IRVINE, Calif. – Drew Thorpe is a unanimous first-team All-American by all six major outlets, with fellow Cal Poly standout Brooks Lee earning All-America status from five of them for the second year in a row, as more baseball postseason honors were announced in recent days.
On June 24, D1Baseball.com placed Thorpe on its 17-player 2022 All-America first team as one of five starting pitchers, while Lee, also a third-year sophomore, took up a position on the 17-player second team.
Those roles were duplicated on June 27 when Thorpe made the 16-player Baseball America All-America First Team as one of four mound starters, and Lee was the shortstop out of 16 second-team honorees.
Cal Poly was one of 10 programs with multiple student-athletes on the three D1Baseball All-America squads. Tennessee led the way with four selections. Texas slugger Ivan Melendez was the Player of the Year of both national publications.
Thorpe went 10-1 with a 2.32 ERA, 0.86 WHIP and 149 strikeouts against only 25 walks over 104.2 innings pitched. All 15 of his appearances went as starts, with the last 14 categorized as quality starts. Opponents batted just .175. The right-hander out of Washington, Utah, finished second nationally in strikeouts, breaking the single-season program record. Thorpe was also ranked fifth in hits allowed per nine innings (5.59), sixth in WHIP, 13th in strikeouts per nine innings (12.81), 17th in ERA, and 25th in strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.96).
Lee slashed .357/.462/.664, going 84-for-235 with a 1.126 OPS, 56 runs, 25 doubles, one triple, 15 home runs, 55 RBI, 46 walks, 28 strikeouts and three steals on four attempts. The San Luis Obispo product and son of long-time Cal Poly head coach Larry Lee led The Big West in OPS, runs, hits, doubles, RBI, total bases (156), slugging and walks, and was second in batting, at-bats, homers and on-base percentage. Lee was one of three Mustangs to start all 58 contests, and fielded at a .951 clip.
Lee was bestowed the Brooks Wallace Award from the College Baseball Foundation (CBF) as the country’s top shortstop, after repeating as a top-six finalist from 2021. He was a semifinalist for USA Baseball’s Golden Spikes Award, and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association’s (NCBWA) Dick Howser Trophy. Thorpe was also a semifinalist for both of those distinctions, as well as one of five finalists for the CBF’s National Pitcher of the Year Award. Lee is just The Big West’s second-ever two-time Field Player of the Year, as this season’s unanimous selection after sharing the recognition in 2021. Cal State Fullerton legend and current Oakland Athletics manager Mark Kotsay is the only other, in 1995 and 1996. Thorpe likewise was the unanimous choice as the first Big West Pitcher of the Year in Cal Poly history.
Thorpe made all six first teams as his school’s first six-time All-American in baseball. Lee got on two first teams (ABCA and Collegiate Baseball), was a second-team choice by three publications (BA, D1Baseball and Perfect Game), and was not so recognized by the NCBWA. He also became a five-time All-American as a redshirt freshman in 2021, finding spots on two first teams (Collegiate Baseball and D1Baseball), two seconds (ABCA and BA), a third team (Perfect Game), and again not being honored as such by the NCBWA.
Incidentally, Lee and Thorpe earned their way onto the All-America teams of one of the newest outlets to hand out those awards, the CBF. The foundation, located in Lubbock, Texas, put Lee on its first squad and Thorpe on the second on June 21. The duo became The Big West’s first CBF All-Americans, now in their third year after starting in 2019.
Both Mustang stars will be selected near the top of the 2022 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft later this month in Los Angeles. Thorpe is projected to be a first- or second-round pick, with Lee most definitely a first-rounder on Sunday, July 17, a probable top-10 choice, and could even go as high as No. 1 to the Baltimore Orioles.
In early July, redshirt freshman right-handed starting pitcher Juaron Watts-Brown of Long Beach State was chosen to both the D1Baseball and Baseball America Freshman All-America second teams. Cal Poly true freshman Ryan Stafford was the Baseball America Freshman All-America First Team catcher.
An All-Big West First Team pick, Stafford slashed .321/.384/.431 with 16 doubles and three home runs. The native of Folsom led the league in at-bats (246) and was tied for second behind Lee in runs (50) and hits (79). Stafford, like Lee, started all 58 contests, and committed only three errors in 485 chances for a stellar .994 fielding percentage. He was previously designated a Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American.
Watts-Brown posted a 3.68 ERA and 4-4 win-loss record over 15 appearances, 12 of them starts, and a team-best 73.1 frames. He was second in The Big West with his 111 strikeouts, and fifth nationally in strikeouts per nine innings (13.62), with opponents hitting .194 against him. The product of Hanford fired the very first complete-game no-hitter by a Dirtbag on May 8 against UC Riverside, fanning a season-high 16.
True sophomore Long Beach State catcher Connor Burns, The Big West Defensive Player of the Year, was named as one of three backstop finalists for the 2022 American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA)/Rawlings NCAA Division I Gold Glove Team on June 20. That position on the nine-player squad went two days later to Davidson sophomore Michael Carico, an All-American and the national leader in OPS (1.402). The Chino native was charged with just three errors over 402 defensive chances and a single passed ball this past season, compiling a fielding percentage of .993. Burns threw out 13 of 28 would-be base-stealers.
In final polls, The Big West champion UC Santa Barbara remained No. 18 by Collegiate Baseball. The Gauchos wound up at No. 28 in the NCBWA listing, with Cal Poly among teams with votes outside of the top 30. Baseball America had UCSB just beyond its top 25.