Vanderbilt baseball recruiting: How well have the Commodores produced MLB Draft picks?

Vanderbilt baseball has produced at least one first-round MLB Draft pick in seven of the past eight years. This year could be next, as outfielder Spencer Jones is receiving lots of late buzz with the draft less than a week away.

Particularly when it comes to pitchers, the Commodores have one of the best MLB Draft track records in college baseball. They lead the SEC in first round and overall draft picks since coach Tim Corbin took over in 2003 and have had at least three players drafted for 18 consecutive years.

The Tennessean examined past Vanderbilt recruiting classes to dig deeper into the Commodores' MLB Draft track record.

Arm factory

Between 2014-18, the most recent recruiting class in which the majority of players have had the chance to be drafted, all but one Vanderbilt pitcher who spent at least three years with the program and completed his college career with the Commodores was selected. The one who was not, Erik Kaiser, signed as an undrafted free agent after the 2020 season, in which the draft was shortened to five rounds. Under Corbin, Vanderbilt has had eight pitchers selected with top-10 draft picks, or one approximately every 2.5 years.

Even pitchers ranked lower as recruits have developed into draft picks with Vanderbilt. Collin Snider, not even ranked in the top 500 out of high school by Perfect Game, was a 12th-round draft pick and made the major leagues. Tyler Brown and Ben Bowden are other recent players not ranked in Perfect Game's top 200 players who were selected in the first five rounds of the draft. Thomas Schultz, ranked No. 416 out of high school in 2019, is another who could earn a selection this year. Kyle Wright, ranked just 196th by Perfect Game and unranked in MLB.com's draft rankings out of high school, became the fifth-overall draft pick in 2017.

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More recently, Vanderbilt got large contributions from three freshmen pitchers in 2022. Carter Holton was a top-ranked recruit who could have gone in the top five rounds out of high school, but Devin Futrell (No. 167 by Perfect Game) and Bryce Cunningham (No. 308) were considerably more under the radar. If that trio can continue their trajectory, all three could eventually get picked in the top 10 rounds, with Holton a potential first-rounder in 2024.

Hit or miss

The track record is not as good with hitters. Vanderbilt has had six first-round picks, including four in the top 10 picks, under Corbin. That's a good number, but not nearly as strong as the pitching.

Between 2012-17, the Commodores have had seven hitters who spent three or four years in the program, did not transfer and went undrafted. The biggest draft success story was outfielder Bryan Reynolds, also not ranked in the top 500 by Perfect Game out of high school. Reynolds became a three-year starter, All-American, second-round draft pick and MLB All-Star. Outfielder Mike Yastrzemski, ranked 483rd out of high school, and Tony Kemp, not in the top 500, have also become productive major league players. So has shortstop Dansby Swanson, the first overall pick in 2015.

Big league success

Since 2003, former Commodores pitchers have generated 99.4 Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement, a metric meant to measure a player's all-around value in the major leagues. Over 96% of that value came from four pitchers: David Price, Mike Minor, Sonny Gray and Walker Buehler.

Former Vanderbilt hitters have generated 49.1 Wins Above Replacement in that same span, over two-thirds of which comes from three players: Reynolds, Swanson and Yastrzemski.

If Jones gets drafted in the first round, he would become the seventh hitter selected in the first round under Corbin, compared to 13 pitchers in that span. Three of those six first-round hitters have appeared in the major leagues (Swanson and infielders Pedro Alvarez and Ryan Flaherty) compared to nine of the 13 pitchers — though two of the pitchers (Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker) and two of the hitters (outfielder JJ Bleday and infielder Austin Martin) happened in the past three years and very well could still make the majors down the line.

Not counting players who transferred out of Vanderbilt before the conclusion of their college careers, 29 players under Corbin have made the majors. That includes 19 pitchers and 10 hitters.

The Commodores had 13 players on opening day rosters in 2022, the most of any school.

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: Tim Corbin has long history of MLB Draft picks