Jordan Rodgers established three goals for his senior baseball season at Tennessee after his name was not called in the 2016 Major League Baseball draft.
He wanted to make the Cape Cod summer league all-star team, earn all-SEC honors and be selected in the top five rounds of this year’s draft.
Tuesday brought the Bartlett, Tenn., native impressively close to completing the trifecta.
The Atlanta Braves selected Rodgers with their sixth round pick on Tuesday, capping the third baseman’s rapid rise through baseball’s amateur ranks.
“I told my best friend and my parents that I thought I was a little more valuable than a mid-teen round pick,” Rodgers said in a phone interview Tuesday, recalling the 2016 draft. “And I had a little school left. So I told my advisor, ‘I’m coming back to school’ and I watched the last twenty rounds, every single pick, to use it as motivation.”