I know everybody was disappointed in the weekend, but sometimes you have to hand it to the opponent. Oregon State could really pitch, defend, and were a tremendous hitting team, which kind of surprised me. They’ve got a good shot to win it all.

But I was proud of the effort of our baseball team this year. Corbs did one of his best coaching jobs ever, and that’s a very high bar, with the adversity, sadness and toughness from the end of last season that carried over into this season. The coaches and players dug deep and ended up putting together a very good season. The Clemson Regional was phenomenal. We had everything clicking in those games. The pitching by Matt Ruppenthal and Jackson Gillis in the clinching game last Monday Night was nothing short of spectacular. Will Toffey was just electrically good. Will finished the season hitting .354 with 12 homers and 64 RBis and played tremendous third base. He was my most valuable player this season. Jason Delay was phenomenal. Our senior catcher came back for his senior year, and became a top 3 catcher in the country, defensively and offensively. Jason hit .309 with 2 homers and 41 RBI’s and threw out over 40% of the baserunners who attempted to steal. Jeren Kendall had another stellar year. He committed 1 error all season, 1. That’s superb. Jeren hit .307 with 15 homers and 33 RBIs. Ro hit .290 and made some awesome plays in left. The younger guys played well, particularly at the end of the season. Kyle and Rabes pitched so well towards the end of the season. This just wasn’t their best series.

Now Kyle, Jeren, Jason, Will and Ro are in the draft today. That’s exciting. Kyle will go top 3, Jeren is in the top 12, and if there are 30 something better players than Will Toffey in this draft, I want to see them. Will is a first rounder without a doubt. I don’t see how it’s possible not to draft him in the first round. Jason should go in the top 3 or 4 rounds. Jason will be a great pro. Ro should go somewhere. He had a super finish to his senior year. And they were such great representatives of our baseball program and our school. Excited to see the guys matriculate to the Show in the future. The MLB draft is today starting at 5 PM CT on the M:B Network. 

And what a job Coach Tim Corbin did with the team. He was awesome. Best in the business. We are very fortunate to have him. Corbs is the best. Scott Brown did another stellar job with the pitchers, and our other coaches did exceptional jobs. 

Excited to see what happens with our guys in the draft. Will keep you posted on that.

We have good talent coming back next season and a really good freshmen class coming in. I like what we’ll be next year. 

Proud of the entire team from Corbs on down. Another exceptional season for Commodore baseball with many more to come under Coach Tim Corbin. Like what we look like next season with Julian Infante at first, Ethan Paul at 2nd, the awesome Connor Kaiser at short, and quite possibly the talented Harrison Ray at third. Alonzo Jones can definitely help us somewhere. He’s too talented not to have him somewhere. We’ll have to replace some outfielders, but J.J. Bleday looks to have a bright future in right. Stephen Scott is talented in left. We’ll have to figure out center, but we’ll have talent we’ll develop. We’ll lose Jason at catcher, but Ty Duval is a talent and can step in. We’ll have some freshmen who can help next season at catcher as well. Reed Hayes is versatile for us as DH and reliever. He should have a big year next season. On the mound, Rabes comes back as our Friday Night guy, most likely. We’ll see how that develops in the fall. And guys like Drake Fellows and Chandler Day can be weekend guys. We’ll have to develop some other starters. I like what Jackson Gillis can do for us next year as a closer or even as a starter. Zach King has good talent, wherever Corbs wants to use him. Guys like Maddux Conger should develop. Will need some help again from the freshmen for our pitching staff. 

So we should have another highly competitive team next season that has a chance to go to Omaha. Excited for all we have going in Vanderbilt athletics. Corbs is Corbs, just always producing a winning product. Love what D Mase is doing with VU football. Bryce is going to make our basketball program elite very soon, and Geoff McDonald and Scott Limbaugh have us as highly elite women’s tennis and men’s golf teams, respectively. Will have more this summer on our pro baseball guys, talks with Bryce on next season and his new players, D Mase and his exciting football team in 2017, our pro golfers, will check in with Scott and Geoff and any other stuff that comes up on the VU sports scene. A lot to be excited about, and our young athletes are such superb people.

Excited about this summer and this fall with Coach Mason and his Vanderbilt Commodore football team having bright prospects. Ralph Webb, Kyle Shurmur and company should be a fantastic team. Can’t wait. Thanks.