Poway alumni in the pros

Five baseball players highlight Poway alumni in the pros right now.

       Poway High School has a long history of baseball alumni players reaching the big league level, including the son of Padres all-time great Tony Gwynn, Tony Gwynn Jr., who played for San Diego for two seasons, in addition to Milwaukee, Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Dodgers in an eight-year career. 

       Poway High had two big-leaguers play in the 2020 season, and currently have three players on an active 40-man roster. 

       Alex Dickerson, who played for the San Francisco Giants in 2020, had a breakout season in 2020. Dickerson was drafted in the 48th round of the 2008 draft before going to college, where he played baseball for Indiana University Bloomington. While there, he was drafted in the third round of the 2011 draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates. 

       He was traded to his hometown team in 2013, and made his debut in 2015 before suffering numerous injuries. He made his return in 2019, appearing in twelve games with the Padres before he was traded to San Francisco mid-season in 2019. He hit .290 in two stints with the Giants before settling into a starting position in the 2020 season. 

       Kevin Newman played for the Poway varsity baseball team in his junior and senior years where he hit .390 in 65 games. In 2012 he went to college at the University of Arizona and was drafted first round in the 2015 MLB Draft by the Pirates. 

       In three seasons with Pittsburgh, Newman has a .278 batting average and an on-base-plus-slugging (OPS) of .709 while appearing in 205 games. The 27-year-old infielder appeared in 44 games in the 2020 season at second base and shortstop. 

       Tyler Nevin, the second player to be drafted first-round out of Poway High (the first being Kevin Burnell by the Red Sox in the 1981 Draft) and the most recent Poway alumni to be drafted in the major leagues, has five seasons of professional baseball under his belt, with his entire 2019 season coming at Double-A, the second highest level of minor league baseball. 

       Nevin was placed on the major-league 40-man roster by the Colorado Rockies during the 2019-20 offseason; however, he did not get the opportunity to play for them as he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles in August 2020, where he spent the remainder of the baseball season in the Orioles training site. The 23-year-old third baseman is excited to join a Baltimore club that is “heading in the right direction.”

      Catcher Austin Wynns was drafted in the 10th round of the 2013 draft by the Orioles, where he made his debut on Jun. 5, 2018 and recorded a hit in his first major-league at bat, a single off Mets’ pitcher Jason Vargas. Wynns spent the 2020 season in the Orioles’ training site before being removed from their active roster. 

       Outfielder Connor Joe was drafted in the first round of the 2014 Draft by the Pirates from the University of San Diego. Since then, he has been traded to the Braves (Aug. 2017), to the Dodgers (Sep. 2017), to being claimed off waivers by the Reds (Dec. 2018), to being traded to the Giants (Mar. 2019), and back to the Dodgers (Apr. 2019). 

       Joe made his debut on Mar. 28 with San Francisco, facing his hometown Padres. He would play in eight games before being traded to the Dodgers two weeks later. He signed a minor-league contract with the Colorado Rockies in November.

       While there are no current football or basketball players from Poway, there are two alumni who have made it to the NFL, and one for the NBA. Overall, Poway has had a total of 10 MLB players in history.