Kevin Parada earns Buster Posey Award as nation’s top catcher

If there were any more need to confirm that Georgia Tech catcher Kevin Parada was the best player in the country at his position this season, Wednesday night removed any final doubts. At an awards ceremony in Wichita, Kan., Parada was named the winner of the Buster Posey Award, given annually by the Wichita Sports Commission to the top catcher in college baseball.

Parada also was a unanimous first-team All-American and Tuesday was named the winner of the Johnny Bench Award, another national catcher-of-the-year award selected by the Hall of Famer himself. He beat out Davidson’s Michael Carico and Fresno State’s Zach Morgan for the Posey honor. Posey himself was on hand to present the award.

The Posey award figures to tie a final bow on Parada’s surpassing season. It perhaps was most notable for his 26 home runs, which by one broke the school’s 32-year-old single-season home-run record (set by Anthony Maisano), a standard that had withstood the careers of Yellow Jackets greats such as Jason Varitek, Nomar Garciaparra, Jay Payton, Mark Teixeira, Matt Wieters and Joey Bart.

He further reached that home-run total despite playing in a pitcher-friendly home park and without compromising efficiency at the plate. He was fifth in the ACC in slugging percentage (.709), 14th in batting average (.360), 15th in on-base percentage (.452) and struck out once every 8.1 at-bats.

Of the top 20 leaders in the ACC in batting average, only two players were tougher to strike out (Tech second baseman Chandler Simpson, who led Division I in batting average at .433, was one), and they combined for eight home runs. Parada accomplished this while starting all of Tech’s 60 games, including 55 handling the rigors behind the plate.

“He can pull a ball that’s inside, he can hit a ball that’s inside out to right field,” Tech assistant coach James Ramsey said of Parada in April. “So basically, the whole field is at his disposal at all times. So that’d be the biggest thing that I see from him – just the way that he controls his body the whole time through his swing. Those two things put together, you’re going to have a chance to be a major-league baseball player for a long time.”

A sophomore, Parada was the main cog in an offense that itself was historically productive, finishing the season first in batting average, third in runs per game, fifth in slugging percentage, sixth in on-base percentage and eighth in home runs per game. He is a surefire first-round pick in the upcoming MLB draft and could very well be taken in the top five.

A business-administration major, he was further named to the All-ACC academic team for the second year in a row, a most worthy member of Tech’s “Catcher U.” legacy, following the likes of Varitek, Wieters and Bart, who became Tech’s first winner of the Posey award (then named for Bench) in 2018.

“I think we thought when we recruited him, that he was going to be a good hitter,” coach Danny Hall said of Parada in April. “I don’t think anybody would have said or had the expectations that he was going to do what he’s doing, but he is. And I would just say, kind of each week, he just does something that you’re like, Wow, that’s pretty special.”