BATON ROUGE, La. – LSU junior first baseman Jared Jones was named Friday by USA Baseball to the 2025 Golden Spikes Award Preseason Watch List.
The Golden Spikes Award is presented each year to the best amateur baseball player in the nation, and the preseason list includes 55 players across high school and college baseball.
The Golden Spikes Advisory Board will maintain the award’s watch list on a rolling basis, allowing athletes to play themselves into consideration for the award based on in-season performance.
Jones, a native of Marietta, Ga., was ranked No. 1 last week on the D1Baseball.com list of the Top 50 First Basemen in the nation. D1 Baseball also named Jones a 2025 Preseason First-Team All-American.
Jones hit .301 (69-for-229) for LSU last season with 14 doubles, two triples, 28 homers, 59 RBI and 56 runs. His 28 home runs marked the fourth-most in LSU history and the most by a Tiger since first baseman Matt Clark also hit 28 in 2008.
Jones, a 2023 Freshman All-American, finished the 2024 season No. 2 in the SEC in walks (59), No. 5 in home runs, No. 5 in slugging percentage (.747) and No. 9 in total bases (171).
He was named to the 2024 NCAA Chapel Hill Regional All-Tournament team after hitting a team-best .538 (7-for-13) with two homers, four RBI, five runs, nine walks and a .739 on-base percentage.
Jones was rated in December by D1 Baseball as the No. 39 Top College Prospect for the 2025 MLB Draft.
LSU, ranked No. 2 by Baseball America and No. 3 by D1 Baseball in preseason polls, opens the season at 2 p.m. CT on Friday, February 14, when the Tigers play host to Purdue Fort Wayne in Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.