No First Round Pick for Vanderbilt Baseball Means Something. It Shouldn't Mean Everything, Though.

Another first round, compensation round, round of compensatory picks in the MLB Draft, another night without much mention of Tim Corbin, without talk of the MLB factory that he’s established on West End. Another first night of the MLB Draft in which Vanderbilt did not star.

It wasn’t always this way, but it was on Sunday in Atlanta as a group of studio analysts sat around and discussed name after name that went by on the board–including Vanderbilt commits Seth Hernandez, Sean Gamble and Slater de Brun–but never a player that appeared on the field in a Vanderbilt uniform in 2025.

Vanderbilt was the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. It won the SEC Tournament. It had the markings of a great college baseball team and program. Yet, two of the best indicators of the true ability of a team weren’t there for Vanderbilt.

It didn’t have the postseason success that a team in its position easily could’ve. It also didn’t have a player drafted in the first round of the MLB Draft. Vanderbilt left hander JD Thompson–who was ranked 66th in the MLB Pipeline pre draft rankings–had an opportunity to be in the mix, but ultimately had to wait to hear his name called.

That shouldn't discount what Vanderbilt accomplished in the spring, but in some ways it’s a sign of the times. There’s a million reasons to like what Vanderbilt baseball did in 2025, but there’s still two blips on its rèsumè. Two blips that it didn’t used to have often.

The program that used to play deep into the postseason every year has now lost in the regional in four-consecutive seasons and now has two MLB Drafts in a row in which it’s stared at the TV screen and watched highlight reel after highlight reel without seeing a Vanderbilt player outside of Alabama pitcher Riley Quick’s strikeout highlights.

Two seasons after Vanderbilt saw Enrique Bradfield Jr. become its fifth first-round pick in a row, it now has to look forward to the players in its program that have first round potential in the future. It has to think about whether Brodie Johnston can cut down his strikeouts enough in order to be the guy that gets his name carved into a bat and placed on the draft board. It has to think about whether Austin Nye can become a dominant Friday Night guy in the next two years.

It has to think about why it’s not churning out guys like JJ Bleday, Spencer Jones, Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker and Austin Martin. It has to reflect on why its in-state rival had a few starters hear their names called. Perhaps it’s NIL related. Perhaps it’s the recruiting blueprint that previous assistants have had. Maybe it’s something else.

For one reason or another this program hasn’t had the headliner that it did previously.

Perhaps that’s not an end all, be all, though. Look at what Vanderbilt did in 2025 as its offensive numbers were off putting, but it played winning baseball towards the end of the year and found a formula to win in a league that had supposedly passed it by. There’s a trend that goes in its favor, too.

The last time prior to 2024 that Vanderbilt didn’t have a first-round pick was 2018, in which its highest pick was Connor Kaiser. Hearing that in a vacuum would lead you to believe that things were dire back then, but then it won the national title in 2019.

All that to say, Sunday night and the silence in regards to Vanderbilt’s current players means something. It doesn’t mean everything has gone to crap, though. It just means that it's been doing it a different way. It likely wants things to change, but its talent level isn't lowered by the margin that Sunday night would indicate. Just look at the three high school players that were taken from Vanderbilt. Just look at the litter of former Vanderbilt signees in Saturday's Future's Game.

It’s still within the realm of possibilities that Vanderbilt will make a push for the national title next season. It can still have a first round pick next year. It can still do all the things that you expect Vanderbilt baseball to do.

Even if it didn’t have a true superstar that’s going to be at the top of prospect lists in the coming weeks.