Five Big 12 players, Dusty Baker’s son highlight first Bobby Bragan Award watch list
The Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger Award announced plans to go national in the offseason, but there’s plenty of local players on its watch list for 2020.
The 36-player watch list was released on Tuesday and featured a number of local players in the mix.
Among those include UT-Arlington’s Conner Aube, who batted .354 in 2019, and Dallas Baptist’s Jimmy Glowenke, who was a first-team All-Missouri Valley Conference player in 2019.
The Big 12 is well-represented, too, with five players — Texas Tech’s Brian Klein (a Keller Timber Creek product), Baylor’s Andy Thomas and Nick Loftin, Texas’ Austin Todd and Oklahoma’s Tyler Hardman.
From a national perspective, a couple notable names are Cal’s Darren Baker, who is the son of Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker, and Lamar’s JC Correa, the younger brother of Astros shortstop Carlos Correa.
“Our first national watch list for the Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger Award presented by SR Bats is outstanding,” Tracy Taylor, executive director of the award, said in a statement. “Going national is a big step for us and to have the quality of student-athletes nominated by their programs was extremely rewarding.”
In all, the watch list features 14 seniors, 19 juniors and three sophomores. The award is given to a player based on “performance at the plate, academics and personal integrity.”
The winner will be announced in June and honored at a gala in the fall at the Fort Worth Club.
Previous winners include Texas Tech’s Hunter Hargrove in 2017, Dallas Baptist’s Devlin Granberg in 2018, and Texas Tech’s Josh Jung in 2019. Jung was the Texas Rangers’ first-round pick last season.
