Liam Doyle named finalist for prestigious Golden Spikes Award

For only the fourth time in program history, Tennessee baseball has a player who has earned finalist recognition for the Golden Spikes Award. Left-handed pitcher Liam Doyle is one of three up for the prestigious award.

The Golden Spikes Award, presented by USA Baseball, is an honor bestowed annually on the best amateur baseball player in the country. A Preseason Watch List for the award was published before the season in February while a 45-player Midseason watch List was updated in April. On May 18, Doyle was named a semifinalist for the award.

Doyle is the first Tennessee player to be named a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award since fellow southpaw Luke Hochevar did so in 2005. Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Todd Helton (1995) and Chris Burke (2001) were also named as Golden Spikes Award finalists.

Kentrail Davis (2008), Nick Senzel (2016), Chase Burns (2022), Trey Lipscomb (2022), Blake Burke (2024) and Christian Moore (2024) were named semifinalists throughout their Tennessee careers.   

The 47th Golden Spikes Award will be presented on June 21 on ESPN. Arkansas shortstop Wehiwa Aloy and Florida State shortstop Alex Lodise are the two other finalists.

The southpaw leads the nation with 158 strikeouts ahead of super regional play and tied for the most wins (9) in the Southeastern Conference regular season. The hurler was second in the league with a 2.72 ERA and second in batting average against (.171) during the regular season. Through two more appearances on the SEC Tournament and Knoxville Regional, Doyle’s ERA sits at 2.84 with an opponent batting average of .178 through 92 innings on the season.

In total, Doyle has 16 starts over 18 appearances in 2025. He allowed 32 runs (29 earned) on 58 hits and walked just 30 batters. He yielded 19 extra base hits altogether, with 10 doubles, one triple and nine home runs. Doyle racked up double-digit strikeouts in eight of his starts in the regular season and added five on Monday while picking up his first save of the year as Tennessee locked up its regional win.     

Beginning with the announcement of semifinalists last month, a ballot was sent to the Golden Spikes Award voting body consisting of national baseball media, select professional baseball personnel, previous Golden Spikes Award winners, and select USA Baseball staff, totaling a group of over 100 voters. The voting body selected the top semifinalists from the ballot to be named as Golden Spikes Award finalists and fan voting will simultaneously be open at GoldenSpikesAward.com.

Fans had the opportunity to vote up to 25 times per day for their favorite semifinalist. Selections made by the Golden Spikes Award voting body carried a 95 percent weight of each athlete’s total, while fan votes will accounted for the remaining five percent.

Past winners of the award include Terry Francona (1980), Will Clark (1985), Robin Ventura (1988), Jason Varitek (1994), J.D. Drew (1997), Mark Prior (2001), Jered Weaver (2004), Tim Lincecum (2006), David Price (2007), Buster Posey (2008), Stephen Strasburg (2009), Bryce Harper (2010), Mike Zunino (2012), Kris Bryant (2013), A.J. Reed (2014), Andrew Benintendi (2015) Kyle Lewis (2016), Brendan McKay (2017), Andrew Vaughn (2018), Adley Rutschman (2019), Kevin Kopps (2021), Ivan Melendez (2022) and Dylan Crews (2023) and Charlie Condon (2024).

Doyle is in his first season at Tennessee, coming over via the transfer portal from Ole Miss in 2024 and Coastal Carolina in 2023. He is projected as an early first round pick in this summer’s MLB Draft and is one of the top prospects from the SEC.

The southpaw was also named the SEC Pitcher of the Year in 2025 and a semifinalist for the National Pitcher of the Year.

Tennessee begins play for its fifth-straight super regional appearance (and seventh in program history) this Saturday at Arkansas with a 5 p.m. ET first pitch.