Grayson Garvin was a former Southeastern Conference Pitcher of the Year. He's No. 46 on the countdown of 100-best Commodores we've covered.
Honors and awards: 2011 second-team All-American (Baseball America)
2011 first-team All-Southeastern Conference
2011 SEC Pitcher of the Year
2011 SEC Pitcher of the Week (Week 6)
In the VU record book: Single-season wins: tied-third (13, 2011)
Career ERA: third (2.62)
Before VU: Named the 2007, 2008 Region Player of the Year, 2008 Rawlings and Louisville Slugger All-American and Sports Illustrated/ Takkle Top 100. Ranked as the No. 55 high school prospect by Baseball America. Held the records at Wesleyan High (Suwanee, Ga.) for most career innings pitched, strikeouts, wins, complete games, and lowest ERA. Was also a three-year starter and four-year letter winner. Ranked as the No. 55 high school prospect by Baseball America.Team won the 2008 state title. Played for summer ball for the East Cobb Braves, winning multiple national championships. Drafted in Round 45 by Houston.
Freshman (2009): Appeared nine times for a 37-27 (12-17 Southeastern Conference) team that fell in the Louisville Regional finals. Made four SEC appearances, allowing six runs (all earned), with an 0-1 record. Struck out the only two hitters he faced vs. Georgia on May 10. Threw two innings of one hit scoreless relief against Belmont with three strikeouts and a walk.
Sophomore (2010): Made 13 appearances, with two starts, for a 46-10 (16-12) team that fell in the Tallahassee Super Regional. Pitched in four SEC regular-season games, throwing 6 1/3 innings, allowing one run with an 0-1 record. Threw three scoreless innings in a win over Florida St. in the super regional. Started the Louisville Regional title game, allowing one run on three hits with three strikeouts in a career-high six shutout innings against Louisville. Earlier in the regional, threw 4 1/3 innings with six strikeouts, allowing one run vs. Illinois St. Threw thee scoreless innings, with one hit allowed and five strikeouts vs. Arkansas. Pitched five innings of four-hit, shutout baseball with four strikeouts and no walks in a no-decision at Austin Peay. Allowed three hits with no walks and three strikeouts in 3/2 innings of scoreless relief against MTSU. Struck out the side in only inning of relief in win over Belmont. Struck out the side in the top of ninth in 7-2 win against Wofford.
Junior (2011): Was the SEC Pitcher of the Year for a 54-12 (22-8) team that finished third at the College World Series and shared the SEC regular-season title. Made 18 appearances, all starts. Went 9-0 in SEC regular-season play, with 64 innings and a 1.83 ERA, 53 strikeouts, 15 walks and seven home runs allowed. Fanned six over eight strong innings to get a win at Arkansas. Turned in his first scoreless outing of the year, striking out six in seven innings for a win against Mississippi State. Pitched 8 1/3 innings and fanned 10 at San Diego.
Post-VU: Tampa Bay took Garvin in the supplemental first round (No. 59 overall) of the 2012 MLB Draft. A variety of injuries helped derail Garvin's career, which ended in 2016 as Garvin never made it past AA.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: Garvin's body of work was a bit short because of an ineffective freshman year and a relief season as a sophomore. Of the 23 pitchers in the VandySports 100, only five threw fewer innings than Garvin's 161 1/3. Of course, of those 23, Garvin had the third-best ERA in the countdown, and it was also the third-best ERA indexed for the times. (Brian Miller edged Garvin out by 0.01 in the latter, and the other pitcher is coming later in the countdown.)
Garvin is best remembered for being the SEC Pitcher of the Year on the historic 2011 team, which was VU's first CWS participant. What I had forgotten was how outstanding Garvin was in the 2010 postseason. He threw a gem of an outing with a start in the title game of the Louisville Regional, keeping Vandy in with six scoreless innings before the Commodores won it in the bottom of the 10th. Making that more impressive was the fact that Garvin threw 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball against Illinois St. just three days before in the regional opener. And then in Tallahassee, he added three more scoreless frames in a win over Florida St. in a super regional that VU lost by an eyelash.
Garvin was also a polished pitcher, with the second-best free-pass rate of the 23 pitchers in the countdown, and 3.2 strikeouts to every free pass he allowed.
The overall body is a little short, making it tougher to slot Garvin much higher. But the quality of it makes it difficult to justify leaving him out of our top 50.
