Former Player Mike Baxter Hired as Hitting Coach/Recruiting Coordinator

In mid-June, following the release of former hitting coach/recruiting coordinator D.J. “Jazzy” Svihlik, I wrote a column in which I profiled some of the potential names who could soon be hired. At the time, it looked plausible a coaching hire would be announced soon after.

Nope. Amidst no fanfare, and literally two press release style articles on the team’s website and the Nashville Post, respectively, we have our answer: Mike Baxter - former Vanderbilt Commodore Outfielder and First Baseman; former Padre, Met, Dodger, and Cub OF and bench bat; and possibly Liz Lemon’s fake boyfriend, and/or the Tim Allen character your drunk Uncle never once watched, but suddenly had an opinion about after Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity told him to be outraged that his shitty show was cancelled by ABC (which may or may not be run by Bilderberg or the Lizard People, depending on just how drunk said Uncle is at the time).

Feel free to click the links in the previous paragraph to familiarize yourself with his stats as a player, but if you want the TL;DR version (and you shouldn’t... those articles are like 3 small paragraphs each, mostly containing the stats they could find on his Wikipedia page, you lazy bastards) here it is:

1. Baxter played parts of 6 seasons for four MLB teams (most recently with the 2015 Cubs), and longer parts of each of his 12 professional seasons in the minors (and yes, that list of teams does include the perfectly cromulent Albuquerque Isotopes). Baseball Reference pegs his career earnings north of $2 million, so don’t cry for the journeyman/fake astronaut boyfriend.
2. With Vanderbilt (in 2004 and 2005 after transferring from Columbia), Baxter had a monster ‘05 - batting .374 and winning the Jeff Peeples Most Valuable Teammate Award. Regrettably, Baxter finished just out of the running for the more coveted Mario Van Peebles Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Teammate Award, which went to, you guessed it, Ted Skuchas.
3. I am immensely proud of having written the previous sentence.

In more Vanderbilt Coaching News, David Macias, who roamed the outfield at Hawkins field from 2008-2011, served as strength coach on the 2014 National Championship team, and was a volunteer assistant on the 2015 team who came one game from repeating as champions, is back as a volunteer assistant.

I had previously identified Macias (and Anthony Gomez) as former players Corbs would be smart to bring back into the fold, and even dark horses for the hitting coach gig. In addition to his knowledge of baseball, David Macias just looks like a first base coach, and that can’t be taught.

You can go back to thinking about football now.