest batting average among the watch-list honorees at .359, and he has 22 home runs. He also has a 2.11 earned-run average in 98 innings pitched and has played in 54 games.
Louisiana-Lafayette senior left-hander and outfielder Ryan Wilson has the lowest ERA on the watch list at 1.55 in 52 1/3 innings pitched. He also has a .250 batting average.
“This list represents players from across the country,” Curbo said. “It’s a small number of players who are called two-way players, and we’re proud to honor their contributions.”
For more information on the Olerud Award or the College Baseball Hall of Fame’s Night of Champions, visit www.collegebaseballhall.org.
JOHN OLERUD TWO-WAY PLAYER OF THE YEAR WATCH LIST
Name School Conference
Nick Howard Virginia ACC
Erik Samples South Carolina Upstate Atlantic Sun
Jacob Cronenworth Michigan Big Ten
J.D. Davis Cal State Fullerton Big West
Michael Foster Northeastern Colonial
Drew Reynolds East Carolina Conference USA
Josh Ingham Central Connecticut State Northeast
A.J. Reed Kentucky SEC
Ryan Wilson Louisiana – Lafayette Sun Belt
Aaron Brown Pepperdine West Coast
1 comment
Ever since an injury to Dennis Raben MAY have been hastened in its onset by throwing a lot of innings off the mound the summer after his stock skyrocketed on the Cape, Miami has seemed almost to treat Pitchers and Positional players as Church and State and as a result have lost out on some excellent players who wanted to do both. Raben had a degenerative disc in his back and a problem with his podiatry as well — it was going to happen early that he was injured often; I think Morris still feels that he cost Raben money by allowing it to happen the final year on his watch rather than his first one in the professional ranks.
Their Might have been a bit of thawing FINALLY this year for Six Foot Five Inch Left Handed Bat, Right Handed Flamethrower Pitcher Derik Beauprez who is also freakishly athletic. Although he has now clearly delineated himself as the 4th starter (so a guy who WILL BE NEEDED and who has not yet had a bad outing as Miami’s hardest thrower who can be clocked at 95 mph), but 35 games ago nearly half a season had passed and his innings pitched were still ludicrously low (single digits) when 3 FINALLY decided to allow him a few midweek games a Pinch Hitter. I think he may have DH’d one ACC game as well. He was used tentatively and performed meekly as a late inning PH before Ricky Eusebio and Sebsastian Diaz. and later to a lesser extent Jacob Heyward and even Brad Zunica… Finally showed SOMETHING – albeit not much – with their bats off the bench. After Miami’s sixteen inning marathon win Friday afternoon and falling behind by a ten run margin without a mercy rule in the night game of that day night Double Header, Beauprez came in in the sixth and didn’t just manage but dominated the same hitters who had gone for eleven runs versus Andrew Suarez and a collection of relievers, in his 3 and 1/3 inning Derik was virtually untouchable allowing only one hit while collecting ten outs; striking out six of the 12, at one point striking out five in a row, lowering his ERA to a minuscule 1.02 and probably assuring, this one I am happy about, that the experiment with him as a hitter having ended (at least for this season) as the Coaches KNOW that he is undoubtedly the man to go to when MIAMI NEEDS A WIN from a fourth starter.
That said, in 2015 and beyond, I still think that Beauprez – who made his name with the composite as an underclassmen Prep before finally having the coordination come around to be the LIGHTS OUT pitcher this phenomenal athlete (not often a word used in describing pitchers) on his way to Three time Denver Post All Colorado first team Status – will be an example of “wasted talent” if not used both for his offense stroke (about one quarter of the teams who scouted him last year had him as a Top Five swing of High Schoolers West of the Mississippi River) and his pitching prowess.
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