Josh Jung


Joshua Ryne Jung is an American professional baseball third baseman in the Texas Rangers organization. He played college baseball for the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

Career

Amateur career

Jung attended Douglas MacArthur High School in San Antonio, Texas where he played baseball and football. Undrafted out of high school in the 2016 MLB draft, he enrolled at Texas Tech University to play college baseball for the Red Raiders.
In 2017, as a freshman at Texas Tech, Jung started all 62 games at third base, batting.306 with six home runs and 43 RBIs. He was named the Big 12 Freshman of the Year and was named a Freshman All-American by multiple outlets including Collegiate Baseball and Perfect Game/Rawlings. He was also named to the All-Big 12 Freshman Team and the All-Big 12 Second Team. That summer, he played in the California Collegiate League where he hit.368 with two home runs, 31 RBIs, and a.454 on-base percentage over 117 at-bats. As a sophomore in 2018, Jung once again started all 65 of Texas Tech's games at third base, slashing.392/.491/.639 with 12 home runs and 80 RBIs. He was named to the All-Big 12 First Team, and was once again named an All-American by outlets such as Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball. He played for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team that summer.
Jung was named a preseason All-American by Perfect Game, Baseball America, D1Baseball.com, and Collegiate Baseball prior to his junior year. During the season, he missed two games due to a quadricep strain, ending his streak of 139 consecutive starts. After returning, he moved to shortstop. He was named the 2019 Big 12 Co-Player of the Year after batting.333 with nine home runs and 49 RBIs through 49 games. He was named an All-American by Baseball America, D1Baseball.com, Perfect Game, ABCA, and NCBWA. Jung was the recipient of the 2019 Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger Award, which honors the top Division I baseball player within Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma each season. Jung finished his junior year slashing.343/.474/.636 with 15 home runs and 58 RBIs in 64 games.
Considered one of the top prospects for the 2019 MLB draft, he was selected by the Texas Rangers in the first round, with the eighth overall pick.

Professional career

On July 3, 2019, Jung signed with the Rangers for a $4.4 million signing bonus. On July 10, 2019, Jung made his professional debut with the Arizona League Rangers of the Rookie-level Arizona League, hitting a home run in his first professional at-bat. On July 15, Jung was promoted to the Hickory Crawdads of the Class A South Atlantic League, and hit.287/.363/.389/.752 with one home run and 23 RBIs over 40 games for them.