The Golden Spikes Award midseason watchlist was released on Wednesday with 45 players being named to the watchlist at the mid-way point of the season. The award is annually given out to the country’s top collegiate player.
The names that lead the watch list are names that college baseball fans are highly likely familiar with, all part of the LSU Tigers. Those being outfielders Dylan Crews, Tommy White, and right-handed pitcher Paul Skenes. Wake Forest also had a trio of selections in pitchers Josh Hartle, Rhett Lowder, and Sean Sullivan.
For Crews, it’s his fifth career watch list nomination while both White and Skenes have been semifinalists in the past. Overall, six 2022 semifinalists made the watchlist in Tennessee’s Chase Burns, the aforementioned Crews, as well as Virginia’s Jake Gelof, Southern Miss’s Tanner Hall, and Grand Canyon’s Jacob Wilson.
Overall, out of the 45 players, 33 schools and 13 different conferences have been represented on the midseason watchlist.
The Golden Spikes Award semifinalists will be announced on May 22 before the finalists are named on June 7 with a winner announced on June 25.
At the midway point of the season, Dylan Crews is the likely favorite to win the Golden Spikes Award. Through 29 games, Crews is hitting .531/.659/.927 with nine home runs and 35 RBI. He’s also walked 31 times while striking out just 13 times in 96 at-bats.
If Crews, White, or Skenes would go on to win the award, they would be LSU’s second Golden Spikes Award winner joining Ben McDonald who won the award in 1989.
Florida State leads the NCAA in having the most Golden Spikes Award winners with four. The Seminoles last award winner was Buster Posey in 2008.