The Mississippi State Baseball team had one of their best regular seasons in recent memory. They won their first SEC Regular Season Championship since 1989, and claimed their first National Seed in the NCAA Tournament.
A large part of all that success was the emergence of Freshman Jake Mangum. The talented outfielder hit .408 on the season and was the easy choice for SEC Freshman of the Year.
Making his emergence even more impressive is the fact that it started and happened almost completely against SEC opponents. Most people didn’t see Mangum making a major contribution in 2016, and he hadn’t done too much until he was finally given a chance in a substitution role against Vanderbilt.