Carson Fulmer is one of Vanderbilt baseball's all-time greats. He's first on our list of the 100-best athletes we've covered at Vanderbilt, as determined by the careers they had at VU.
WARNING: There's explicit language in the two highlight videos near the end of the article.
Honors and awards: 2013 first-team Freshman All-American (Collegiate Baseball)
2013 freshman All-Southeastern Conference
2014 second-team All-SEC
2014 All-SEC Defensive Team
2015 Roger Clemens Award (National Pitcher of the Year)
2015 National Pitcher of the Year (D1 Baseball, Perfect Game)
2015 Golden Spikes Award finalist
2015 first-team All-American (consensus)
2015 first-team All-SEC
2015 All-SEC Defensive Team
2015 SEC Pitcher of the Week (twice)
2015 All-Nashille Regional
In the VU record book: Single-season wins: tied-first (14 in 2015)
Single-season innings pitched: second (127 1/3 in 2015)
Single-season ERA: fifth and sixth (1.83 in 2015, 1.98 in 2014)
Single-season strikeouts: second (167 in 2015)
Career wins: fifth (24)
Career strikeouts: fifth (313)
Career ERA: second (1.99)
Career saves: sixth (14)
Before VU: Starred at All Saints' Academy in Lakeland, Fla., where he was the 2012 Florida 2A Player of the Year. Lettered five years and was team captain as a senior. Boston picked in in the 15th round of the 2012 MLB Draft. Perfect Game ranked him the No. 57 player in the Class of 2012.
Freshman (2013): Made 26 appearances, all in relief, for a 54-12 (26-3 SEC) team that won the league's regular-season title and lost in the Nashville Super Regional. Fielded .909 with one error and eight assists. Pitched 24 2/3 SEC regular-season innings over 13 appearances, with 26 strikeouts and 10 walks, a 1-0 record, four saves, a 2.33 ERA and a .233 average against. Got a win with five scoreless innings and four strikeouts vs. Illinois in the NCAA Tournament. Pitched 5 1/3 innings of scoreless ball vs. Louisville in a season-ending loss. Got a win over South Carolina in the SEC Tournament with 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball and five strikeouts. Struck out three in five in 3 2/3 scoreless innings vs. Monmouth. Pitched two scoreless innings with a strikeout vs. Buffalo. Picked up saves in back-to-back games vs. Tennessee. Pitched three scoreless innings over two appearances, with four strikeouts, vs. Ole Miss. Pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings and picked up a win over Georgia. Threw a scoreless inning and two-thirds vs. Mississippi St. and a scoreless 2 2/3 vs. South Carolina, picking up saves in each.
Sophomore (2014): Made 26 appearances (10 starts) for a 51-21 (17-13) squad that won the national championship. Stared the season as the closer before moving to the rotation mid-season. Did not allow a home run the entire season, and gave up just seven doubles and three triples. Fielded .903, with three errors and 18 assists. In 13 SEC regular-season appearances (five starts), Fulmer pitched 47 innings, striking out 43, walking 22, allowing a .184 average against, with a 5-1 record and four saves. Got a no-decision in the deciding game of the national title series vs. Virginia, throwing 5 1/3 innings of two-run (one earned), five-strikeout baseball. Had a no-decision against Texas in the College World Series, allowing two runs (both earned) in 4 1/3 innings. Beat Louisville with two runs (both earned) and six strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings. Gave up four runs (all earned) in 6 1/3 innings, with nine hits, no walks and nine strikeouts in a Super Regional game that VU lost to Stanford. Allowed two runs (both earned) with three hits, two walks and five strikeouts, picking up a victory in a NCAA Tournament win over Oregon. Got a scoreless, three-inning, five-strikeout save against Long Beach State on the season-opening weekend. Got another with two scoreless innings with five strikeouts against Illinois-Chicago the next weekend. Fired two scoreless innings against Stanford, amassing three strikeouts. Pitched three scoreless innings with one hit and four strikeouts vs. MTSU. Had a two-inning, five-strikeout save vs. Winthrop. Threw 2 1/3 innings without allowing a run vs. LSU and picked up one save. Made his first start of the season, throwing six scoreless innings with six strikeouts in a 2-1 win at Arkansas, picking up a win. Beat Georgia the next weekend with seven scoreless innings and eight Ks. Defeated Missouri with six shutout innings, allowing four hits, three walks and four hits with three strikeouts. Pitched a complete-game shutout of Florida, allowing four hits, two walks and striking out eight. Picked up a fifth win in five starts when he allowed three runs (all earned) with seven hits, six walks and four strikeouts vs. South Carolina. Picked up a save with a scoreless, three-strikeout inning vs. Tennessee in the SEC Tournament.
