Jason Esposito looks on from the dugout | Vanderbilt Athletics

NASHVILLE — When Tommy Goodin stepped in as a pinch hitter with two outs in the bottom of the ninth on Sunday, the weight of a potential sweep of Tennessee rested on his shoulders. Goodin, who had watched the entire weekend from the bench, felt the moment pressing in until first-year hitting coach Jason Esposito’s voice rose above the noise of Hawkins Field.

Esposito, stationed on the dugout steps with his ever-present iPad, called time. The brief delay was not about mechanics or matchups; it was about approach — the single word that has come to define Vanderbilt’s offense since Esposito arrived from the Cleveland Guardians organization last fall.

“Hey, what are you thinking up there?” Esposito asked. Goodin outlined his plan: lay off the changeup away, sit on the low fastball. Esposito nodded. “Alright, let’s go do it.”

Goodin took the first pitch, a changeup off the plate. When Krenzel came back with the low fastball, Goodin was ready, launching it over the left-center fence for a walk-off home run that sealed a 6-3 weekend advantage in homers over the Volunteers and kept Vanderbilt second in the nation with 62 long balls through 21 games.

The at-bat was the latest example of Esposito’s in-game tutelage. He had stopped play earlier in the inning to deliver the same message to Mack Whitcomb, who responded with a pinch-hit RBI single. Those interventions have become routine; Esposito has paused hitters throughout the season to reinforce discipline, intent and a data-refined “go-zone” mentality — the specific areas of the strike zone each batter should target against a given pitcher.

Goodin, now homering in nearly 15 percent of his 48 at-bats, credits the new process for his surge. “I used to be a ‘see ball, hit ball’ guy,” he said minutes after rounding the bases. “Now I have more of a process and understand what I’m looking for.”

The transformation stretches beyond one swing. Of Vanderbilt’s 62 home runs, 49 have been hit by returning players from a 2025 roster that finished near the SEC cellar in every power category. Braden Holcomb (11) and Brodie Johnston (8) lead the holdovers, but the common denominator is Esposito’s synthesis of analytics — bat-speed metrics, attack-angle breakdowns, pitcher-tendency clips — into simple, executable plans.

“We’re just kind of using objective means to help players grow,” Esposito said in the fall. “The data is coming from ‘hey, this is what leads to run scoring,’ and we’re trying to simplify that as much as possible.”

The result is an offense whose volatility has been replaced by explosiveness, raising Vanderbilt’s ceiling as postseason play approaches. And while players such as Goodin, Whitcomb and reliever Jakob Schulz delivered clutch performances all weekend, it was Esposito in the dugout, iPad in hand, steadying the moment that mattered most.

“He definitely has a go-zone mentality,” head coach Tim Corbin said. “The design, the plan and what we’re looking for as an offense — Jason has brought that to life.”

Vanderbilt, now 21 games into the 2026 campaign, will need that approach to hold as SEC competition intensifies. But with Esposito orchestrating from the dugout steps, the Commodores believe every hitter — starter or substitute — knows exactly what to do when his number is called.