When he pulls on the Mississippi State jersey and digs in at third base, Ace Reese carries the kind of name that promises a fastball and a strikeout — because that is exactly what his parents expected. They named him Ace believing he would be a star pitcher; instead he stands in the hot corner as one of college baseball’s premier power hitters.
That twist is more than a family anecdote. This season Reese is batting.328 with 22 home runs, 72 RBIs and 69 runs, leading Mississippi State in homers, RBIs and runs while anchoring a lineup that has carried the Bulldogs back into postseason relevance. Over two seasons in Starkville he is hitting.337 with 43 home runs, 136 RBIs and 125 runs, and his.707 career slugging percentage at Mississippi State is pacing to be the third-highest in program history behind Will Clark and Rafael Palmeiro.
Reese’s power puts him in rare company in the program’s record book: he and two Hall of Famers — Palmeiro and Clark — are the only Bulldogs with consecutive 20-home-run seasons. He is a two-time All-SEC first-team selection and was the SEC Newcomer of the Year in 2025. Put together, those credentials have MLB ranking him as the No. 21 prospect for the 2026 Draft.
The timing of the name story and the statistics matters now because Mississippi State begins the Athens Super Regional on June 6, with games scheduled June 6 and June 7 and a June 8 if necessary. The winner advances to the College World Series; the Bulldogs have not returned since their 2021 title run. Reese’s bat is a direct lever on both the team’s postseason fate and his own résumé for draft evaluators watching live in Athens and on television.
Reese grew into this role quickly. He arrived at Mississippi State after a freshman year at Houston in 2024 and spent last summer with the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team, experience that accelerated his development against top-tier competition. The shift from a name meant for pitching to production at the plate is not lost on his family: his father has said they prayed a lot about the choice and felt led when they picked the name, even though neither of them knew exactly how things would unfold.
There is a friction at the heart of the story. The expectation encoded in his first name — a pitcher’s swagger and control — contrasts with the muscle and reaction time required of a power-hitting third baseman. Reese has supplied both. His swing shows the kind of aggressive approach that produces home runs and runs driven in, but his plate discipline and slugging mark him as more than a pull hitter; they underline why he has drawn national attention and a spot on a short list of draftable college bats.
That national attention comes with a secondary storyline for Mississippi State. The program has not had a batter taken in Round 1 since Justin Foscue in 2020, and Reese represents its best shot in several years at returning to that tier. Scouts will weigh his track record — consecutive 20-home-run seasons, All-SEC honors, USA National Team experience — against questions some evaluators reserve for college power hitters projecting to pro wood bats.
Reese’s next public moments are straightforward: a three-game Super Regional beginning June 6, with the Bulldogs’ travel and postseason progress determining how many scouts and national viewers get more live looks. For a player whose name was chosen with a pitcher in mind, the coming days will decide whether the third baseman named Ace arrives in professional baseball carrying the same kind of promise his parents imagined.
