New leaders step up for Vanderbilt baseball heading into 2022 season

Vanderbilt baseball started its preseason training Friday. Although the pitching staff lost Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter, the Commodores have reloaded with new talent on the mound, several returning starters on offense and are once again considered one of the best teams in the country.

Senior catcher Dominic Keegan is one player who's stepped into a larger leadership role. Recruited as a catcher, Keegan moved to primarily playing first base in 2020 due to injuries and the presence of several other established catchers on the team. After opting to return to Vanderbilt after being drafted in the 18th round, Keegan is now preparing to be the team's primary backstop.

"This year kinda going back to catcher, it's just been getting comfortable with it again," Keegan said. "It's a position you've gotta do every single day. Not doing it so much last year kind of hurt me and set me back a little bit so just sticking with it every day and just doing something to get better with it every day has been huge."

Keegan is becoming a more vocal leader after the departure of CJ Rodriguez, last season's starting catcher, and primary backup Maxwell Romero.

On the pitching staff, veterans such as juniors Nick Maldonado, Chris McElvain and Thomas Schultz have brought their experience to relative newcomers such as sophomores Patrick Reilly and Christian Little and freshman Carter Holton.

Vanderbilt isn't like most programs. The team is showered with accolades from the beginning, including a No. 1 preseason poll ranking and a number of preseason All-American selections. The Commodores aren't underdogs by any sense, so it's up to them to find their motivation, whether that's personal improvement or the bitter feeling of last year's defeat in the College World Series finals.

"It's definitely learned," McElvain said. "You don't really know what you're getting into when you get here."

Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin hopes to build that mentality in his players year after year; it's how the team can stay consistently good despite consistently losing top players to the MLB Draft. This year, while other SEC programs have brought back super-seniors or dipped heavily into the transfer portal, Vanderbilt has a relatively young group that like always, knows the shoes it has to fill.

"I think any time you lose older kids or lose leadership it just gives other people a chance to step into those positions," Corbin said. "But it's really like older brothers or sisters going off to college, the next group of kids finds their way to the front of the house, we've always had it that way and I do think with all of them they do aspire to be in that chair, they aspire to be part of that and they aspire to be a mentor to younger kids and they do a very good job of that."

Both Keegan and McElvain know that even as key members of the College World Series runner-up team, there's more they need to do to improve. In addition to building reps at catcher, Keegan hopes to become more consistent at the plate. McElvain is working on new grips. And this year, they get to start the season off in front of the home fans at Hawkins Field against a ranked team in Oklahoma State.

With expectations as high as ever, Vanderbilt is staying the course.

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Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt baseball developing identity as 2022 season approaches