San Jose State鈥檚 Ruben Ibarra becomes program鈥檚 highest MLB Draft pick in 17 years
SAN JOSE, Calif. (BVM) 鈥� After a career year with San Jose State baseball, Ruben Ibarra became the program鈥檚 highest MLB Draft pick in nearly two decades on Monday. Selected 119th overall in the fourth round of the 2021 MLB Draft by the Cincinnati Reds, Ibarra is the highest-drafted Spartan baseball player since Matt Durkin went 44th overall to the New York Mets in the 2004 MLB Draft.
With the 119th pick, the select 1B Ruben Ibarra.
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— MLB Draft (@MLBDraft)
The junior received All-Mountain West recognition following a 2021 season where he led San Jose State in just about every major statistical category: batting average (.381), OPS (1.353), runs (30), hits (43), doubles (9), home runs (14), RBI (32), total bases (96), slugging percentage (.850), walks (28), on-base percentage (.503), sacrifice flies (4) and fielding percentage (.996).
Ibarra even ranked among the elite in all of Division I in many categories, including a national runner-up finish in slugging percentage. The Watsonville, Calif., native鈥檚 14 home runs this season moved him up to No. 2 on the program鈥檚 single-season home run leaderboard, just one shy of tying the school record despite 25 fewer games played. Ibarra did, however, set a new program record for home runs per game (.40), topping the previous record (.25) that stood for 31 years.
Ibarra is the first Spartan taken in the MLB Draft since Kellen Strahm and Andrew Mitchel were both taken in 2019. He鈥檚 also the third member of the program to be drafted by the Reds, joining Junior Ruiz (2001) and Don Gemmell (2002).
