PAC-12 PLAYER OF THE YEAR/BATTING CHAMPION: ADLEY RUTSCHMAN, OREGON STATE
PAC-12 CO-DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE YEAR: MAVERICK HANDLEY, STANFORD & ADLEY RUTSCHMAN, OREGON STATE
PAC-12 PITCHER OF THE YEAR: RYAN GARCIA, UCLA
PAC-12 FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR: AUSTIN WELLS, ARIZONA
PAC-12 COACH OF THE YEAR: JOHN SAVAGE, UCLA

SAN FRANCISCO – The Pac-12 Conference announced today the baseball postseason honors, All-Conference and All-Defensive teams for the 2019 season, as determined by a polling of the league’s coaches. Oregon State’s Adley Rutschman was voted Pac-12 Player of the Year and crowned the Pac-12 Batting Champion with a league-leading .419 batting average. Rutschman also shared Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year with Stanford catcher Maverick Handley. UCLA’s Ryan Garcia was tabbed Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year and Arizona’s Austin Wells was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Year. UCLA head coach John Savage earns his second career Pac-12 Coach of the Year honor.

PAC-12 PLAYER OF THE YEAR/PAC-12 BATTING CHAMPION: Adley Rutschman, Jr., C, Oregon State (Sherwood, Ore.)
A year after being named the NCAA College World Series Most Outstanding Player, Rutschman continues to be one of the most polished hitters and best defensive assets in college baseball. He claimed the Pac-12 batting title with a .419 batting average, which ranks fourth in the nation, and leads the country with an impressive .580 on-base percentage. The junior catcher finds ways to get on base as much with his eyes as with his bat as he has already broken the OSU record for walks in a single season. Rutschman’s 73 walks on the year, which lead the country, rank among the top-five by a Pac-12 student-athlete all-time. He has reached base safely via a hit, walk or hit by pitch in 54 of OSU’s 55 games this season. The honors have piled in for the projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 MLB Draft as he was named to the All-Pac-12 team for the second-straight year and is a semifinalist for the prestigious Golden Spikes Award, Dick Howser Trophy and Buster Posey Catcher of the Year Award. He is the fourth Beaver in the last seven years to be named the Pac-12 Player of the Year. Rutschman is a finance major who has earned a Pac-12 All-Academic honorable mention nod last year for maintaining a grade-point average over 3.0.

PAC-12 CO-DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE YEAR: Maverick Handley, Jr., C, Stanford (Lakewood, Colo.) and Adley Rutschman, Jr., C, Oregon State (Sherwood, Ore.)
Handley has been dominant behind the plate for Stanford this year, leading the Pac-12 in pickoffs with seven. The 2019 All-Pac-12 selection has thrown out 10-of-26 stolen base attempts against him and ranks sixth in the conference with 402 putouts on the year. When Handley starts behind the plate, Stanford's record stands at 97-23 (.808) since his freshman season in 2017. When he’s not throwing runners out on the base paths, he’s stealing bases himself. Handley has stolen 11 bases this year, tied for eighth-most in the league, on 15 attempts. He’s batting .291 with 19 RBI and 27 walks heading into the postseason. A bioengineering major, Handley was named to the Pac-12 All-Academic First Team in 2018 and aspires to be an orthopedic surgeon following his baseball career. He is the first Cardinal to be named a Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year.

Rutschman is just the second student-athlete and the first since fellow Beaver Nick Madrigal in 2017 to be named both Pac-12 Player of the Year and a Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year since the creation of the Defensive award in 2013. On top of all that he does offensively, he leads the Pac-12 in putouts (483) and is tied for the lead with 13 runners caught stealing. Opponents are just 13-for-26 in stolen base attempts this season and have attempted only 19 steals against him in Pac-12 play.

