Daniel Jackson‘s breakout season for Georgia baseball helped the program reach the College World Series for the first time in 18 years and made him the biggest individual star nationally this year.
The junior catcher raised his draft stock considerably even if he wasn’t selected in the top 35 overall picks.
Jackson went off the board on Saturday when the Colorado Rockies selected him with the No. 37 overall pick as a competitive balance A pick. Jackson is a potential future teammate of 2024 Rockies first round draft pick Charlie Condon from Georgia.
The Golden Spikes winner for nation’s top player was ranked as the No. 201 prospect overall before the season began, according to Baseball America.
Jackson, from Sandy Springs, became just the third SEC player after Rafael Palmeiro in 1984 and Brent Rooker in 2017 at Mississippi State to hit for the triple crown.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Jackson had 32 home runs, a school-record 87 RBIs and a .379 average. It came in his second season at Georgia after transferring from Wofford.
“Part of him going in the transfer portal,” his father Dan said, “is, hey, I can stay at Wofford and hit 100 home runs and go in the fifth round or I could go face the best competition ever and find out if I’m going to make it now or not make it. For him to go do it and with all the awards, that’s a dream come true.”
Jackson also won the Dick Howser Trophy for best player and Buster Posey Award for top catcher.
Jackson swings a big bat—he ranked fourth in the nation in home runs per game and led the nation with 88 runs—to go along with 26 steals to become the third player in Division I history to have 25 homers and 25 steals.
“I just told Daniel, he’s the best player in the country,” coach Wes Johnson said after Georgia clinched its spot in the CWS on June 7. “He’ll be one of the best I’ve ever coached.”
Jackson started 14 games in the outfield in 2024 and is open to playing there if that’s what a team wants.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get to the big-league level,” he told the Athens Banner-Herald. “I think I cleared up some concerns about the defense in the later weeks of the year in the Supers and Omaha. People kind of see my athleticism and I think that provokes them to want to move me. I’ll catch as long as I possibly can and we’ll go from there.”
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: What Georgia baseball’s Daniel Jackson brings to the Colorado Rockies
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