CARY, N.C. — USA Baseball announced its Golden Spikes Award Preseason Watch List on Friday, naming UC Santa Barbara's Matt Ager among the 55 amateur baseball players with a claim to the title of best in the nation in 2024. Of the 50 NCAA Division-I student athletes, Ager is one of 11 from outside the "Power Five" conferences and the only representative of The Big West.
 
Ager is only the second UC Santa Barbara pitcher since 2008 to be named to the Golden Spikes Award Preseason Watch List (Michael McGreevy, 2021), though teammate Mike Gutierrez played his way onto the Midseason Watch List last season. The folks at USA Baseball got a good look at Ager over the summer, as the Gauchos' ace was a member of the Collegiate National Team that faced Chinese Taipei and Japan last July.
 
The big righty also impressed in a Santa Barbara uniform in 2023, throwing 92 1/3 innings and striking out 115 batters in his first season as a starter. He was named a Third-Team All-American by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association following the season, and earned Preseason All-America honors from the NCBWA coming into 2024. Perfect Game also gave Ager a Preseason All-America nod, as did D1Baseball, which also picked him as The Big West Preseason Pitcher of the Year and ranked him the No. 5 starting pitcher in all of Division I baseball.

First awarded in 1978, the Golden Spikes Award honors the top amateur baseball player in the United States each year, recognizing those who exhibit both exceptional athletic ability and exemplary sportsmanship. A host of former Golden Spikes winners have gone on to play in Major League Baseball, with 2019 winner Adley Rutschman becoming the most recent Golden Spikes honoree to also be named an MLB All-Star.
 
Expect to see Ager make his first start of the season on Opening Day, Feb. 16, when UC Santa Barbara travels to take on Campbell in Buies Creek, North Carolina.