Overview:
Jackson Flora became the fourth UCSB baseball pitcher in the last 12 years to be selected in the first round of the MLB Draft
Andrew Checketts knew just how to push Jackson Flora’s buttons last summer.
The winningest coach in UC Santa Barbara baseball history was on vacation, lounging on a boat off Michigan’s Mackinac Island, when he decided to prod his ultra-competitive, junior pitcher.
“I was watching the Major League Baseball draft with my family,” he said, “and when Tyler Bremner got picked at No. 2 by the (Los Angeles) Angels, and we got all excited, I went ahead and texted Jackson.
“I told him, ‘We still haven’t had a No. 1.’”
Checketts got the reply text he expected from his Gaucho ace:
“I thought the exact same thing,” Flora wrote.
Saturday’s first three picks in the MLB draft were all position players, but Flora did match his former teammate Bremner as the first pitcher selected.
The San Francisco Giants took him with the No. 4 overall pick.
Flora, a native of Pleasanton, told Noozhawk that it would be a childhood dream come true to pitch in the Major Leagues for any team.
But playing for his hometown Giants, he added, “would be a dream come true for my whole family.”
Flora, the son of Lisa and John Flora, began contemplating a professional baseball career after several of his older, high school acquaintances were drafted.
“I thought they were the coolest people in the world,” he said.
It turned into an obsession after his freshman year at UCSB when several teammates — “guys that I grew really close with” — were drafted following the Gauchos’ Big West Conference championship season of 2024.
“I thought, ‘Now, this is serious,’” Flora said. “I told myself, ‘This is something I definitely want to do … I think I can be one of the best players who wears this uniform, so I’m going to work hard to do that.’”
Flora did just that by leading all of NCAA Division I this season with both his earned-run average of 1.06 and win-loss record of 12-0.
He was also fourth nationally with a school-record 133 strikeouts and third in WHIP (walks and hits allowed per inning) at 0.85 to lead UCSB to the finals of the NCAA regional at the University of Texas at Austin.
Rising Star
His stock with pro scouts rose last summer after they watched him train with Team USA’s national collegiate team.
He handled the pressure of that like a champ, Checketts said.
“It’s hard to go wire-to-wire through a season, performing at a high level, while you’re under a microscope and have a bullseye at your chest every outing,” he said. “Bremner had a harder time with it last year — initially, in just staying healthy.
“He got through it and had a good season, but it wasn’t the same season he had the year before.
“I think it makes it really impressive that Jackson was able to go 12-0 this year.”
Checketts’ phone-message prompt last summer came soon after the Gauchos failed to earn a bid to the 2025 NCAA tournament.
“It had to come from within the players to say, ‘Look, we’ve got to get back on the horse,’” Flora said. “We had five guys in my class who’d played a lot, who’d been through a winning season our freshman year, and then a not-so-winning season last year.
“We knew what it took to compete, and so I took it upon myself to be a leader the best way I can to help my team win.
“I only get to pitch once a week, but there were three other games where I had to find a way to be helpful … and being a leader was my way of doing that.”
Michael Holmes, the Giants’ senior director of amateur scouting, got a sense of Flora’s determination during meetings he’s conducted with the Gaucho All-American.
The last one came two weeks ago during the MLB combine at Chase Field in Phoenix, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“We were really kind of blown away at the competitor he is, the person he is,” he told reporters on Saturday. “It’s the type of person we want to put into the system.”
Checketts considers Flora to be one of the hardest-working players he’s ever coached.
“You can dream of a guy getting better and improving, but if there isn’t a work ethic behind that, it’s more a pipe dream than a real one,” he said.
Holmes considered Flora, a 6-foot-5 righthander with a fastball that’s been clocked as high as 101 mph, to be the best pitcher in college baseball this season.
“It’s a combination of size and athleticism, the way he moves on the mound,” he said. “Obviously, we think his fastball plays velocity-wise, with the way it plays in the zone.
“Just an array of secondaries, with his two breaking balls and the kick-change. It’s just a real complete mix.
“Most important, he’s a really good strike-thrower.”
Little Giant
Flora’s first Little League team was named the Giants. It got him dreaming about playing for the Major League version.
Some of the first MLB games he attended were during that team’s World Series championship seasons of 2010, 2012 and 2014 — the first two of which featured former Gaucho pitcher Barry Zito.
“I knew Zito had gone to Santa Barbara for a year,” Flora said. “I grew up going to Giants games at AT&T Park and then Oracle Park.
“I’ve always been a big fan … I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around (becoming a Giant), but I’m stoked.”
He was set up with a draft adviser after receiving some interest from pro teams during his senior season at Pleasanton’s Foothill High School.
“I was pretty interested in playing pro ball then, although I wouldn’t have been a first-rounder,” Flora said.
“Once I committed to UC Santa Barbara, I was pretty dead set on going to school because of their history of pitcher development.”
Flora is the fourth first-rounder to come out of Checketts’ Gaucho program. Dillon Tate, now in the Angels’ organization, was the No. 4 pick in 2015.
Michael McGreevy, the No. 18 selection in 2021, leads all of the St. Louis Cardinals’ starters this season with an ERA of 3.01.
Five other Checketts protégés from UCSB have pitched in the big leagues, including 2020 American League Cy Young Award-winner Shane Bieber.
“The guys coming out of there have been pretty successful, so it was kind of an easy decision to go to school instead,” Flora said.
It proved to be a multimillion-dollar decision. The slot value of the No. 4 pick in this year’s draft, considering the Giants’ bonus pool, is $8,988,400.
“When I first got to campus at UCSB, I was just a good arm, just kind of throwing,” Flora said. “It works in high school when you throw harder than everybody else.
“Once I got to college, I was like, ‘All right, everybody here can hit a fastball, so now it’s time to learn how to pitch backward and throw off-speed for strikes … Work on the mental part of the game and all that good stuff.’
“Obviously, my coaches helped me a ton with that.”
His brother, Foothill High catcher Hudson Flora, accepted a recruiting offer to become a Gaucho for next season.
“As soon as I started pitching, he was always there to catch my bullpens,” he said. “It was pretty sweet … It made both of us better.
“We’ve definitely talked about how cool it would be for him to be my catcher in the big leagues some day.
“I can only imagine how much fun my parents would have at that game.”
