“Jason has been special to our program for a long time,” Tim Corbin Welcomes Jason Esposito Back to Vanderbilt

The homecoming is official.

After 14 years away from the program, former Vanderbilt infielder Jason Esposito has returned to its program as its hitting coach, per a Monday announcement made by Vanderbilt baseball. Esposito has since played in the minor leagues and has coached professional hitters for the majority of his professional career. Now he’s coming back to where it started.

“After spending eight years in the Cleveland organization, we are fortunate to bring him on campus to work with our players,” Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said in a release. “We welcome Espo back to Vanderbilt with his wife Allie, his son Jack and his daughter Ellie.”

Esposito played three years at Vanderbilt and started 196 games before being selected in the third round of the 2011 MLB Draft by the Baltimore Orioles. The Commodores made it to Omaha and went 54-12 in Esposito's final season on campus. Esposito slashed .369/.420/.577 with four homers, 26 RBIs and 28 runs in SEC regular-season play that season.

The former Vanderbilt infielder’s professional career came to an end in 2015 as he reached Double A, but he began his coaching career a few seasons later and ultimately ended his tenure with the Cleveland Guardians as its assistant major league hitting coach.

Perhaps Corbin could’ve predicted an outcome like this years ago as he observed Esposito’s habits as a member of his program.

“Jason has been special to our program for a long time,” Corbin said. “He came to us in the fall of 2008 and was an immediate presence on the field as our third baseman and in the middle part of our batting order. There are few players in our history who have acquired over 760 at bats in three years. He led our team to the College World Series for the first time in 2011. He was ultra-competitive, tough, a high achiever and was one of the best fielding infielders Vanderbilt has had.”

Esposito will now look to give Vanderbilt’s offense a boost in the season following a year in which it was 15th in the SEC in batting average and 12th in home runs. The Vanderbilt hitting coach will look to guide a group that hasn’t yet won at the level that he did in his college career to do so.

Guardians manager Steven Vogt has praised Esposito’s ability to package analytics into easy to interpret data for his team’s hitters. Perhaps that will be a welcome change after former hitting coach Jayson King primarily led Vanderbilt’s offense with an old-school approach. The Guardians were ranked 22nd in MLB in offense last season and were ranked 13th the year before.

2025 will mark Esposito’s first season coaching college baseball, but Corbin appears to be comfortable with the chance he’s taking as a result of Esposito’s experience with his program as well as professional hitters. Corbin hopes that the players Esposito develops do so in a similar fashion to him.

“Jason is a fun kid to watch offensively and defensively,” Corbin said during Esposito’s college career. “He has played third base since he walked on our campus and plays it as well as any that I have seen. He has really made strides as a hitter as well and is one of the most complete offensive players in the SEC…he can do a lot of things to help us win.”