Kevin Abel and Adley Rutschman celebrate the final out of the 2018 CWS (Aaron Fitt)
In January of 2015, D1Baseball.com relaunched as a full-service college baseball website, after existing for the previous decade as a high-traffic resource for scoreboards, schedules and standings. We put together a dream team of the top college baseball writers in the country to chronicle the sport through the written word and through podcasts, and a number of those writers are still cranking out wonderful content a decade later: Kendall Rogers, Aaron Fitt, Mark Etheridge, Eric Sorenson and Shotgun Spratling. Other talented writers would join our team in the years to come, including Walter Villa, Mike Rooney, Joe Healy and Patrick Ebert, all of whom joined our five holdovers from the relaunch to share recollections from the first decade of D1Baseball editorial content.
We asked our team to answer a number of questions about the last decade, starting with their favorite moments, which we presented Monday. On Tuesday, we presented our team’s favorite players to cover over the last 10 years. In today’s installment, we asked our panelists to vote for the best team, player, pitcher, coach and program of the last decade.
Who gets your vote for best team of the last 10 years?
AARON FITT: I think people forget how absurdly good the 2019 Vanderbilt team was. Those Commodores finished 59-12 overall en route to the national title. Along the way, they went 23-7 in the SEC to win the regular-season title by two games, then followed it up with an SEC tournament title.
Tennessee put together a very similar body of work in 2024, going 60-13 overall (22-8 in the SEC), winning the SEC regular-season and tournament titles en route to the national title. In my mind, those seasons are in a dead heat when it comes to combining consistent regular-season dominance with winning the big prize in the postseason.
There were other teams that rivaled (or even surpassed) these two when it comes to talent and regular-season excellence, but failed to win it all. Others, like 2018 Oregon State, had the combination of absurd talent and a national title, but weren’t quite as consistently dominant in the regular season (those Beavers actually finished second in the Pac-12, behind Stanford). The 2019 Commodores and 2024 Vols stand above the rest when it comes to combining all of these elements. But if I have to pick just one… I might lean toward 2019 Vandy because of its superior starting pitching, particularly the Kumar Rocker factor. (Of course, if you ask me tomorrow, I might flip to ’24 Tennessee because of its more terrifying offensive firepower. Truly, it’s a coin toss.)
KENDALL ROGERS: 2018 Oregon State — from day one of the season until the final pitch was thrown, the Beavers were an incredible team with balance both on the mound and the plate. The star power on this Oregon State team was mighty impressive, and for my money, is the best overall ’team’ of the last decade. Interestingly, 2022 Tennessee, which did not make it to the College World Series, would be my runner up.
MARK ETHERIDGE: For my book 2022 Tennessee was the best team, but it lost to Notre Dame in the supers. Of the teams that got the final hardware, give me 2023 LSU. They had generational stars, veteran role players, and the ability to put egos aside to take the big prize.
MIKE ROONEY: 2018 Oregon State: This team was on a two-year run for the ages. This same group came to Omaha with a 54-4 record in 2017. The 2018 lineup included four first-round picks (Adley Rutschman, Trevor Larnach, Cadyn Grenier, Nick Madrigal) plus Steven Kwan. Absurd!
JOE HEALY: Perhaps it’s recency bias, but it’s hard for me not to go with 2024 Tennessee, and it’s crazy that it probably wasn’t even the best Tennessee team of the Tony Vitello era. When last season’s Tennessee team was playing well, it was hard to imagine anyone beating them twice, and when it mattered most, no one could.
ERIC SORENSON: Oregon State, 2017. Went an insane 54-4, including 27-3 in the Pac 12, before going 2-and-2 at the College World Series. (They would make amends in 2018).
PATRICK EBERT: 2018 Oregon State. Everything about this team was loaded, starting with their star-studded lineup that included a pair of future MLB All-Stars, Adley Rutschman and Steven Kwan. And based on how they finished – beating Arkansas in the CWS Finals when they were a shallow pop fly, that was dropped, away from losing – you have to acknowledge that the Beavers were destined to win their third national championship under the leadership of Pat Casey.
SHOTGUN SPRATLING: 2023 LSU.
Who gets your vote for best player of the last 10 years?
AARON FITT: Louisville’s Brendan McKay was one of the greatest two-way players of all time, and he performed at a high level for three years, as both a pitcher (where he was truly elite) and a hitter (where he was elite as a junior and very good as a freshman and sophomore). For total value, he probably has to get the nod.
