How Tim Corbin, Vanderbilt baseball have produced a new wave of MLB coaches, GMs
Ryan Flaherty and David Macias were Vanderbilt baseball teammates from 2006 to 2008. Both were 2008 draft picks of the Chicago Cubs.
Flaherty played eight years in the major leagues. Macias played four seasons in the minors before retiring. Fourteen years later, their paths led to the same place: the 2022 San Diego Padres coaching staff, with Macias the first base coach and Flaherty as a development coach.
In November, Flaherty left the Padres — where he spent 2023 as the bench coach — for the same job with the Chicago Cubs, where he will reunite with another former Vanderbilt teammate: general manager Carter Hawkins.
They are three of the increasing number of former Vanderbilt baseball players who have landed jobs on MLB coaching staffs and in front offices. The Commodores pride themselves on the number of major leaguers they develop, but now Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin has built a program that has churned out not only pro players, but also pro coaches.
An increasing trend
There were a handful of Vanderbilt alumni working in MLB even before Corbin, now 62, took over the program in 2003. The most notable of that group is Joey Cora, who played for the Commodores from 1983 to 1985 and is currently the Detroit Tigers bench coach.
In the past few years, the number of former Commodores on MLB staffs has exploded. Members of Corbin's first squad all held positions on 2023 playoff teams: Gil Kim (Toronto Blue Jays field coordinator); Jeremy Sowers (Tampa Bay Rays manager of major league operations); and Tony Mansolino, the Baltimore Orioles' third base coach.
A fourth member of the 2003 team, Matt Buschmann, served as the Blue Jays' bullpen coach from 2019 to 2022.
Caleb Cotham, who played at Vanderbilt in 2007 and 2008, is the Philadelphia Phillies' pitching coach. Antoan Richardson (2004-06) was the San Francisco Giants' bench coach from 2020 to 2023.
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"I think it's kind of a lagging indicator," Hawkins told The Tennessean at the Dec. 4-7 winter meetings in Nashville. "I don't think you would want to set the goal of, hey, we want to have the best Division I baseball program in terms of front office people, but I do think if you are focusing on the same attributes that help a baseball player come to his baseball potential, it's going to help that baseball player come to other potentials that he sets his mind to."
Corbin and his staff have helped players who were looking to get coaching jobs. Hawkins said Derek Johnson, the former Vanderbilt pitching coach who is now the pitching coach for the Cincinnati Reds, pointed him toward a front office role after Hawkins accepted that he would not be playing professionally.
After working in the Cubs organization as a strength coach, Macias emailed Corbin expressing interest in the Commodores' strength coaching job in 2013. There wasn't an opportunity at that time, so Macias worked in the Cubs' front office for a few months before becoming Vanderbilt's strength coach in 2014. He spent several years as a minor league manager before returning to the Commodores as a volunteer assistant from 2018 to 2021.
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A reputation in the game
The winter meetings provided an example of just how well-regarded Vanderbilt is in the industry. Cincinnati Reds manager David Bell, whose hitting coach is former Commodores shortstop Joel McKeithan, has consulted with Corbin for advice on how his team practices.
"(We spoke about) making practice a little more dynamic," Bell said. "I personally felt like it was getting a little bit stale. . . . So I think in college, they did a good job of making it a little bit more challenging."
Giants manager Bob Melvin worked with Macias and Flaherty when he was the Padres' manager. Sonny Gray and Tony Kemp were on the Oakland Athletics when Melvin was the manager there.
"All those guys' experiences they had in school kind of brings them closer together," Melvin said. "It's a big-time place and they're all proud of that going there. I think it helped David more than anything to have (Flaherty). . . .
"(Corbin) is fantastic in that he resonates with all the players that come out there. I got an opportunity to meet him last year, he was at the ballpark in San Diego for a day so when you look at college programs, that's one right at the top."
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A point of pride
Corbin keeps in touch with his former players. He takes pride in the number of program alumni who are working at the professional levels of the game for a few reasons. Like most coaches, Corbin tries to develop his players not just for their baseball careers but for what comes after that. But the number of former players who have stayed in the game is also an indicator of the lasting impact of his program.
"The takeaway for me personally is we helped stimulate their emotion for the game of baseball," Corbin told The Tennessean. "We didn't take it away. . . . If you're part of a program that feels special to you, and you are emotional about it, then you do look for ways in your life to recreate that feeling."
Hawkins is a good example. He saw just 63 at-bats in four years, but while in a real estate internship after graduation, he realized he wanted to work somewhere that could replicate the feeling of playing baseball. He began as a scout, then worked his way up to assistant GM with the Cleveland Guardians before taking his current position with the Cubs in 2022.
"(Vanderbilt) prepared me in a lot of different ways," Hawkins said. " . . . Being a teammate, sacrifice, setting goals. Finding routines, all the things that really made it seem like winning teams. We had to learn that to get along with people from different backgrounds and perspectives, something I didn't get a ton of growing up. . . . It 100% was the best audition I could have had, why I'm so passionate about the experience."
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why Tim Corbin, Vanderbilt baseball have produced so many MLB coaches
