Inside Brodie Johnston's Second-Year Rise For Vanderbilt Baseball
NASHVILLE—The white headband with blue stars popping out and “USA” spelled out with a blue, capital U and the other two letters capitalized in red that sits under Brodie Johnston’s hat as he walks to his Sunday media availability could be misconstrued as a show of his support for his country on the final day of the Olympics. This is bigger than that, though.
This is about Johnston’s performance. Perhaps it doesn’t directly correlate, but it hasn’t held anything back besides the flow of Johnston’s hair, though. So, he’s not taking the field without it anytime soon.
“I’ve worn it every game,” Johnston said while addressing the small core of media on the field at Hawkins Field on Sunday. “I don’t know, I think it’s just helping me.”
Johnston jokes that the headband is a good-luck charm of sorts these days for him, and he appears to have some evidence to support his claim. The first eight games of Johnston’s 2026 season have indicated that he’s in the midst of a breakout season. The Vanderbilt third baseman has a .417 average, has hit five home runs–which led the country at one point and is second as of Sunday–as well as four doubles.
The Vanderbilt third baseman jokingly attributes his quick rise to the headband, but buried beneath it is a significantly more mature baseball mind than he possessed a season ago. Johnston always had the physical tools that allowed him to be an impact middle of the order bat–particularly to the pullside–but the volatility in his game was holding him back from being truly elite.
Johnston possessed just a 3.6% walk rate and a 39.4% chase rate a season ago — both in the 1st percentile among collegiate hitters. “Last year, I didn’t walk hardly any,” Johnston joked Sunday.
The Vanderbilt third baseman was right. Johnston walked just 10 times last season and struck out 68 times. Johnston was the SEC Tournament MVP and was one of the SEC’s best freshmen, but he whiffed at a 33.3% clip and struck out 29.1% of the time–ranking in the 7th and 9th percentiles, respectively.
“Eliminating chase and cutting down on strikeouts is something we’re striving for,” Vanderbilt hitting coach Jason Esposito told Vandy on SI in the fall in regard to Johnston’s development. “The more you chase at an individual level, the more the team is gonna chase, the less runners you have on base. That’s what we’re trying to get across to our players.”
It appears as if Johnston has received the message. The Vanderbilt third baseman is still tapping into the power and the gap-to-gap ability that he had a season ago, and he’s significantly more dynamic at the plate than he was a season ago because of the way he’s taken in Esposito’s messaging.
Johnston has already walked five times this season, has struck out just three times and went the entirety of Vanderbilt’s weekend series against Marist without striking out. The Vanderbilt third baseman did that just once in a weekend last year.
Who knows if it continues when SEC play hits, but Johnston’s current trends are the difference between him being a good player and a potential SEC Player of The Year candidate.
“It makes him way more confident,” Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said in regard to Johnston’s approach. “He’s better, he’s in better counts. I just think his move is a lot softer. He’s grounded, makes better decisions and when he gets a swing off, he’s getting to the middle of the ball for the most part. He’s a good hitter.”
Corbin says that when Johnston stayed on Vanderbilt’s campus over the summer, it was a matter of working on his body and identifying the areas in which he needed to add strength. The summer allowed Johnston to become better overall, but Corbin says he needed to lean on his increased maturity because of the way his fall results didn’t necessarily align with the progress that he’s made.
The Vanderbilt coach says maturity is a broad word in regard to Johnston’s development, but that he’s “growing inside his own life and inside the game.” Johnston’s grades have stood out, Corbin says, and that the off-the-field ways he’s improved have contributed to his rise on it.
It’s not as if Johnston was ever immature, but a season ago a postgame media availability involving him wouldn’t have centered around anything besides a loud home run he hit or a standout defensive play–which he made on Sunday and wasn’t asked about. These conversations are significantly more nuanced, and that says something about Johnston.
“I feel like this year I’m walking more and that’s good for me,” Johnston said. “I'd just say really just setting our sights on different pitches. [I’m] not just going up there, sitting on a pitch. I’m just ready for everything.”
Perhaps the most significant moment that indicates the long-term takeaway here in regard to Johnston’s young season came in Vanderbilt’s Wednesday-night midweek win over Eastern Michigan. Johnston stood in the right-handed batters’ box with a full count and let a close pitch go by in order to walk.
While Johnston was on first, Vanderbilt first baseman Tommy Goodin hit a grand slam over the right-field wall. It wouldn’t have been possible without Johnston’s sign of development, though. That appears as if that will become a rather insignificant moment in a season that promises to have plenty of special ones for Johnston.
“He’s a stud,” Vanderbilt shortstop Ryker Waite said. “I just love playing with him.”
_(1)-b3e453dfe426b2dd4b83a12540ebdb37.jpeg "Joey Dwyer")
Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
Follow joey_dwy