The VandySports 100: No. 10, Bryan Reynolds

Outfielder Bryan Reynolds is one of Vanderbilt baseball's all-time greats. He kicks off the top 10 of the VandySports 100.

Honors and awards: 2014 first-team Freshman All-American (Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, NCBWA, Perfect Game)

2014 Freshman All-Southeastern Conference

2014 SEC Freshman of the Week (Week 1)

2014 All-Nashville Regional

2015 All-SEC Tournament

2015 All-Nashville Regional

2015 All-College World Series

2016 third-team All-American (D1, NCBWA)

2016 second-team All-SEC

In the VU record book: Single-season at-bats: tied-second, tied-sixth (286 in 2015, 281 in 2014)

Single-season hits: tied-eighth (95 in 2014)

Single-season doubles: tied-fifth (24 in 2014)

Single-season walks: tied-eighth (49 in 2016)

Career at-bats: tied-eighth (791)

Career hits: ninth (260)

Before VU: Reynolds didn't play summer ball and therefore wasn't much on recruiting radar; Perfect Game named him the No. 261 outfielder in the 2013 high school class. He lettered four years at nearby Brentwood High, and was named first team all-state and district Player of the Year as a senior. Was also named all-district as a sophomore and junior and all-region as a junior.

Freshman (2014): Played in all 72 games, starting 71 as the team's regular left fielder, for a 51-21 (17-13 SEC) team that won the national title. Fielded .989, with two errors and eight assists. In SEC regular-season play, Reynolds hit .297/.371/.415, with two home runs, 20 RBIs and 20 runs. Hit .386/.419/.474 in 13 games of the NCAA Tournament, with eight runs scored and 10 RBIs. Had a huge, run-saving catch as he slammed into the wall to take away in extra-base hit in VU's College World Series-opening win over Louisville. Was 6-for-10 with two doubles and four RBIs in VU's season-opening series win over Long Beach St.; Reynolds entered the first game as a pinch-hitter but started every other game that year. Was 3-for-5 with a double and his first collegiate homer in his fifth career game (Illinois-Chicago). Was 7-for-14 with two doubles and a triple in VU's three-game sweep of Winthrop. Was 4-for-12 with a walk and three RBIs in the series win over LSU. Reached base eight times, going 5-for-10 with three runs, two RBIs, in a series win over Kentucky. Reached base eight times in a sweep of Georgia (5-for-12), with two doubles, two runs and three RBIs. Reached base five times in three games in the SEC Tournament, going 4-for-10 with two RBIs and two runs scored.

Sophomore (2015): Played in all 72 games (starting 71) for a 51-21 (20-10) team that finished runner-up for the national title. Stole 17 bases in 22 tries. In SEC regular-season play, Reynolds hit .293/.382/.466, with three home runs, 21 RBIs and 22 runs scored. Was VU's primary center fielder, fielding .986 with two errors and five assists. Hit .457/.479/.630 in 11 NCAA Tournament games, including a home run in the regional-clinching win over Radford. Hit .316/.409/.421 in the SEC Tournament--where VU finished runner-up--with four runs scored and an RBI. Was 7-for-14 with two walks, four doubles, four RBIs and five runs scored in a sweep of Illinois St. Reached base all four times, scored twice and drove in two in a win over Tennessee Tech. Was 6-for-11 with three walks, three runs scored and four RBIs in a series win at Auburn. Was 7-for-11 with two triples, reaching base nine times with four RBIs and four runs in a series win at Tennessee. Was 5-for-11 with two doubles, two walks, three runs and three RBIs in the South Carolina series. Was 2-for-5 with a homer and two runs in a mid-week win vs. Louisville.

Junior (2016): Started all 62 games for a 43-19 (18-12 SEC) team that finished fourth in the Nashville Regional. Was successful on 8-of-13 stolen base tries. In SEC regular-season games, Reynolds hit .286/.404/.625. Fielded .992, with one error and two assists, in center. In SEC regular-season games. Reached base four times in VU's two NCAA Tournament games. Was 5-for-12 with a homer, two runs scored, four RBIs and two walks in three SEC Tournament games. Was 7-for-13 with two walks, five runs and seven RBIs in a sweep of Illinois-Chicago. Was 3-for-10 with four walks and a run scored in a series win over Stanford. Was 5-for-14 with a walk, three homers, five runs scored and eight RBIs in a sweep at Missouri. Was 5-for-9 with two homers, four walks, five RBIs and two runs scored in a series loss to LSU. Was 5-for-11 with four walks, a homer, two doubles and four runs scored in a sweep of Georgia. Was 5-for-11 and reached base seven times, adding three RBIs and four runs scored, in a sweep of Auburn.

