2025 Early Golden Spikes Watchlist
A month into the college baseball season, Just Baseball takes a look at the top Golden Spikes Award candidates.
We’re only a month into the college baseball season, but with conference play kicking off this weekend, awards races will start heating up quickly.
2025 is unique in the Golden Spikes race because in 2024, the preseason favorites in Travis Bazzana, Hagen Smith, Jac Caglianone, and Charlie Condon came out of the gates hot and never looked back, really competing with just each other.
The preseason favorite and potential 1.01 in the 2025 MLB Draft, Jace LaViolette, much like his Texas A&M Aggies, is struggling early. Slashing just .235/.414/.510 with four home runs and 18 RBIs, we haven’t seen the dominance the slugger displayed in 2024 after clubbing 29 long balls while hitting .305.
Do I really believe he will finish the year hitting under .280? I don’t, but it’s worth noting, because this year’s Golden Spikes Award race feels wide open.
Voters have strayed away from pitchers winning this award – note that Paul Skenes in 2023 didn’t win, and if he didn’t, I’m not sure who can. The last two pitchers to win were Kevin Kopps in 2021 and Trevor Bauer in 2011. Could this be a year we see an arm take home the award? Let’s dive into the top Golden Spikes Award candidates thus far.
Liam Doyle, LHP – Tennessee
It’s hard to ignore the most dominant pitcher in college baseball to this point.
Now on his third stop, the southpaw has jumped from Coastal Carolina in 2023 to Ole Miss in 2024, and now finds himself on the #1 team in the country with the Tennessee Volunteers.
In Liam Doyle‘s short tenure in Knoxville, the Vols’ developmental work has managed to get him a big bump in the velocity department. We’ve seen Doyle up to 99 this season, averaging 95 on his fastball, whereas he averaged 92.5 topping out at 95.1 at Ole Miss just one year ago.
Small sample size data points are already shouting ‘unicorn fastball’ from the mountain tops, and while their schedule hasn’t been difficult yet, you can’t argue with the success he’s had so far.
In four starts, Doyle has racked up 20 ⅓ innings pitched, striking out a nation-leading 47 hitters (69.1%) while only walking five, allowing six hits, and surrendering just one earned run. Doyle is pitching to a 0.44 ERA, and opposing batters are hitting a mere .095 off him.
Not only has Doyle put up video game numbers to this point in the season, but playing on a team that has clear aspirations of another Omaha run and potential for back-to-back national championships helps his case when it comes down to voters.
While he most likely won’t pitch to a sub-one ERA over the course of the SEC gauntlet, if he can get close to matching, or even beat Paul Skenes’ 2023 campaign, Doyle has a legitimate shot to take home the Golden Spikes. For what it’s worth, as we stand today, he is on pace to nearly match Skenes in innings pitched and strikeouts, so it’s not out of the realm of possibilities.
Tennessee will open conference play with the #6 Florida Gators, and it will be a great test for Doyle to see how he’ll stack up against SEC competition through the season.
Justin Lebron, SS – Alabama
While Justin Lebron doesn’t follow the recent trend we’ve seen in college baseball where most of the Golden Spikes winners are draft-eligible, it would be wrong of me not to include college baseball’s home run leader.
Bouncing off a huge freshman campaign in 2024, Lebron appears to have made the next leap and is already being talked about as a potential 1.01 in 2026 if he stays on his current trajectory. Slashing .380/.489/.944 with a nation-leading 11 home runs and 43 RBIs, Lebron is just one home run shy of his 2024 total and has already surpassed his RBI total from a year ago.
The uptick in power and production has been massive, but the biggest green flag I’ve seen to this point is his near one-to-one strikeout-to-walk ratio, sitting at 14 strikeouts to 13 walks so far.
Lebron was the SEC freshman of the year in 2024 and has surpassed the majority of his stats in just 18 games. Extremely athletic with defensive prowess, Lebron can easily find his way into the conversation for the Golden Spikes this season, and if he doesn’t, he may just be the 2026 favorite.
Aiva Arquette, SS – Oregon State
Coming into the 2025 season, Aiva Arquette was one of the top transfers of the offseason, jumping ship from the Washington Huskies to the Oregon State Beavers.
To this point, we’ve already seen significant jumps in his production, slashing .423/.508/.712 with three home runs, 17 RBIs, four doubles, and one triple through 14 games. Already halfway to his RBI total in 2024, Arquette has been a force in the middle of the Beavers’ lineup.
Standing at 6’5, 220 pounds, his pro-ready frame has filled out, and we’ve already seen the extra pop in the bat for a player who was once regarded as a glove-first shortstop. With an average exit velocity of 94.4 mph, just a slight bump up from 2024 (93), Arquette is showing essentially the same advanced numbers this year, but his ability to put the ball in the air more has boosted his slug.
He has increased his launch angle to 15.8° from 11.2° while decreasing his ground ball rate from 39.9% to 30.2%. With an increase in contact rate from 73% to 78.1%, but paired with an increase in whiff rate from 18.9% to 21.1%, we may be witnessing a slightly better approach for Arquette.
If he can stay on trajectory and be a big production spot for a Beavers team that is primed for a postseason run, Arquette can easily find himself in the Golden Spikes conversation when June rolls around.
Jamie Arnold, LHP – Florida State
Jamie Arnold came into the season as the top-odds pitcher to win the Golden Spikes and is a legitimate candidate to be taken off the board first overall this summer.
After racking up 159 strikeouts and walking just 26 batters over 102 ⅔ innings in 2024, pitching to a 2.98 ERA and 1.098 WHIP, Arnold came into the season looking to dominate again for another highly ranked Seminoles team.
Through three starts, Arnold has punched out 24 hitters over 16 innings, sticking on pace to match and potentially exceed his 2024 campaign. In his 16 innings this year, he has surrendered just two earned runs on seven hits, equating to his 1.13 ERA, 0.536 WHIP, and a .135 batting average against.
A low-slot lefty, he throws an alien fastball that sits 92-95 but is able to touch 97 and that generated a 47.5% whiff rate in 2024. He pairs it with a wipeout slider.
The southpaw has taken his arsenal one step further, adding a changeup, which could be the difference maker in his taking another step statistically. It could also be what makes him the 1.01 in this year’s MLB Draft.
If there’s an arm that can break the streak for the Golden Spikes, the Seminoles’ ace might be the guy.
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