Vanderbilt baseball outfielder Dominic de la Osa is No. 60 in our countdown of the 100 best Commodores we've covered. Follow our countdown to No. 1 at our VandySports 100 landing page.
Honors and awards: 2006 All-SEC Tournament
2007 first-team All-American (Collegiate Baseball, ABCA)
2007 first-team All-Southeastern Conference
2007 SEC Hitter of the Week (weeks 12 and 15)
2007 Nashville Regional All-Tournament
2008 second-team All-SEC
In the VU record book: Single-season home runs: third (20, 2007)
Single-season doubles: tied-eighth (23, 2007)
Career at-bats: first (941)
Career hits: first (300)
Career runs: second (204)
Career doubles: second (63)
Career home runs: fourth (46)
Career stolen bases: sixth (68)
Before VU: Starred at Miami's Archbishop Carroll High, where he was second-team all-state as a junior and third-team all-state as a senior. Hit .520 with seven home runs and 60 RBIs as a senior. Set school record for single-season runs scored (60 as a junior).
Freshman (2005): Played in 52 games, starting 50. Was the team's primary shortstop; fielded .995 and had a hand in 14 double plays. Played in 28 SEC games, starting 26 and hitting .234/.265/.336. Was 7-of-8 on steals. Went 3-for-4 with four RBIs vs. UT-Martin. Six of seven homers came out of conference.
Sophomore (2006): Started 46 times at short, 13 in left (those, at the end of the season) and two as the DH for a 38-27 (16-14 SEC) team that finished second at the Atlanta Regional. Fielded .916 and took part in 15 double plays. Played 28 SEC games, starting them all, while hitting .294/.339/.403, with two homers, 19 RBIs and 16 runs. Was 4-for-4 with a homer and two runs scored vs. Georgia Tech in the title game of the Atlanta Regional. Was 9-for-19 (.474) in the SEC Tournament with a double, triple, homer, five RBI and five runs scored. Was 6-for-13 with three runs scored in the Florida series. Had a two-run, walk-off homer to beat Ball State.
Junior (2007): Played in all but one game (due to a strained hamstring) for a 54-13 (22-8) team that won the SEC and the SEC Tournament, starting 64 times as the team's every-day left fielder. Reached base in 60 games. Had 26 multiple-hit and 17 multiple-RBI games. Hit .387/.424/.773 in SEC regular-season games, with 10 homers, 32 RBIs and 30 runs, leading the team in all categories. Had a solo homer vs. Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament to key a 10th-inning rally that got VU to the title game. Was 9-for-24 (.375) with two homers, two doubles and seven RBI in the event. Was the SEC Hitter of the Week after going 5-for-11 with two homers, a double and three RBI in the LSU series. Went 6-for-13 (.462) with a homer, three doubles and three RBI in the Auburn series. Was 6-for-13 in the Georgia series with two doubles, a triple, a homer and eight RBI. That included a game-winning, three-run double in the top of the ninth in the series opener, Named SEC Hitter of the Week (4/30) after going 11-for-17 (.647) with five doubles, three homers, nine RBI and 11 runs scored in four games, which included a weekend sweep of Florida.
Senior (2008): Came back for his senior season after the Tigers took him in Round 10 of the 2007 draft. Started all 63 games on a 41-22 (15-14) team that finished third in the Tempe Regional. Was 27-of-33 on stolen bases. Fielded .960, with six errors and six assists in left. Hit .322/.423/.530 in league regular-season play, with four homers, 26 RBIs and 26 runs.
Post-VU: Selected by the Twins in Round 11 of the 2008 MLB Draft. De la Osa played pro ball for just two seasons before retiring, and advanced only to "A" ball.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: De la Osa had one of the best power-speed combinations of anyone ever at Vanderbilt; he was the league's last 20-20 man until Andrew Benintendi did it in 2015. Ryan Flaherty and Pedro Alvarez were the two most renowned every-day players on that 2007 squad, but it was de la Osa who was hands-down the team's best player in league games, a feat that deservedly earned him All-American honors. He was also a rare four-year starter for the Commodores. That, and the fact that he played in an era favorable to hitters, helped him land on a number of the school's significant career charts. (He's still the program's all-time hit leader.)
De la Osa's fantastic 2007 season and the placement on a number of the aforementioned school charts are the bulk of his accomplishments. He had a good, but not great, senior campaign and a fair 2006 season, during which he came on at the end and found a permanent landing spot in left. De la Osa was never a defensive star, and it was odd that he moved off shortstop to a low-impact defensive position. But he was an integral part of that 2007 season was the one that put VU on the map as a national power; he and Alvarez were easily the team's best two hitters that season, and that carries significant weight in ranking his career.
* "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.