PAC-12 PITCHER OF THE YEAR: Ryan Garcia, Jr., RHP, UCLA (Sierra Madre, Calif.)
The junior right-handed pitcher has been UCLA’s ace on the best pitching staff in the nation. The Bruins boast the best team ERA in the nation (2.59) and Garcia leads the league and ranks fifth in the country with a 1.42 average. Despite not making his first full start of the year until March 24, he is a perfect 9-0 with a Conference-best .158 opposing batting average, 101 strikeouts and just 12 earned runs allowed the entire season. Garcia has struck out 10 batters or more in four of his 10 starts this season. He holds the Pac-12 single-game high this year with 14 strikeouts in a complete game shutout against Utah on April 26. Garcia became the first Bruin since 2011 with three Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week honors in one season. He is a semifinalist for both the Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Trophy and is on the watch list for the College Baseball Foundation Pitcher of the Year award. Garcia is the first Bruin since 2015 to earn Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year and the third since 2011.

PAC-12 FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR: Austin Wells, Fr., C/1B, Arizona (Las Vegas, Nev.)
The freshman catcher makes history as the first Wildcat to win Pac-12 Freshman of the Year since the award started in 1999. Wells played a pivotal role in Arizona’s highly productive offense, leading all Division I freshman with 72 runs scored. His 72 runs leads the Pac-12 this season, are the most-ever logged by an Arizona freshman and the most by any Pac-12 player since 2009. Wells batted an impressive .353, the highest mark among freshmen in Power 5 conferences. He also hit seven triples (eighth-most in the nation) and had the fourth-most walks in the Conference with 46, notably ranking behind the last two Pac-12 Players of the Year (OSU’s Adley Rutschman this year and Cal’s Andrew Vaughn last year). He ranks in the top 10 in the league in RBI (T-3rd, 60), hits (4th, 78) and OBP (7th, .462). The freshman is majoring in pre-business at Arizona’s Eller College of Management.

PAC-12 COACH OF THE YEAR: John Savage, UCLA
In his 15th season at the helm of UCLA, Savage led the Bruins to arguably their best regular season in school history. The Bruins won their 10th all-time Pac-12 title and fourth since Savage became head coach in 2005. The Bruins set new program records for regular season wins with 47 and conference wins with 24. This is just the sixth team in UCLA history to reach 45 wins, and five of those squads have come during the John Savage era. The team also broke the school record with an .855 regular-season win percentage, which leads the country. UCLA has been the No. 1 team in the USA Today Coaches poll for 11-straight weeks, the longest stretch in program history, and the unanimous No. 1 team by five national rankings for eight-straight weeks. The Bruins secured the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Championship for just the second time in program history (2015) behind one of the best defenses in the nation. They hold the national lead in ERA (2.59), shutouts (11) and rank second in fielding percentage (.982). The Bruins enter the postseason on a 10-game winning streak, a season-best and the longest since the Bruins reeled off 11 straight to close the 2013 season en route to the program's first-ever National Championship. Savage also secured milestones of his own this year, earning his 600th career win and 500th win at UCLA. He has the 20th-most wins of any Pac-12 coach in history.

ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM

HONORABLE MENTION: Brady Corrigan, ARIZONA STATE; Matthew Dyer, ARIZONA; Cameron Eden, CALIFORNIA; Brandon Eisert, OREGON STATE; Bryce Fehmel, OREGON STATE; Grant Gambrell, OREGON STATE; Nate Hadley, UCLA; Trevor Halsema, USC; Trevor Hauver, ARIZONA STATE; Duke Kinamon, STANFORD; Arman Sabouri, CALIFORNIA; Kyle Stowers, STANFORD; Tim Tawa, STANFORD; Mitchell Verburg, OREGON STATE; Braiden Ward, WASHINGTON; Austin Wells, ARIZONA; Alika Williams, ARIZONA STATE; Gage Workman, ARIZONA STATE.

ALL-DEFENSIVE TEAM

HONORABLE MENTION: Matthew Acosta, USC; Andres Alvarez, WASHINGTON STATE; Andy Armstrong, OREGON STATE; Nick Bellafronto, STANFORD; Noah Cardenas UCLA; Jonny DeLuca, OREGON; Max Flower, CALIFORNIA; Jared Horn, CALIFORNIA; Preston Jones, OREGON STATE; Nick Kahle, WASHINGTON; Duke Kinamon, STANFORD; Gabe Matthews, OREGON; Brandon Perez, USC; Beau Philip, OREGON STATE; Nick Quintana, ARIZONA; Drew Swift, ARIZONA STATE; Gage Workman, ARIZONA STATE.