No. 1 option
Vandy’s Kyle Wright may be top pick in draft Monday
Kyle Wright chose Vanderbilt’s baseball program in part because he knew the Commodores’ history of producing heralded pitching prospects.
Now he’s a member of that fraternity.
Wright has bounced back from a slow start this season and will try to help his team advance to the College World Series for the third time in four years. Vanderbilt (36-23-1) begins NCAA super regional competition today in a bestof-three series at No. 1 overall seed Oregon State (52-4), with the winner heading to Omaha, Neb., next week.
Win or lose this week, the 6-foot-4 right-hander has a bright future. Multiple mock drafts have the Minnesota Twins taking Wright with the No. 1 overall pick in Monday’s draft. He is expected to become the 10th Vanderbilt pitcher selected in the first round in 11 consecutive drafts, a trend that started when Tampa Bay took David Price first overall in 2007.
“Their record with pitchers in particular and their winning was kind of a big reason why
I wanted to come to Vanderbilt,” Wright said.
Vanderbilt has a locker room on campus for its former players now in the pros who return to campus to work out. That enables Vanderbilt’s current pitchers to learn from all those first-round picks.
“It’s like a library of knowledge,” Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said. “The kids that come back, they spend a lot of time with our pitchers right now, and they just talk pitching. Pitching’s been a big deal here.”
Wright said he has benefited from the company he has kept at Vanderbilt. He has been part of pitching staffs that included first-round picks Walker Buehler, Carson Fulmer and Jordan Sheffield, as well as second-round selection Ben Bowden.
Wright also has capitalized on a work ethic he said he inherited from his parents. He grew up in Huntsville, Ala., as the son of a high school baseball coach and a NASA engineer.
“He’s continued to work at a rate as if he’s trying to make the team,” Corbin said. “Every little detail is important to him.”
That’s evident in the way Wright responded to his struggles early this season. His ERA was 5.59 on April 1, and Wright’s father, Roger, called to see how he was handling the situation.
“I didn’t care about what he was doing on the mound,” Roger said. “I was just kind of worried about him mentally. ‘Are you OK mentally?’ All he said to me is, ‘Dad, I’m fine. I will be OK. Everything’s good. Don’t panic.’ I said, ‘OK, that’s all I need to hear.’”
Wright has been outstanding ever since. He has yielded no more than one earned run in six of his past eight starts, improving his ERA to 2.98. He has a 5-5 record with 113 strikeouts in 96 2/3 innings.
Wright said he was struggling to throw his breaking ball for a strike earlier in the
season, and he realized he was turning his hips too fast in his delivery. But that correction isn’t the only reason he has pitched so well down the stretch. Wright’s physical strength enables him to avoid getting fatigued over the course of a season.
Corbin compared Wright to a football lineman when discussing the pitcher’s tenacity in the weight room, and Wright said he weighed about 200 pounds when he enrolled at Vanderbilt but now is up to 220.
“It’s made it really easier to pitch and hold my velocity throughout the game,” he said. “It’s not like I have to reach down and throw it as hard as
I can every time in order to stay in the 93 to 96 range. It comes easier now. If I really want to reach back later in the game, I feel like I can because my strength will allow me to do so.”
This recent surge has solidified Wright’s status as a probable top-five draft pick who could join Price and Atlanta Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson as recent No. 1 overall selections from Vanderbilt.
But first there’s the matter of trying to get the Commodores back to Omaha.
“I’m still focused on what we’re doing at Vanderbilt,” Wright said, “and that’s winning games and playing as long as we possibly can.”
“I’m still focused on what we’re doing at Vanderbilt, and that’s winning games and playing as long as we possibly can.” – KYLE WRIGHT