Ethan Paul, a four-year baseball starter, makes the VandySports 100 at No. 51.
Honors and awards: 2016 first-team Freshman All-American (Collegiate Baseball)
2016 Freshman All-Southeastern Conference
2018 All-Clemson Regional
2019 first-team All-American (Perfect Game)
In the VU record book: Single-season at-bats: second (286, 2019)
Single-season doubles: tied-eighth (23, 2019)
Single-season RBIs: third (73, 2019)
Career at-bats: second (880)
Career doubles: first (64)
Career RBIs: fifth (175)
Before VU: Played at The International School in Bellevue, Washington, where he was the No. 207 player in the Class of 2015 according to Perfect Game. Was an all-state infielder as a junior and senior. Team was state runner-up his senior season.
Freshman (2016): Played in 54 games, starting 45, for a 43-19 (18-12 SEC) team that hosted the Nashville Regional before falling in two games. Fielded .934 and participated in 22 double plays. Played 24 SEC regular-season games, hitting .274/.333/.429. Was 4-for-5, with three doubles and three runs vs. Washington, and 2-for-3 with an RBI vs. Xavier, in NCAA Tournament losses. Was 3-for-4 with a double and three RBIs vs. Missouri. Had three RBIs and his first career home run vs. Northern Illinois.
Sophomore (2017): Played in 53 games, starting 52, for a 36-25-1 (15-13-1) team that fell in the Corvallis Super Regional. Missed 10-straight games due to a broken nose in late-March. Fielded .973 as the team's primary second baseman, and had a hand in 27 double plays. Hit .293/363/.488 in 22 SEC games--all starts--with three homers, nine RBIs and 13 runs. Had two homers and three RBIs vs. CSUN. Doubled, homered and drove in two vs. Texas A&M.
Junior (2018): Started all 62 games for a 35-27 (16-14) team that lost in the Nashville Super Regional. Played in 30 SEC games, starting them all, hitting .190/.295/.314, with two homers, nine RBIs and 15 runs scored. Stole 18 bases in 19 tries. Fielded .976 as the primary second baseman. Hit .261/.393/.522 in the NCAA Tournament. Was 4-for-6 with a homer and seven RBIs in a win over UMass-Lowell. Was 3-for-6 with a homer and four RBIs in a win Austin Peay. Homered, walked and drove in three in a win at UCLA. Was 3-for-3 with a homer and three RBIs in a win against Evansville.
Senior (2019): Returned for his senior year after the Pirates took him in Round 27 of the 2018 MLB Draft. Was one of two players to start all 71 games for a 59-12 (23-7) team that won the SEC, the SEC Tournament and the national title. Was one of 14 semifinalists for the Brooks Wallace Award. Moved to shortstop and spent all his time there, fielding .964 with just nine errors while taking part in 25 double plays. Hit .270/.341/.500 in SEC regular-season play, with six homers, 36 RBIs and 33 runs scored.Hit .294/.400/.588 with four runs and three RBIs as VU went 4-0 in the SEC Tournament. Hit .261/.382/.326 in the NCAA Tournament with seven runs scored and six RBIs in 11 games, while fielding .940 and helping on four double plays. Ripped a one-out double to right with one out in the ninth to score the tying run in a game VU eventually won against Louisville. Homered and drove in three in the season-opening win vs. Virginia. Was 3-for-5 with five RBIs in a victory over Davidson, beginning a string of six-straight games in which he had an RBI, with five being multiple-RBI games. That string snapped, then, Paul homered and drove in five the next game against Texas A&M. Was 5-for-6 with six RBIs in a home win against Florida. Was 2-for-4 with a homer and three RBIs in a win at South Carolina.
Post-VU: The Pirates took Paul in Round 9 of the 2019 Draft (pick No. 274). Paul played 33 games in short season "A" ball in 2019 and is still active within the organization.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: Paul left a great last impression at Vanderbilt. The enduring memory of his career will be that huge double in the Luke Smith game of the College World Series, but there was a lot more to his season than that. Smith not only hit well--he had the third-best RBI season in VU history--but had an excellent defensive season at short. Paul hadn't played there since a brief stint as a freshman, but transitioned exceptionally well back to the position. He was tremendously consistent and didn't have a multiple-error game all season.
Paul's best offensive season from a per-plate-appearance standpoint was his freshman season. He couldn't stay on the field full-time due to an 18-game stretch in which he had 12 errors; he had a lot of trouble throwing the ball. But it probably wasn't coincidental that he'd ripped a fingernail on his throwing hand. His junior season was a solid one, but not a great one, but Paul also didn't catch a lot of breaks (a .282 batting average on balls in play.) The biggest knock on his offense was that he struck out some (rates of 24, 21, 23 and 19 percent) tended to hit better outside the league than in it.
At his worst, Paul was a smart, solid player. Excepting the brief stretch of errors, was good enough offensively and defensively to justify playing every day in the middle infield. At his best, he was a star. He never came out of the lineup his last two years, was a quiet, team-oriented player who played about three-fourths of the time at second (where he wasn't as comfortable as he was at short) and had a big hand in winning a national title. The combination of being a solid four-year player combined with a terrific peak season for a team that won everything in sight easily earns Paul a slot in our countdown.
