Golden Spikes Award

Golden Spikes Award
	Logo for the Golden Spikes Award
Awarded for	Amateur baseball's best regular season player
Country	United States
Presented by	USA Baseball
History
First award	1978
Most recent	Dylan Crews, LSU
Website	Golden Spikes Award

The Golden Spikes Award is bestowed annually to the best amateur baseball player in the United States.^[1] The award, created by USA Baseball and sponsored by the Major League Baseball Players Association, was first presented in 1978. It is given to an amateur player who best exhibits and combines "exceptional on-field ability and exemplary sportsmanship".^[2]^[3] The award is considered the most prestigious in amateur baseball.^[4]^[5]

Ten winners of the Golden Spikes Award are members of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame,^[6] including Bob Horner, the inaugural winner in 1978.^[7] In that same year, he was the first overall MLB draft pick and proceeded to win the Rookie of the Year Award.^[8]^[9]^[10] Seven Golden Spikes Award winners went on to become the first overall MLB draft pick.^[8] Only Horner achieved the MLB Rookie of the Year Award in the same year (although Jason Jennings and Buster Posey were voted the top rookies of the National League several years after winning the Golden Spikes Award).^[9] Jim Abbott, Jered Weaver and Tim Lincecum are the only award winners to pitch an MLB no-hitter,^[11] while Horner is the only one to hit four home runs in one MLB game.^[12] Furthermore, 17 players won the Dick Howser Trophy (considered to be the Heisman Trophy of college baseball)^[13]^[14] alongside the Golden Spikes Award.^[15] No player has won the award more than once, and no Golden Spikes recipient has yet been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

The winner has been announced annually during a live broadcast of ESPN's SportsCenter since 2014.^[16] Immediately following the announcement, the award winner and the other finalists are honored at a banquet in Los Angeles.^[16] The most recent recipient of the award is Dylan Crews of the LSU Tigers. Although it can be given to any amateur player, the award has always been given to a college baseball player.

Winners

Key
Year	Links to the article about the corresponding baseball year
Player	Name of the player
Position	The player's position(s) at the time he won the award^[a]
School	The player's college when he won the award
Italics	Player was the first overall MLB draft pick in the same year
^	Player won the Rookie of the Year Award^[b]
§	Player also won the Dick Howser Trophy in the same year
†	Member of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame
‡	Player is active^[c]

Winners
Year	Player	Position	School	Ref.
1978	Bob Horner^†^{^}	3B	Arizona State	^[7]
1979	Tim Wallach^†	3B	Cal State Fullerton	^[7]
1980	Terry Francona^†	1B	Arizona	^[7]
1981	Mike Fuentes	OF	Florida State	^[19]
1982	Augie Schmidt	SS	New Orleans	^[7]
1983	Dave Magadan^†	3B	Alabama	^[7]
1984	Oddibe McDowell^†	OF	Arizona State	^[20]
1985	Will Clark^†	1B	Mississippi State	^[7]
1986	Mike Loynd	P	Florida State	^[7]
1987	Jim Abbott^†	P	Michigan	^[21]
1988	Robin Ventura^†^§	3B	Oklahoma State	^[22]
1989	Ben McDonald^†	P	LSU	^[23]
1990	Alex Fernández^§	P	Miami-Dade Community College	^[7]
1991	Mike Kelly	OF	Arizona State	^[7]
1992	Phil Nevin	3B	Cal State Fullerton	^[7]
1993	Darren Dreifort^†	P	Wichita State	^[7]
1994	Jason Varitek^§	C	Georgia Tech	^[24]
1995	Mark Kotsay	OF	Cal State Fullerton	^[24]
1996	Travis Lee	1B	San Diego State	^[25]
1997	J. D. Drew^§	OF	Florida State	^[26]
1998	Pat Burrell	3B	Miami (FL)	^[27]
1999	Jason Jennings^§^{^}	P	Baylor	^[24]
2000	Kip Bouknight	P	South Carolina	^[24]
2001	Mark Prior^§	P	Southern California	^[28]
2002	Khalil Greene^§	SS	Clemson	^[24]
2003	Rickie Weeks^§	2B	Southern	^[24]
2004	Jered Weaver^§	P	Long Beach State	^[24]
2005	Alex Gordon^§	3B	Nebraska	^[29]
2006	Tim Lincecum	P	Washington	^[30]
2007	David Price^‡^§	P	Vanderbilt	^[31]
2008	Buster Posey^§^{^}	C	Florida State	^[32]
2009	Stephen Strasburg^‡^§	P	San Diego State	^[33]
2010	Bryce Harper^‡^{^}	C/OF	College of Southern Nevada	^[34]
2011	Trevor Bauer^‡	P	UCLA	^[35]
2012	Mike Zunino^‡^§	C	Florida	^[3]
2013	Kris Bryant^‡^§^{^}	3B	San Diego	^[36]
2014	A. J. Reed^§	1B/P	Kentucky	^[37]
2015	Andrew Benintendi^‡^§	OF	Arkansas	^[38]
2016	Kyle Lewis^‡^	OF	Mercer	^[39]
2017	Brendan McKay^‡^§	1B / P	Louisville	^[40]
2018	Andrew Vaughn^‡	1B	California	^[41]
2019	Adley Rutschman^‡^§	C	Oregon State	^[42]
2020	Not awarded^[d]	—	—	^[43]
2021	Kevin Kopps^‡^§	P	Arkansas	^[44]
2022	Ivan Melendez^‡^§	1B	Texas	^[45]
2023	Dylan Crews^‡	OF	LSU

Notes

References

General

"Golden Spikes Award by USA Baseball". Baseball-Almanac.com. Baseball Almanac. Retrieved August 5, 2012.

Specific

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Golden Spikes Award

Contents

Winners

See also

Notes

References