Dallas Baptist’s Ryan Johnson named 2024 Collegiate Baseball Player of Year by SABR Dallas-Fort Worth chapter
DALLAS – Dallas Baptist University’s Ryan Johnson has been chosen as the recipient of the 31st Howard Green SABR Metroplex Collegiate Player of the Year Award, while East Texas Baptist University’s Sayers Collins and LeTourneau University’s Dane Jones were selected as the 13th annual SABR Metroplex Carroll Beringer Award College Division Players of the Year by SABR’s Ernie Banks-Bobby Bragan DFW Chapter.
The prestigious college baseball awards honor the memory of Green, the local SABR chapter’s longtime president, and Beringer, a former major-league pitching coach who was a great supporter of college baseball in the area. The DFW Chapter will serve as the host of SABR’s 2025 annual convention next summer.
Johnson is the 16th honoree from the Patriots since these awards originated in 1993 and has some of the most solid credentials of any past standouts.
The 6-6, 215-pound junior from Red Oak, Texas, was the Patriots’ sixth-highest draft pick in July by the Los Angeles Angels with the 74th overall selection in the 2024 Major League Baseball Draft. He was a consensus All-America choice and Conference USA Pitcher of the Year in 2024 after going 11-3 with a 2.21 ERA in 16 starts.
While helping lead DBU to its school-record, ninth consecutive NCAA Regional appearance, Johnson set a Patriots season record for strikeouts with 151 and became DBU’s career leader in strikeouts with 314 from 2022-24. The tall righty also was among the Top 10 nationally in virtually every NCAA Division I individual pitching statistic: third in strikeout-to-walk ratio (10.79), fourth in strikeouts (151), fourth in walks allowed per nine innings (1.19), fifth in wins (11), sixth in ERA (2.21), and 10th in WHIP (0.92).
Over three seasons, Johnson was 22-9 with a 3.46 ERA in 50 appearances and 40 starts. He also closed his career in second place in school history with a WHIP of 1.10 and third in pitching victories and base on balls per nine innings with 2.07. Of note, Johnson’s older brother, MD Johnson, holds the school record for pitching wins with 29 while his father, Jeff, pitched for the Patriots from 1986-90.
Collins, a 6-3, 235-pound senior from Frisco, Texas, followed a stellar junior year at East Texas Baptist with another D-III All-America showing in 2024, his third overall. He was a repeat ABCA Regional Player of the Year as well as American Southwest Conference pitcher for the third year in a row.
The 2023 and ’24 Beringer Award winner was ASC Pitcher of the Week a record 15 times. He went 12-1 with a 1.23 ERA in 88 innings pitched with 92 strikeouts and tossed a combined no-hitter against then-No. 6 Lynchburg.
Collins also started 14 games while allowing just a .160 batting average by opponents, had 11 strikeouts in a win over Hardin-Simmons, and pitched a trio of two-hitters in ’24. He earned two National Pitcher of the Year awards from Perfect Game and the American Baseball Coaches Association and was ASC Male Athlete of the Year for two years while receiving five total All-America awards.
Jones, a 6-2, 207-pound senior from Keller, Texas, also received All-America laurels from the American Baseball Coaches Association and D3baseball.com. He became the first LeTourneau player to receive All-America kudos since 1990.
The Keller resident also garnered first-team All-American Southwest Conference recognition as well as All-Region laurels from the ABCA and D3baseball.com. His gaudy overall batting statistics included a school-season-record 20 home runs with a .401 batting average, 47 RBIs in 40 games, 1.392 OPS, 55 hits, 40 runs scored, and an .883 slugging percentage.
Jones paced the ASC in home runs and was fourth nationally. He set a YellowJackets game record with three homers against Hardin-Simmons and is the LETU career leader with 41 home runs.
The trio of stars join an elite list of previous SABR Howard Green and Carroll Beringer award winners such as Scott Malone and Luken Baker of TCU, Hunter Pence and Michael Choice of UT Arlington, Darick Hall, Collin Poche and Drew Holder of DBU, Elvin Rodriguez of Northwood, Conner and Casey Combs of East Texas Baptist, and the only other two-time recipient of either award along with ETBU’s Collins – A.J. Liu of UT Dallas.
“This might have been of the most talented groups of both Metroplex SABR Player of the Year nominees and winners in the history of the award,” said Banks-Bragan SABR Chapter President Paul Rogers. “It was a tough decision, and these three players definitely distinguished themselves for their individual achievements and team leadership in 2024.”
Previous winners of the Howard Green SABR Metroplex College Baseball Player of the Year are: Scott Malone, TCU, 1993; Jason Parsons, DBU, 1994; Johnny Issom, Texas Wesleyan, 1995; Karl Chatman, DBU, 1996; Brandon Harper, DBU, 1997; Royce Huffman, TCU, 1998; Cody Sundbeck, DBU, 1999; (co) Jon Browder, DBU; Pat Hannon, Texas Wesleyan, 2000; Mike Hall, Texas Wesleyan, 2001; Terry Trofholz, TCU, 2002; Clayton Jerome, TCU, 2003; Hunter Pence, UT Arlington, 2004; Lance Broadway, TCU, 2005; Drew Holder, DBU, 2006; Sam Demel, TCU, 2007; Evan Bigley, DBU, 2008; Matt Otteman, UT Arlington, 2009; (co) Michael Choice, Texas-Arlington; Matt Purke, TCU, 2010; Jason Krizan, Dallas Baptist, 2011; Boomer Collins, Dallas Baptist, 2012; Duncan McAlpine, Dallas Baptist, 2013; (co) Brandon Finnegan, Preston Morrison, TCU, 2014; Brandon Koch, Dallas Baptist, 2015; (co) Darick Hall, Dallas Baptist; Luken Baker, TCU, 2016; Austin Listi, Dallas Baptist, 2017; Devlin Granberg, Dallas Baptist, 2018; Jake Guenther, TCU, 2019; no award in 2020 due to COVID-19 shortened season; Jackson Glenn, DBU, 2021; Tommy Sacco, TCU, 2022; Brayden Taylor, TCU, 2023.
Carroll Beringer Award: Chase Brown, UT Dallas, 2012; Elvin Rodriguez, Northwood, 2013; Jake Howeth, Texas Wesleyan, 2014; Brandon George, UT Dallas, 2015; Conner Combs, East Texas Baptist, 2016; Luis Roman, Texas Wesleyan, 2017; Kiki Menendez, Texas Wesleyan, 2018; Casey Combs, East Texas Baptist, 2019; A.J. Liu, UT Dallas, 2020 and ‘21; Joseph Barfield, Texas Wesleyan, 2022; Sayers Collins, East Texas Baptist University, 2023.
For more information, please contact Bo Carter at bcarter@footballfoundation.com or (214) 418-6132.
Originally published: August 20, 2024. Last Updated: August 20, 2024.