Post-VU: The Giants selected Reynolds 59th overall in the 2016 draft. Reynolds was traded to Pittsburgh in the Andrew McCutchen deal in January 2018. The Pirates gave Reynolds his first taste in the Majors last year, recalling him early in the season. Reynolds then had a brilliant rookie season and finished fourth in a loaded National League Rookie of the Year race.

Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: Meet Bryan Reynolds, the most underrated athlete in our 17 years of covering Vanderbilt.

If folks had guessed a top 10 before we started this feature, I'm guessing Reynolds wouldn't have been on anyone's list. For me, putting him there was never a big struggle; in fact, I had Reynolds seventh on my first pass of this list and dropped him a few spots after re-examining the case for a few of his peers. Per plate appearance, he's the fifth-best hitter in the Tim Corbin era, so there's an argument I had it right the first time.

Some things that make a player underrated:

- Taking a lot of walks. Reynolds took 103 in his career, which ranked 10th of the 33 hitters to make our VandySports 100. Four of the players who ranked ahead of him played four years at VU.

- Hitting a lot of doubles and triples. Reynolds hit 68 of them in his career.

- Doing those things in an era that's not offensive-friendly. In Reynolds's three VU seasons, run scoring was down across college baseball by six, eight and 14 percent compared to an average year in our study period. That makes his raw numbers considerably more impressive than they are at face value.

- Being good at things but not having an elite tool. He ran decently well (39 of 52 on stolen bases) but no one ever considered him fast. He had some pop (22 home runs, and the aforementioned extra base hits) but no one ever talked about Reynolds in the same vein as VU's greatest power hitters; of course, it didn't help that Reynolds played in an era with a higher-seam ball that was hard to get out of the park. This scouting report talks about Reynolds's tools and grades his arm a "60" but I don't remember a ton of talk about it while Reynolds was at VU.

The bottom line is that Reynolds never got much credit for what he did while he was at VU. The high-water mark of his recognition was making second-team All-SEC as a junior, and being tabbed a third-team All-American by two media outlets the same season.

Let's talk about some other things Reynolds did, some of which escaped notice:

- Reynolds was dependable. He never missed a game and started all but two.

- Reynolds played well when it mattered the most. In 26 career NCAA Tournament games, he hit .411/.452/.553 in 115 plate appearances, scoring 20 runs and driving in 22.

- He was a terrific defensive player, two of that coming at a high-impact defensive position. I think most expected Jeren Kendall--maybe the most athletically-gifted VU player in Corbin's tenure--to play center at VU. Reynolds was too good in center to lose the job, so Kendall (who made the SEC's all-defensive team in center in 2017) didn't move to center until after Reynolds was gone. Reynolds made just five errors in 206 career games. He got terrific jumps on balls and whatever those errors he made were, I don't remember them standing out.

- He won a lot. VU was 145-61 (.704) overall and 55-35 (.611) in SEC regular-season play in his career. It won a national title and came within a game of another. Had the Donny Everett tragedy not happened just before the 2016 NCAA Tournament, it's possible that VU would have made a third deep run into Omaha.

- Other than striking out, there wasn't an identifiable weakness. Yes, Reynolds fanned a decent amount-177 times in his career--which covered 18.7 percent of his plate appearances. But it wasn't an exorbitant amount and it came at a time when the game was changing and high-strikeout totals among guys with extra-base pop were almost expected.

- Per plate appearance, and adjusted for run-scoring environment, Reynolds's 13.14 runs created per 27 outs in 2016 is the best offensive season, per plate appearance, in Corbin's tenure. There is definitely some noise in there: That 2016 offense scored 416 runs; if you take VU's individual offensive stats from that year, it "should" have scored just 342. That difference is prorated across the RC/27 total and of course gets another boost because runs scored were down 6 percent compared to "normal" that year. But still, owning what is by that measure the best offensive campaign in Corbin's tenure is quite a feat.

When the rankings reach this territory, I go over everything with a microscope. The only flaw I can really pick with Reynolds is that he wasn't quite as good in SEC regular-season play as some ahead of him. He never hit .300 in any SEC season (though he was close all three years) and was over a .400 on-base mark just once (but was never far under it). But when that's all you can find, I think it's hard to say you don't belong in the top 10.