Vanderbilt baseball star Conrad Gregor checks in at No. 51 on the best 100 players we've covered. Here's a list to the landing page of our countdown here.
Honors and awards: 2011 first-team Freshman All-American (Collegiate Baseball)
2011 second-team All-Southeastern Conference
2011 All-SEC Tournament
2011 All-Nashville Regional
2012 All-Raleigh Regional
2013 All-SEC Tournament
2013 All-Nashville Regional
In the VU record book: Single-season walks: sixth (54, 2013)
Before VU: Four-year all-conference pick at Carmel (Ind.) High. Was team captain as a senior and an all-state pick. Drafted in Round 40 by the White Sox, but didn't sign.
Freshman (2011): Played in 58 games, starting 49, for a 54-12 (22-8 SEC) squad that shared the SEC title and finished third at the College World Series. Stole two bases in four tries. Played in 29 SEC games, starting 24, and hitting .382/.446/.517 with two home runs, 20 RBIs and 18 runs scored in them. Had two hits in each CWS game vs. North Carolina. Had doubles in successive super regional games with Oregon State. Was 3-for-4 with a grand slam in a regular season game vs. Kentucky. Was 8-for-13 with six RBIs in the LSU series. Hit first collegiate homer vs. Stanford.
Sophomore (2012): Started all 63 games for a 35-28 (16-14) team that finished second in the Raleigh Regional. Successful in all 10 stolen base attempts. Fielded .988 in 494 chances at first. Started all 30 SEC regular-season games, hitting .345/.429/.474 with two home runs, 14 RBIs and 18 runs scored in them. Hit .429 /.555/.643 over four games in the Raleigh Regional. Hit .286/.440/.429 over five games in the SEC Tournament. Was 3-for-5 with two RBIs in a regular-season win over Georgia. Was 3-for-4 with a homer, a walk, three runs and two RBIs in a win over Alabama. Also had three hits, two RBIs and a homer in the next game, a win at MTSU. Was 3-for-5 in successive days in wins over Tennessee.
Junior (2013): Played in 65 games, starting all of them, for a 54-12 (26-3) team that won the SEC regular-season title and fell in the Nashville Super Regional. Fielded .990 in 512 chances. Stole 21 of 24 bases. Hit .320/.453/.485 in league regular-season games, playing 28 times and starting each of those games. Hit .304/.407/.348, with two runs and five RBIs, in the NCAA Tournament. Hit .409/.500/.500 in five games in the SEC Tournament. Was 3-for-4 with a walk, three runs and an RBI in a win against Missouri, later posting the same line in a win at Kentucky. Was 3-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs in a victory over Florida. Was 3-for-3 with a homer, a walk, three runs scored and three RBIs in a win over Mississippi St.
Post-VU: Drafted by Houston in Round 4 of the 2013 MLB Draft. Gregor hasn't made it above AA, and didn't play professionally in 2019, but is still pursing a pro career, having signed a minor-league deal with Tampa Bay in January.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: Conrad Gregor is a fascinating study in perception and reality.
Before I publish these pieces, I take a second look at the next 10-12 players coming up on a list, because once I publish a player's bio, there are no take-backs. In the initial version of this list, I had Gregor at 52. Even though I've always liked Gregor more than about anyone else, that still seemed too high.
A funny thing happened on the second look last week: Not only could I not justify moving him down the list, it seemed I had him grossly underrated. So I moved him to No. 40.
This week, again thinking I had Gregor too high, I looked more closely... and moved him up two more spots in spite of trying to find reasons to move him down. I wrote this piece after I decided to slot him at 38. Frankly, upon every single deep-dive into Gregor's career since that decision, I not only can't find any significant reason to move him down, I don't think a ranking within the top 30 would be totally crazy.
So, here's insight into my thought process.
How I remembered Gregor: As a DH who played some first because of Vanderbilt's lack of better options.
Reality: Gregor held down first base for two full seasons. I don't remember him excelling there, he fielded a very respectable .989. While I don't think that's the whole picture, it's the exact same percentage that All-SEC Defensive pick Julian Infante fielded for his career. Because most first-base chances are simply catching a ball thrown one's way, let's look at assists: Gregor had 76 over 128 games his last two years; Infante had 41 in 109. And maybe this is all a product of pitching fielding philosophies and who a coach feels comfortable covering first in a bunt or infield-dribbler situation at the time. But since Tim Corbin has been at Vanderbilt, only Zander Wiel (44 assists in 2014) has had more single-season assists among VU first baseman than Gregor's 2012 and 2013.
How I remembered Gregor: A mostly one-dimensional offensive player whose value was tied up in singles, doubles and walks.
Reality: That's mostly true, but I'd forgotten that Gregor had one of the best base-stealing years in the Corbin era when he swiped successfully on 21-of-24 tries in 2013. He was also 10-of-10 as a sophomore and 2-of-4 as a freshman. Because of that, there was probably hidden value beyond that in base-running intelligence that's difficult to quantify.
How I remembered Gregor: He didn't do anything remarkable in the postseason.
Reality: Gregor pulled off the rare feat of making all-regional in all three NCAA Tournaments in which he played. For good measure, he was All-SEC Tournament twice, missing it only in 2012, when he was still excellent (.286/.440/.429) in that event.
What I also didn't know about Gregor: He had on-base percentages of .446, .429 and .453 in SEC regular-season play. Vanderbilt does not keep career records on SEC regular-season marks, but I'd bet money that Gregor has the best career SEC on-base mark in Corbin's tenure.
How good was his offense? Per plate appearance (and adjusted for run-scoring environment), he had the 13th-, 17th- and 24th-best offensive seasons among hitters with at least 200 plate appearances in the Tim Corbin era. No other player appears three times in the top 25.
Gregor also walked (122 times) more often than he struck out (99).
Gregor's ranking is held down by his lack of home-run power (nine for his career) and also because he didn't play about a fourth of the time as a freshman. His career also came at a time when VU won or shared two SEC titles and made a College World Series, so it wasn't exactly easy to get on the field.
You can try to convince me that I've got Gregor too high, but after weeks of having that argument with myself, good luck in winning it with me now.
