FORT WORTH, Texas – San Diego State right fielder Jaden Fein (Simi Valley, Calif.) added another accolade to his increasing acclaim on Wednesday when he was named to the Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger Award Midseason Watch List, as announced by the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation.
Launched in 2017, the Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger Award is presented annually to the most outstanding offensive NCAA Division I baseball player, based on personal integrity, athletic performance and academic achievement. Initially, the award honored the top Division I collegiate hitter in the state of Texas before it was expanded to national recognition in 2020.
Joining Fein on the BBSCSA Midseason Watch List are Texas Tech's Jace Jung, East Carolina's Connor Norby, Tennessee's Liam Spence, Notre Dame's Niko Kavadas, Fairfield's Justin Guerrera, Campbell's Conner Denning, Old Dominion's Carter Trice and Arizona's Jacob Berry.
Fein, who collected his fourth Mountain West Player of the Week award of the season earlier this week, leads the country with a .457 batting average and 2.04 hits per game while tying for third with 57 hits. In addition, the Aztec redshirt sophomore occupies the seventh spot nationally with 1.46 RBIs per game while his 41 RBIs overall are tied for 13th.
At the conference level, Fein currently leads the Mountain West in batting average (.475), hits (57), RBIs (41) and on-base percentage (.526) while sharing the top spot with 13 doubles. He also occupies the third spot in the league with a .633 slugging percentage and ranks fourth with 30 runs scored.
Fein, who was named to the Golden Spikes Award Midseason Watch List on April 14, was tabbed the preseason Mountain West Player of the Year by Baseball America prior to the 2021 campaign and was selected to the preseason all-MW team in a vote of the league's head coaches in February.
In 2019, Fein was named MW Co-Freshman of the Year and received Freshman All-America recognition from Collegiate Baseball newspaper.
With the addition of today's players, the BBCSA Watch List is now up to 58 hitters for the 2021 season. The BBCSA will name the finalists for this year's award in May. The winner of the Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger Award will be announced in June and honored at a gala in the fall.
Texas Tech's Hunter Hargrove won the inaugural BBCSA in 2017, while Dallas Baptist's Devlin Granberg took home the honor in 2018, followed by Texas Tech's Josh Jung in 2019. Last year the BBCSA had no winner due to the COVID-19 pandemic that cut the collegiate baseball season short.
Fein and the Aztecs (19-9, 14-7 MW) will step out of conference this weekend when they entertain Dixie State in a three-game series, April 24-25, at Tony Gwynn Stadium.