Vanderbilt baseball outfielder Rhett Wiseman checks in at No. 59 on the VandySports 100. Follow our countdown to No. 1 at our VandySports 100 landing page.
Honors and awards: 2014 All-College World Series
2015 second-team All-American (Perfect Game)
2015 All-Nashville Regional
2015 SEC Hitter of the Week (Week 5)
In the VU record book: Single-season at-bats: first (290, 2015)
Single-season runs scored: seventh (70, 2015)
Before VU: Was the Gatorade Player of the Year in Massachusetts and the team captain at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. Ranked the No. 58 player by Perfect Game in the Class of 2011. Set career school records in stolen bases (74), home runs (31) and triples (24) Lettered four years in baseball and three in football.
Freshman (2013): Played in 54 games, starting 11, for a 54-12 (26-3 SEC) team that won the conference and was eliminated in the Nashville Super Regional. Played in 21 league regular-season games, starting three, hitting .254/.323/.356 with eight RBIs and six runs. Had three hits, including two home runs, against Tennessee Tech.
Sophomore (2014): Played in 68 games, starting 66, as VU's regular right fielder for a 51-21 (17-13) team that won the College World Series. Fielded .988, making just one error while adding an assist. Saw a 13-game hitting streak end in the last game of the CWS. Hit .308 with two doubles and two RBIs and a pair of key plays in the field against Virginia and Texas in the CWS. Doubled off the wall in right to drive in a run, and eventually scored the winning run, to eliminate Texas in the CWS. Was 4-for-11 with two RBIs and two runs scored vs. Stanford in the Nashville Super Regional. Had his third two-hit game of the last four games in the Nashville Regional title game vs. Oregon. Singled twice and scored twice vs. Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament. Had three hits and two RBIs in a regular-season game against South Carolina. Was 2-for-5 with three RBIs vs. Eastern Illinois.
Junior (2015): Played in 71 of 72 games--starting all of them--for a 51-21 (20-10) squad that finished runner-up to Virginia at the CWS. Fielded .985 as VU's regular right fielder, with two errors and six assists. Played 29 SEC regular-season games, hitting .279/.385/.566, leading the team in home runs (eight) and runs (30) while adding 23 RBIs. Had a homer, three runs and three RBIs in the Nashville Regional-clinching game vs. Radford. Homered to walk off Missouri in the 10th inning of the SEC Tournament. Had three hits, including a homer, in a regular-season loss to Florida. Homered twice and drove in four in a win at Kentucky. Homered in back-to-back games vs. Missouri. Was 10-for-17 with seven runs, eight RBI and six extra-base hits, including two home runs, which spanned two games vs. Quinnipiac and three vs. Arkansas. Had four hits and three walks in a single game vs. Evansville. Drove in all three runs in a walk-off win over Indiana St.
Post-VU: Washington took Wiseman in Round 3 (pick No. 103) of the 2015 MLB Draft. He's still with the Nationals and ended last season at AA.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: Wiseman played in three of the four most pitching-friendly seasons in our coverage span (2003 to present). Adjusted for that, only one player in our countdown ranked behind Wiseman (that's Zander Wiel) had a more productive career per plate appearance than Wiseman, and four hitters ranked in front of him produced less per plate appearance. That's not even adjusting for schedule; three teams Wiseman played on also played the No. 12-, third- and second-toughest schedules in the country, according to RPI measures.
There was also the team's success. Wiseman was a regular on a team that won a national title, as well as the 2015 squad that missed it by a game. He was also a part-time starter for the 2013 team that set the all-time record for SEC wins. And within that environment, Wiseman came up big both defensively and with the bat in the 2014 and '15 postseasons.
Between the winning and the fact he could do a little bit of everything, he was an easy pick to make the list.
* "RC/ARC-27" are how many runs a player "created" per 27 outs, according to a Bill James formula. The first is a player's raw total for that season, and the second is the same number adjusted to an average run-scoring environment from 2003-19.
