2022 All-Big West Baseball Team (.pdf)
IRVINE, Calif. (June 2, 2022) - League champion UC Santa Barbara and runner-up Cal Poly took home two top honors apiece among six major awards, as the 2022 All-Big West Baseball Team was unveiled on Thursday.

Mustang shortstop Brooks Lee is The Big West Field Player of the Year and fellow redshirt sophomore Drew Thorpe is The Big West Pitcher of the Year. Both were voted unanimously. Andrew Checketts is The Big West Coach of the Year for the second time in his 11 seasons, as he directed the 20th-ranked Gauchos to a second conference title in the past three campaigns. UCSB right-hander Ryan Gallagher is The Big West Freshman Pitcher of the Year, with UC Davis outfielder Mark Wolbert The Big West Freshman Field Player of the Year. The Big West Defensive Player of the Year is Long Beach State catcher Connor Burns.

Among the 15 standouts joining Lee, Thorpe and Wolbert on the All-Big West First Team are three more Mustangs in catcher Ryan Stafford, first baseman Joe Yorke and closer Jason Franks. The Gauchos have the next-most representatives with four, in third baseman Bryce Willits, outfielder Christian Kirtley, designated hitter Blake Klassen, and starting pitcher Cory Lewis. UC Irvine’s trio consists of outfielder Caden Kendle, utility Justin Torres and reliever Gordon Ingrebitson, with CSUN also putting three on the first team in second baseman Kai Moody, outfielder Andrew Sojka and starter Blaine Traxel. The final two members are batting champion Austin Schell of Cal State Fullerton as a designated hitter, and Hawai’i ace Blaze Koali’i Pontes.

Ingrebritson, Lee and Moody are the lone repeat first-teamers, with Lee the Co-Field Player and Co-Freshman Field Player of the Year in 2021. Kirtley, Torres and Traxel were second-team choices a season ago.

Projected to be a high first-round selection in the 2022 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft in Los Angeles on Sunday, July 17, and perhaps even the No. 1 pick to the Baltimore Orioles, Lee led the league in almost every major offensive statistical category. The San Luis Obispo native paces The Big West in runs (56), hits (84), doubles (25), home runs (15-tied), RBI (55), total bases (156), walks (46), slugging (.664) and OPS (1.126). He narrowly missed out on The Big West Triple Crown, finishing second only to Schell (.382) with his .357 batting average. Lee is also second in the league in on-base percentage (.462) and at-bats (235). One of three Mustangs to start all 58 contests, he is tied with five others for second nationally in doubles, and set a single-season program record with 22 intentional walks. Eight of his 15 home runs came over the final 17 contests.

Lee is one of 31 semifinalists for USA Baseball’s Golden Spikes Award, given annually to the top amateur baseball player in the country, and is also among 40 semifinalists for the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Dick Howser Trophy, which goes to the outstanding player in college baseball. For the second straight year, he is one of six top shortstops vying for the Brooks Wallace Award. Lee earned a pair of Big West weekly honors to give him five for his career.

Thorpe, like Lee, is a Golden Spikes and Dick Howser Trophy semifinalist, as well as a two-time Big West Pitcher of the Week. The product of Washington, Utah, remarkably topped The Big West by 38 with his 149 strikeouts, which currently leads all of Division I. A career-high 15 of them came on March 25 at UC San Diego to match the program’s Division I-era standard. Thorpe also paces the conference in wins (10), opposing batting average (.175), hits allowed per nine innings (5.59) and games started (15-tied), is second in WHIP (0.86), innings pitched (104.2), strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.96) and strikeouts per nine innings (12.81), and third in ERA (2.32). Nationally, he is tied for fifth in victories, sixth in WHIP and hits allowed per nine innings, 16th in strikeouts per nine innings and 21st in ERA. Thorpe reached double figures in strikeouts nine times in 2022, including each of his first four and last three outings, and produced 14 consecutive quality starts following Opening Night. He is Cal Poly’s first-ever Pitcher of the Year.

Checketts guided UC Santa Barbara to the school’s fourth league title. UCSB was thus The Big West’s automatic qualifier for the 64-team NCAA Championship, and will be making a third successive postseason appearance and sixth under Checketts beginning this Friday, June 3, as the No. 3 seed at the Stanford Regional. The Gauchos have eclipsed the 40-win mark for the third straight full season, now at 43-12. They took all 10 of their three-game Big West sets, with seven sweeps, finishing 27-3 and five games ahead of Cal Poly. UCSB’s 6-0 home shutout of UC Riverside on May 21 served as the clincher ahead of the final four dates of the regular season. Checketts was also The Big West Coach of the Year in 2019, and has now matched the program’s all-time wins leader Bob Brontsema’s two awards from 1996 and 2001.

Gallagher posted an unblemished 8-0 record with a 3.00 ERA and 60 strikeouts over 78.0 innings pitched. The native of Granite Bay appeared 15 times and drew 14 starts, all in series finales, with the Gauchos going 13-2 while winning their last eight when he saw the mound. The eight victories tie him with two others, including teammate Mike Gutierrez, for third in The Big West, behind only Thorpe and Lewis. Gallagher is one of four starting arms, alongside Gutierrez, on the 19-player All-Big West Second Team, and was The Big West Pitcher of the Week on April 11. He is UCSB’s third Big West Freshman Pitcher of the Year, following Mario Hollands in 2008 and Rodney Boone in 2019.

Wolbert, a true freshman out of Petaluma, is fourth in The Big West with his .351 (53-for-151) batting average. He was one of two Aggies to appear in all 41 games, starting 39. Wolbert produced a .925 OPS with 27 runs, 10 doubles, three triples, two home runs, 15 RBI, 21 walks and three steals on five attempts. He was charged with just one error in 103 defensive chances (.990), with a pair of outfield assists. Wolbert is the second UC Davis rookie to earn the award, after Tanner Murray in 2018.

Burns, a sophomore from Chino, was charged with only three errors in 402 total chances defensively behind the plate, for a fielding percentage of .993, as well as just one passed ball. He threw out 13 of 28 would-be base-stealers, for a .464 clip. Burns started in 42 of 48 games played for the fourth-place Dirtbags. He was one of three Big West backstops named last month to the watch list for the 2022 Buster Posey Award, given annually to the top Division I collegiate catcher. Burns is LBSU’s third defensive honoree since the award was instituted in 2011.

In addition to the 37 first- and second-teamers, 14 more student-athletes picked up All-Big West honorable mentions. UCSB had 14 of the 51 total awardees, with seven of eight position starters recognized alongside all three members of its weekend rotation, a middle reliever, its closer, a designated hitter and a utility player. Cal Poly and Cal State Fullerton are next with seven and six performers reflected, respectively.

Checketts will take Gallagher, Gutierrez, Kirtley, Klassen, Lewis, Willits and company up against No. 13 Texas State (45-12), the No. 2 seed of the Stanford Regional, this Friday night, June 3, with first pitch from Sunken Diamond slated for 6 p.m. PT. The contest will air on ESPN+.