RJ Ybarra

Classroom

RJ Ybarra is a two-time Pac-12 All-Academic Honorable Mention selection, including in both 2014 and 2015, and he was the team’s Casey Myers Academic Award winner in 2014. He is on track to graduate in May 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies with a focus on communication and sociology. He is a four-time Scholar Baller, which each semester honors student-athletes who achieve over a 3.0 GPA.

Character

Ybarra returned to ASU for his senior season and is one of the team’s leaders both on and off the field. He serves as a senior mentor for the freshmen student-athletes and routinely takes time to help them with time-management skills and adjusting to life as a collegiate student-athlete.

“RJ understands the life lessons that college, and specifically collegiate athletics, teaches. As a young man who has been a part of that experience for the past three-plus years, he prides himself on making sure all of our student-athletes, not just the ones on the baseball team, gain the same life-changing experiences and wisdom. He truly epitomizes the Sun Devil Way.” – Don Bocchi, Senior Associate Athletics Director

Community

Ybarra has been involved in various community activities over the past four-plus seasons and is one of the first student-athletes to sign up for any community service initiative. He is part of the athletics department’s annual Fantasy Flight through which student-athletes provide underprivileged and/or sick children with a Christmas they’ll remember. He makes regular visits to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital, volunteers at youth baseball camps, speaks to children at Cesar Chavez High School, helps out at the Special Olympics and with the local chapter of the Miracle League, and is part of the annual Thanksgiving Food Drive, the Sept. 11 Memorial at Tempe Town Lake and the Race for the Cure.

Competition

A four-year letterwinner, Ybarra had appeared in 144 games, including 115 starts, throughout his ASU career as of March 9. A career .288 hitter with 92 RBI, 65 runs and 130 hits, including 31 doubles, one triple and 14 home runs, Ybarra earned Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American honors from Collegiate Baseball in 2013. His career .454 slugging percentage ranks first on the team among returning players, and he also owns a .362 on-base percentage and has 36 career multi-hit games and 22 career multi-RBI games. He has delivered five game-winning hits in the ninth or later in his career, including three in three consecutive Pac-12 series’ in 2014. He led the team with 47 RBI (the third-highest mark in the Pac-12) as a sophomore en route to earning the program’s Offensive MVP honors.

“It’s as much about what he does on the field as it is what he does off of it. He’s got a great presence in the dugout and in the clubhouse, and he’s an imposing figure at the plate and behind the dish. He’s everything you hope for in a Div. I student-athlete: capable, dependable, hard-working, unselfish and talented. He’s the complete package.” - Tracy Smith, Arizona State Head Coach