But if we’re only considering what candidates did as a position player, I think my vote has to go to Adley Rutschman, for the reasons outlined by my colleagues below. The one strike against Rutschman is that he was only a premier performer for two years, because he hit just .234/.322/.306 as a freshman. But he was so transcendent over the next two seasons — while playing elite defense at the most demanding position for an all-time great team — that he gets my vote over other players who put up three outstanding years.
KENDALL ROGERS: Probably Oregon State’s Adley Rutschman. In addition to hitting well over .400, showing elite plate discipline and big-time power, he also was a big-time leader and an exceptional defender.
PATRICK EBERT: Adley Rutschman, Oregon State. The best player on the best team of the past decade – named the Most Outstanding Player at the 2018 College World Series – Rutschman was a no-doubt choice for the No. 1 overall selection in the 2019 draft. His performance that season was especially incredible considering pretty much every other impactful bat left the Beavers after their national championship the previous year, which left many observers wondering how many good pitches Rutschman would even get to hit. His mature approach led to even bigger numbers, however, slashing .411/.575/.751 with 17 home runs and an incredible 76-to-38 walk-to-strikeout ratio on his way to earning the Golden Spikes Award.
WALTER VILLA: Adley Rutschman.
MIKE ROONEY: Torn between Brenday McKay, Jac Caglianone and Spencer Torkelson!
MARK ETHERIDGE: Brendan McKay turned in an incredible season on the mound and at the plate for Louisville in 2017. If he was just a hitter or a pitcher, he would have been an All-American. Putting those skills together in one player and maintaining consistency over the season accounts for the best season in recent memory.
JOE HEALY: Adley Rutschman’s sophomore and junior seasons felt insane at the time, but feel even more so in hindsight. He had .400/.500/.600 slash lines, both years, with his junior season slash line of .411/.575/.751 standing out as his magnum opus. And oh yeah, he caught 108 games total over those two seasons along the way.
ERIC SORENSON: – Adley Rutschman, Oregon State catcher 2016-1018. Very humble. Very much a bad-ass. Easy dude to root for.
SHOTGUN SPRATLING: Adley Rutschman.
Who gets your vote for best pitcher of the last 10 years?
AARON FITT: I always regarded Stephen Strasburg as the greatest college pitcher I’ve ever covered. LSU’s Paul Skenes stole away that honor in 2023, when he elevated his status from “excellent” over his first two seasons at Air Force, to “otherworldly” for an LSU team that would win the national title. Somehow, he managed to show even better stuff than Strasburg at his overpowering collegiate peak, and his absurd numbers stand out even more considering offense was even more out of control in 2023 than it was in 2009. To go 13-2, 1.69 with a 209-20 K-BB mark in 122.2 innings, in this era, to lead a team to a national title? That’s the greatest pitching season of all time, in my book. And again — he was very good the previous two years as well, as his career line of 24-6, 2.18 (with 11 saves) attests.
KENDALL ROGERS: Is this a trick question? None other than Mr. Paul Skenes.
PATRICK EBERT: Brendan McKay, Louisville. I first considered listing McKay as the best overall player from the past decade given his talents as a two-way player, slashing .328/.430/.536 to go along with 48 doubles and 28 home runs. But his greatest impact came on the mound, going 32-10 with a 2.23 ERA, logging an astonishing 315 innings, and 662 at-bats, in three years with the Cardinals. His collegiate career culminated in him receiving the Golden Spikes Award, making a College World Series appearance and being selected with the fourth overall pick in the draft by the Tampa Bay Rays, all of which occurred within a few weeks in 2017.
WALTER VILLA: Paul Skenes and Kumar Rocker (tie).
MIKE ROONEY: 2021 Kevin Kopps (I already went all-in on Skenes in the Favorite Player to Cover section).
MARK ETHERIDGE: I saw Paul Skenes on opening day in 2023 and wondered if this dominance was sustainable. Um, it was. He only got better and turned in an incredible season everyone else will be compared to.
JOE HEALY: Paul Skenes’ dominance in 2023 is something we’re going to be talking about for a long time. It’s incredible that he put up one of the best statistical seasons in history in an offensive environment that has otherwise felt out of control at times in recent years.
ERIC SORENSON: Paul Skenes, Air Force/LSU. Duh.
