Vanderbilt pitcher Kumar Rocker, left, accepts the College World Series most outstanding player award from Jack Diesing after the Commodores beat Michigan 8-2 on Wednesday to win Game 3 of the tournament finals in Omaha, Neb.
Vanderbilt celebrates after beating Michigan to win the College World Series on Wednesday night in Omaha, Neb. The Commodores won the national championship for the second time in six years.OMAHA, Neb. - Vanderbilt followed its dominant run through the Southeastern Conference baseball regular season and tournament by winning the national championship, and there may be no slowing down the Commodores.
It appears coach Tim Corbin's 2020 club might even be better.
"Tim has built a program that is to the point it just recycles guys," ESPN college baseball analyst Kyle Peterson said Thursday. "He's proven it for 10 years now. They're not light on talent."
A lot of the talent on the team that won an SEC-record 59 games this year was young.
Vanderbilt freshman Kumar Rocker was the nation's most dominant pitcher the second half of the season, threw a no-hitter in super regionals and was named most outstanding player in the College World Series, which wrapped Wednesday night with the Commodores beating Michigan 8-2 in Game 3 of the finals.
Rocker will be around two more years and looks destined to be the No. 1 pick of the 2021 Major League Baseball draft.
"I'm glad that the college game has players like that in it," said Michigan coach Erik Bakich, whose team was all but shut down by Rocker in Game 2 of the CWS finals Tuesday night as Vanderbilt won 4-1 to bounce back from a 7-4 loss in Monday's opener. "The college game is better when guys like that come to school."
Vanderbilt's pitching staff also brings back starter Mason Hickman, the winner of Wednesday's game, as well as relievers Tyler Brown, Jake Eder, Hugh Fisher and Ethan Smith.
Jack Leiter, the son of former major leaguer Al Leiter, would have been a first-round pick coming out of high school this year - but like Rocker a year ago, he told MLB teams he was committed to going to college to pitch. He is the top Vanderbilt signee in a 2019 recruiting class ranked No. 1 by Perfect Game.
The most notable Commodore departing is right fielder J.J. Bleday, the SEC player of the year who hit a nation-leading 27 of the Commodores' 100 home runs. He was the No. 4 overall draft pick, taken by the Miami Marlins.
As many as five everyday players could be back, led by third baseman Austin Martin, a .400 hitter coming into the CWS who finished at .392. Martin already is projected to be a top-five draft pick next year.
Catcher Philip Clarke was a draft-eligible sophomore taken in the ninth round by the Toronto Blue Jays, but chances are good he will return. The estimated value of Clarke's draft slot is $154,900, and Peterson believes he could be taken in the first two rounds in the future.
"They could throw a bunch of money at him," Peterson added. "But it's hard to sign draft-eligible sophomores out of a place like Vanderbilt unless you pay him more than you would pay at that draft spot. He's got a year of leverage left."
Sophomore center fielder Pat DeMarco (17th round, New York Yankees) and junior catcher and designated hitter Ty Duvall (25th round, Oakland Athletics) also have decisions to make.
Shortstop Ethan Paul would tell them that he and other seniors who returned after getting drafted last year had no regrets.
"Our No. 1 reason to come back to school wasn't to have this outlandish season or anything like that," Paul said. "I think that we all wanted to just be a part of something special. It's great to win a national championship, it's great to do all those things, but the program means so much more to us than just winning.
"There's such a bond with each other and we do all those things off the field and we celebrate each other so well. I'm happy that we were able to have this moment, and it's going to be a memory forever, but just being able to share this team and this experience with these guys - I mean, friends for life."
For all the talent Corbin has returning, Rocker will be the star attraction. The 6-foot-4, 255-pounder from Georgia won 10 of his last 11 starts, struck out 19 batters while throwing that no-hitter against Duke, then fanned 17 and allowed two earned runs in 12 1/3 innings against Mississippi State and Michigan at the CWS.
"He's got a fiber of competition that's different," Corbin said. "He loves the arena of competition, and when you see guys like that, they separate themselves. Handing him the ball, I didn't feel at any time that that was above him. I felt like that was for him. That's something he wanted. That's something that he could do. He pitches for Vanderbilt. He loves to pitch for his team, and it's pure, and it's raw and it's not manufactured."