Five Vanderbilt baseball breakout candidates for 2025 based on summer performance

Several Vanderbilt baseball players ship off every summer to various wood-bat leagues, where they get more experience before going back to school.

In the top summer league, the Cape Cod Baseball League , both hitters and pitchers face top competition from around the country. There are also several lower-level leagues, where the level of opponent may not be quite at SEC level but where younger players can get the opportunity to play every day.

Players who have strong seasons in the summer often break out the next spring for their college teams. Based on summer ball performance, here are five Commodores players who could see better performance or more playing time in 2025:

Braden Holcomb

As a freshman, Braden Holcomb hit .252 and struck out 36% of the time. That's a strikeout rate high enough to keep someone out of a starting lineup; most of the full-time players who strike out that much are glove-first catchers.

But there are a few signs Holcomb, who was Vanderbilt's top positional recruit in 2023, could be headed for a breakout: one historical and one based on summer ball performance.

Between 2021-23, five SEC players who were not catchers got at least 100 plate appearances in a season, struck out over ⅓ of the time and returned to the same team the next season. Three of those players − Missouri's Luke Mann, Auburn's Bryson Ware and LSU's Jared Jones − eventually cut their strikeouts enough to hit 20+ home runs in a season.

Holcomb has also impressed in the Cape Cod League, where he was named the starting designated hitter for the All-Star Game. He's cut his strikeout rate into the high-20s and is hitting over .300, albeit without much power production. Despite the lack of home runs, Holcomb has consistently put up some of the best exit velocities in the Cape Cod League and is crushing offspeed pitches .

Holcomb still needs to put together his skillsets by decreasing his strikeout rate while hitting for power in games, but his performance so far has shown positive signs.

Colin Barczi

Alan Espinal and Jack Bulger are out of eligibility and Logan Poteet transferred to Charlotte, clearing the way for Colin Barczi to have the starting catcher job despite appearing exclusively at designated hitter in 2024.

As a freshman, Barczi hit .208 and didn't have any home runs until the SEC tournament. But he showcased his power in the regional by hitting a 112 mph exit velocity home run against High Point. In the NECBL, Barczi was named the starting catcher for the All-Star game as well as the game's MVP. He has already tallied more home runs in fewer at-bats in the wood-bat league than he had in all of 2024 and has thrown out nearly 40% of basestealers.

RJ Austin

RJ Austin isn't a traditional breakout candidate because he's already one of Vanderbilt's best players. In 2024, he hit .335 and stole 28 bases.

But there's been one thing missing from Austin's game: power. He hit seven home runs in 2023 and five in 2024. Isolated slugging percentage (ISO) is a metric that subtracts batting average from slugging percentage to measure a hitter's extra-base production without regards for their batting average. Austin's ISO in 2024 was .124, which was 13th-worst among qualified SEC hitters. On the Cape in 2023, it was just .049.

But as of July 21, Austin's ISO on the Cape is .216. Combined with his strong defense in center field, likely to be his full-time position in 2025, increased power production would likely make Austin a slam-dunk first-round pick.

Luke Guth

Luke Guth struggled with his control badly enough in the 2024 preseason that he was set to redshirt, but when he showed improvement the staff decided instead to add him to the bullpen halfway through the season. He finished 2024 with a 5.40 ERA in 18⅓ innings.

His Cape Cod League ERA doesn't seem like much of an improvement at 5.00. But in 18 innings, Guth has walked 8.6% of batters compared to 11.2% in 2024. He also has started three games among his six appearances and is averaging three innings per appearance, proving he can hold up over longer stints. If Guth can maintain his command, he could be a candidate for the weekend rotation.

RJ Hamilton

RJ Hamilton redshirted in 2024 after tearing his ACL while playing summer ball in July 2023, but he's shown an intriguing skillset while playing in the Northwoods League.

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The most telling stat on Hamilton is that as of July 21, he was a perfect 35-for-35 on stolen bases, indicating strong baserunning ability that hasn't been too affected by the injury. He is hitting below .300 but with an on-base percentage over .400 thanks to walking 14% of the time and getting hit by 11 pitches to boot. He's played second base, left field and center field in summer ball but is more likely to see time in the outfield for Vanderbilt.

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson .

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Five Vanderbilt baseball breakout candidates for 2025 based on summer performance