Junior (2015): Made 19 appearances, all starts, for a 51-21 (20-10) team that finished as the national runner-up. Made 10 SEC regular-season starts, posting an 8-1 record with two complete games, a 1.71 ERA, 99 strikeouts, 24 walks, a .190 average against and four homers, eight doubles and two triples allowed. Threw 7 2/3 shutout innings to pick up the win in Game 1 of the College World Series final vs. Virginia, striking out eight and walking two. Allowed three runs in six innings, with seven strikeouts and two walks, in a no-decision vs. Cal State Fullerton in the CWS. Threw 6 1/3 shutouts vs. Illinois in a super regional victory. Gave up one run and struck out 11 in VU's NCAA Tournament-opening win vs. Lipscomb. Allowed a season-worst six runs in five innings in a loss to Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament. Shut out Santa Clara with seven strikeouts in five innings, picking up a win in the season opener. Allowed two runs and struck out six over five innings vs. Indiana St. Pitched six shutout innings, striking out 11 in earning a win over Illinois St. Gave up five runs (all earned) with seven strikeouts in a no-decision vs. Arkansas. Lost to Auburn, allowing six runs (one earned) with eight strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings. Beat Tennessee, throwing eight shutout innings with 12 strikeouts. Beat Georgia, allowing five earned runs with seven strikeouts. Threw a complete-game, two-hit, 14-strikeout shutout of Ole Miss. Picked up win at South Carolina with nine strikeouts in seven shutout innings. Threw seven shutout innings with 11 strikeouts to earn a win over Missouri. Gave up three earned runs in 6 2/3 innings with six strikeouts to beat Kentucky. Pitched back-to-back complete games vs. Florida and Alabama, allowing a total of one earned run while fanning 11 and 14, respectively, the last making his eighth win in eight starts.
Post-VU: The White Sox took Fulmer eighth overall in the 2015 MLB Draft. Fulmer has mostly struggled in parts of four seasons at the big-league level, but had a good spring and has a chance for a role with the team this year.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: People have issues with Fulmer going before David Price on this list. None of this is meant to discredit Price, who had an outstanding career, but if you compare the résumés at Vanderbilt, Fulmer was hands-down the better player.
Here's how the two stack up:
1. Overall stat lines:
- Fulmer had a 24-3 record, 10 saves, and a 1.99 career ERA in 271 1/3 innings
- Price was 22-10 with no saves, a 3.22 career ERA in 311 innings.
How big is that gap? You'd have to add 37 earned runs to Fulmer's ERA for it to equal Price's. And for Fulmer to have Price's ERA in his number of innings, Fulmer would need to throw an additional 41 2/3 innings and allow 52 earned runs (an 11.23 ERA for that sample.)
2. NCAA Tournament performance.
Fulmer made 11 NCAA Tournament appearances, hurling 67 2/3 innings with a 2.04 ERA, striking out 65, walking 28 and allowing just 42 hits.
Price threw 16 NCAA Tournament innings across three games, with a 5.06 ERA.
3. SEC regular-season performance .
Fulmer had a 1.80 career ERA in SEC regular-season play in 145 innings.
Price had a 3.51 ERA over 202 1/3.
Fulmer played in an era across his career across our sample size in which run scoring was down about 10 percent, and Price played when it was up about five percent. Even adjusting for that, the gap is still significant.
And let's not forget Fulmer's last outing. He had a severe fever and chills and yet gutted out a brilliant, 119-pitch outing to beat Virginia in the CWS finals. Had his teammates held up their end of the bargain the next two days, people would probably remember that outing more than they do.
Fulmer had the stats. He had a significant role on the best regular-season team in SEC history, a huge role on a national title team, and a huge role on a national title runner-up. Outside of Jeff Peeples, he was, statistically-speaking, the best pitcher in program history.
Fulmer had huge numbers, was a leader, was a contributor on the best regular-season league team in SEC history, and was a superstar on a team that won an NCAA title and another that finished a hair short. The most critical thing you can say about Fulmer is that he only started for about a year and a half, which not only wasn't his fault, but was also because he was killing it in the closing role also.
The final spot came down to Fulmer or Dansby Swanson. When I compared them head-to-head, it wasn't as difficult as I'd expected. Fulmer came out ahead based on a better 2013 season (Swanson was hurt) plus, I thought Fulmer had a better body of work in NCAA Tournament play, not to mention a career ERA that just jumps off the page in a way none of Swanson's stats did.
Fulmer basically dominated from the time he hit campus until the time he left. With the possible exception of football seasons about 100 years or more in the past, was part of the best three-year run for any sports team in school history. Fulmer left campus with little more than microscopic dents on his résumé and delivered a lot of jaw-dropping moments against great teams on big stages, and that's why he's No. 1.
