The Baseball Academic All-America Team Member of the Year is the annual most outstanding singular college baseball athlete of the set of baseball athletes selected for the Academic All-America Teams in a given year. The following is a list of the annual selection by College Sports Communicators (CSC), known before the 2022–23 season as the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), and its Academic All-America sponsor of the individual athlete selected as the most outstanding of the annual Baseball Academic All-America selections. Between 1996 and 2011, one winner each was chosen from both the college and University Divisions for all twelve Academic All-America teams including football. The Academic All-America program recognizes combined athletic and academic excellence of the nation's top student-athletes. The University Division team included eligible participants from National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I member schools, while the College Division team included scholar-athletes from all of the following: NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), Canadian universities and colleges and two-year schools.

Beginning in 2012, CSC revamped its award structure. The University Division was renamed "Division I". Since then, NCAA Divisions II and III have had their own separate All-Americans. The College Division consisted only of non-NCAA institutions through the 2017–18 school year, after which it was effectively replaced by an NAIA division restricted to members of that governing body.^[1][a]

Currently, each team selects Academic All-District honorees in eight geographic districts across the United States and Canada.^[2] The districts are as follows: – District 1 (CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, VT), District 2 (DC, DE, KY, MD, NJ, PA, WV), District 3 (NC, TN, VA), District 4 (AL, FL, GA, PR, SC), District 5 (IL, IN, MI, OH), District 6 (AR, IA, LA, MN, MO, MS, MT, ND, SD, WI, WY), – District 7 (CO, ID, KS, NE, NM, NV, OK, TX), District 8 (AK, AZ, CA, HI, OR, UT, WA, Canada).^[3] First team All-District honorees make the All-America team ballots. Currently, all twelve Academic All-American teams (men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's track & field, men's baseball, women's softball, men's American football, women's volleyball and men's and women's at-large teams) have four Academic All-Americans of the Year, one from each division. In each of the four divisions (NAIA, Division I, Division II, and Division III), one of the twelve sport-by-sport Academic All-Americans of the Year is selected as the Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for that division.^[4]

History

2008 winner

2009 winner

2012 winner

2023 winner

Past winners include (clockwise) Buster Posey, Mike Leake, Jake Gelof and James Ramsey.

As of January 31, 2024^[update], Johns Hopkins University (31) has had the most baseball Academic All-America honorees, just ahead of Bucknell University and Notre Dame University with 30 each.^[5] While Bucknell has had an athlete win this award, neither Notre Dame's nor Johns Hopkins' athletes have been recognized with this award.^[6]

On August 7, 2012, Division III honoree Drew Golz of Wheaton College became the first Baseball Academic All-America Team Member of the Year to be named Division III Academic All-America Team Member of the Year. That same year Golz had been named Men's Soccer Academic All-America Team Member of the Year, becoming the first male student-athlete to be named Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for two different sports in the same year.^[7] The next day, Division II honoree Bryan Lippincott of Concordia University, St. Paul became the Division II Academic All-America Team Member of the Year.^[8] Thus, for the 2011–12 academic calendar, baseball had the Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for two of the four Divisions. The most recent baseball awardee that was named overall Academic All-America Team Member of the Year is John Coleman of Division III Clarkson University. Like Golz, Clarkson was named Academic All-America Team Member of the Year, having been previously named Academic All-America Team Member of the Year in basketball. Coleman was the third and second male two-sport honoree, following Golz in 2011–12 and Cynthia Capp of West Virginia Wesleyan who earned the honor in volleyball (1990) and softball (1991).^[9]

When the Division I level was known as the University Division, it had repeat back-to-back winners in 2000 & 2001 and 2002 & 2003 with Casey Myers (of Arizona State Sun Devils baseball)^[10][11] being followed by Jeff Leise (of Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball).^[12][13] In 2001 and 2002, Douglas Hargett of University of North Alabama was the first College Division repeat winner before the College Division was split.^[11][12] Since Division II and Division III were split from NAIA, two-year and Canadian schools, Conner Combs repeated for the Division III East Texas Baptist Tigers in 2016 and 2017.^[14][15]

Tables of winners

Names in bold indicate winners of the all-sports Academic All-America award.

Two-division era (1988–2011)

Four-division era (2012–present)

Baseball Academic All-America Team Members of the Year (2012–present)

Year	Div. I Winner	School		Div. II Winner	School		Div. III Winner	School		College/NAIA Winner[b]	School
2012	James Ramsey[16][37]		Florida State	Brian Lippincott[16][37]		Concordia (MN)	Drew Golz[16][37]		Wheaton (IL)	Chad Carman[16][37]		Oklahoma City
2013	LB Dantzler[16][38]		South Carolina	Taylor Rakes[16][38]		Tusculum	Brandon Toughey[16][38]		Baldwin Wallace	Alan Spanel[16][38]		Doane
2014	Tim Colwell[16][39]		North Dakota State	Austin Kaiser[16][39]		Colorado Mesa	Travis Mason[16][39]		St. Norbert	EJ Grochowalsk[16][39]		Davenport
2015	Sam Koenig[40][41]		Wisconsin-Milwaukee	Michael Jurgella[42][41]		St. Cloud State	John Coleman[43][41]		Clarkson	Josh DeGraaf[44][41]		Taylor
2016	Cole Gruber[45][46]		Nebraska Omaha	Christian Binger[47][46]		Southwest Baptist	Conner Combs[14][46]		East Texas Baptist	Alex Webb[48][46]		British Columbia
2017	Ben Fisher[49][50]		Eastern Kentucky	Tyler Falk[51][50]		Clarion	Conner Combs[15][50]		East Texas Baptist	Glen McClain[52][15]		Indiana Tech
2018	Devlin Granberg[53][54]		Dallas Baptist	Jacob Blank[55][54]		Augustana (SD)	Spencer Badia[56][54]		Baldwin Wallace	Augie Isaacson[57][54]		Friends
2019	Trevor Ezell[58]		Arkansas	Mason Janvrin[59]		Central Missouri	Mike Aiello[60]		Wisconsin–Whitewater	Glen McClain[61]		Indiana Tech
2020	Nick Howie[62]		Eastern Kentucky	Aaron Anderson[63]		Flagler	Derek Manning[64]		Elizabethtown	Troy Puga[65]		Friends
2021	Brendan Beck[66]		Stanford	Haydn McGeary[67]		Colorado Mesa	Matt Mulhearn[68]		Webster	Hunter Dollander[69]		Georgia Gwinnett
2022	Aaron Anderson[70]		Liberty	Connor Hamilton[70]		Slippery Rock	Ryan Enos[70]		Oswego State	Peyton Crispin[70]		Oklahoma City
2023	Jake Gelof[16][71]		Virginia	Alex Epp[16][71]		William Jewell	Tyler Horvat[16][71]		Washington & Jefferson	Eric Maffie[16][71]		St. Francis (IL)

See also

• List of Academic All-America Team Members of the Year

Footnotes

References