Collegiate Baseball names UK's Reed National Player of the Year
University of Kentucky baseball star A.J. Reed was named the National Player of the Year by Collegiate Baseball magazine Thursday.
Reed, a pitcher and first baseman who was earlier named Southeastern Conference player of the year, becomes the first player in Kentucky history and the 13th player in the history of the SEC to earn national player of the year honors.
Reed is seeking to become just the third SEC player to earn consensus national player of the year honors, joining David Price (2007) and Dave Magadan (1983).
Reed is a candidate for all five major national player of the year awards, including the Golden Spikes Award, presented by USA Baseball.
A native of Terre Haute, Ind., Reed joins SEC legends Magadan, Price, Will Clark (1985), Derick Lilliquist (1987), Ben McDonald (1989), Lloyd Peever (1992), Todd Helton (1995), Tim Hudson (1997), Brad Wilkerson (1998), Eddy Furniss (1998), Kip Bouknight (2000) and Mike Zunino (2012) as national players of the year in the conference.
A consensus freshman All-American in 2012, Reed was also named a first-team All-American by Collegiate Baseball, marking the 17th player in Kentucky history to earn All-America honors, dating to Dom Fucci in 1949. Reed is the first All-American for the Wildcats since Sawyer Carroll and Collin Cowgill were each honored in 2008.
Reed lead college baseball in homers (23), slugging (.768) and OPS (1.259), and ranks as the SEC leader in RBI (70), on-base percentage (.491), wins (11), walks (47) and total bases (162). He also ranks third in the SEC in average (.351), second in runs (59), eighth in doubles (17), ninth in hits (74), sixth in ERA (2.10), third in innings pitched (103.0), and ninth in strikeouts (68).
Reed has hit .310 in his 168-game UK career, with 34 doubles, three triples, 40 homers and 165 RBI. On the mound, Reed has an 18-13 record and the third-best ERA in UK career history (2.86), working 239 innings with 171 strikeouts.
This story was originally published May 29, 2014 at 11:57 AM with the headline "Collegiate Baseball names UK's Reed National Player of the Year."