Why Vanderbilt Baseball Has Optimism About the Future Despite Regional Streak Likely Ending – Sports Illustrated

As Tim Corbin answered what is likely to be the final question of Vanderbilt baseball’s 2026 season before going into the offseason, he did not hesitate to give an answer on what next season’s roster could look like.
One of the marks of Vanderbilt’s roster this spring was how young it was. While the Commodores did have veteran pieces in its lineup such as Mike Mancini, Braden Holcomb, Logan Johnstone and starting pitcher Connor Fennell, a lot of the makeup of the team consisted of freshmen and sophomores.
In fact, among the players that regularly made appearances in the starting lineup this season, only Mancini, Johnstone, Colin Barczi and Holcomb were older than sophomores. And if things play out the way Corbin the coaching staff want it to, two of those four would be back next season.
Because of how young the team is both offensively and defensively, Corbin feels he has reason to be excited about his team going forward.
“I really like that infield. I love Ryker. I love Brodie. I love Rooster [Rustan Rigdon], Goodin. I love, I mean that's a good nucleus. They really did a good job defensively for us. I wish Mike had another year because I'd really like Mikey to be — Mike's my type of kid. So I like that. I like the catching,” Corbin said.
Between Ryker Waite, Brodie Johnston, Rustan Rigdon and Tommy Goodin, the young core of Commodores contributed plenty to the overall success of the Vanderbilt offense during the season. All four players hit .270 or above and combined for 40 of the team’s 108 home runs.
Defensively, though, those four were perhaps even better for Vanderbilt. With Waite, Johnston and Goodin cementing their roles in the infield and Rigdon doing his job in the outfield, the Commodores became one of the best defenses in the SEC.
Per D1Baseball, Johnston, Rigdon and Waite all finished the season with more than 13 defensive runs saved at 13.86, 13.41 and 13.38, respectively. Those numbers are good to make all three players in the top 10 of the SEC in defensive runs saved.
Despite the offensive firepower Vanderbilt presented and the defensive gems its young core came away with this season, the downfall of the Commodores was their pitching.
The pitching struggles Vanderbilt had throughout the season were partially because of the amount of inexperienced arms that had to appear on the mound more often than Corbin and his staff planned for at the start of the season and results manifested from that lack of experienced pitchers.
But the bright side of the younger pitchers getting to play in plenty of games is the experience they gained while doing it. Vanderbilt freshman Wyatt Nadeau was one of Vanderbilt’s weekend starters and pitched 52.1 innings despite preseason plans to not play him that often, if at all. 
Freshman Tyler Baird is another young pitcher Corbin has that saw a lot of time on the mound because of all the pitching injuries to Vanderbilt. Though him and Nadeau had their highs and lows during the season, the high-leverage experiences the two gained is something that could easily speed up their collegiate development.
And that serves as reason for Vanderbilt to be optimistic about the future of its pitching.
“We do have some young arms. And we'll just see what happens to the rest of them. So hopefully we can put a pretty good roster together,” Corbin said.
Of course the reason for optimism is conditioned on the fact that Vanderbilt is able to retain its core bats and young pitchers. College sports can be unpredictable nowadays with the transfer portal, but if Corbin and his staff is able to retain his biggest pieces, Vanderbilt will have a chance to get back to the postseason.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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