SHOTGUN SPRATLING: Paul Skenes.
Who gets your vote for best coach of the last 10 years?
AARON FITT: I thought about splitting my ticket to spread the love, but I can’t get past Florida’s resumé. Kevin O’Sullivan’s program is a model of consistent excellence (more on that below). His track record for recruiting and developing elite talent is ridiculous, and the results on the field reflect those skills. He gets my vote.
KENDALL ROGERS: Kevin O’Sullivan, Florida … Tennessee’s Tony Vitello would be my runner up.
PATRICK EBERT: Tony Vitello, Tennessee. When I covered the Knoxville Super Regional in 2022 I got to see and hear from Vitello for three straight days. His articulation, intensity, thoughtfulness and insightfulness were on full display, both in the dugout and after the games. How quickly he turned the Volunteers into a perennial CWS threat, earning the 2024 national championship, is no small feat and it speaks to the special connections he’s able to make with his players. While there are no shortage of candidates for this category, I believe Vitello closes D1 Baseball’s first decade of existence as the best head coach in all of college baseball and could be poised to earn the same recognition 10 years from now.
MIKE ROONEY: Tim Corbin, Vanderbilt.
MARK ETHERIDGE: Kevin O’Sullivan’s Florida has made six College World Series appearances in the last 10 seasons, with eight hosts, a title, and a finals appearance. That kind of consistency is unmatched.
JOE HEALY: It’s hard to beat Jay Johnson’s last 10 years in terms of winning across all levels of Division I baseball. In 2015, he led Nevada to 41 wins (the program’s most since 1994) and a Mountain West regular-season title. Then he led Arizona to two CWS trips, coming one win shy of a national title in 2016, and won a ring with LSU in 2023.
ERIC SORENSON: Brett Boretti, Columbia. You don’t have to win national titles to be the best coach. This dude has won championships year-in, year-out and gone to a pair of regional title games at a program that hadn’t done jack-squat before he got there. And what makes it all the more impressive is all the restrictions he faces as an Ivy League program.
SHOTGUN SPRATLING: David Esquer, Stanford.
Who gets your vote for best program of the last 10 years?
AARON FITT: Florida and Vanderbilt flip-flopped back and forth in the No. 1 spot in our biennial program rankings over the last decade, but this 10-year sample (2015-2024) starts just after Vanderbilt won its first national title, which means the Commodores and Gators each have one championship apiece in the decade. That extra title was Vandy’s trump card during some of our previous Top 100 Program debates, but without that ace in the hole, the nod goes to Florida, which has six CWS runs, five final four appearances and one runner-up appearance in addition to its 2017 national title. That’s an absurd degree of elite performance over a 10-year span.
KENDALL ROGERS: Florida.
PATRICK EBERT: Florida. A couple of years ago I probably would have named Vanderbilt as the best program in all of college baseball, but while the Commodores haven’t made a CWS appearance since 2021, their fifth in program history, Florida has made six trips to Omaha in the past 10 seasons, including each of the past two years. What has been especially impressive to me is just how good the Gators are in the postseason; they won in the super regional round in each of the six years they advanced that far with their championship in 2017, a runner-up finish in 2023 and three semifinal finishes. Head coach Kevin O’Sullivan knows, more than anyone else, what it means to be a winner.
MIKE ROONEY: Florida.
MARK ETHERIDGE: Since 2015, there have been nine College World Series and Florida has been a part of six of them, with five final fours, two CWS Finals, and a title. No program has sustained excellence to that degree.
JOE HEALY: At the risk of giving a cop out answer, I think it speaks to the health of college baseball that there’s not an obvious answer here. There’s an argument for Vanderbilt given the 2019 national title and two other appearances in the CWS finals, but momentum isn’t on the Commodores’ side right now it seems. Tennessee very much has momentum right now, but its results pre-2021 works against it. LSU’s 2023 team is an all-time great, but it has just two CWS trips in this time frame. Virginia and Florida have both been to Omaha pretty regularly and both have national titles during this time, but both have also gone through some valleys in addition to those peaks. Long story short, no one team has won more than one national title in the last 10 years, and that feels fitting.
ERIC SORENSON: You can make an argument for LSU, Oregon State, Florida, Arkansas, etc. But I’ll take the Commodores by a nose due to a national championship and two runner-up finishes. (Two national titles if you go back to 2014).
SHOTGUN SPRATLING: Florida.
