Vanderbilt infielder Mike Mancini (5) celebrates after scoring a run during a NCAA baseball game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Vanderbilt Commodores at Lindsey Nelson Stadium on May 11, 2025. Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Predicting the Unpredictable: Gut Instincts, Pitching Strategies, and Upset Picks

Originally posted on Vanderbilt Commodores on SI
By Taylor Hodges | Last updated May 18, 2025 9:06 PM ET

To give you a “inside-baseball” tip, anyone who tells you they know what’ll happen this week in Hoover, Ala. at the SEC Tournament is lying to you.

Including this writer. At best, all we can do is try to predict what will most likely happen, but that’s not very entertaining. So, those us making predictions will try and add a twist to get your attention. Sometimes that comes in the form of a specific statistical metric or with someone admitting the most likely thing to happen is a “chalk” bracket.

ICYMI: 2025 SEC Baseball Tournament Bracket, Seeds and Schedule Set

But sometimes the best way to make tournament picks is just to go off your gut instinct. That’s what I’ve done and you can judge for yourself if I’m crazy or not:

Here are some notes and thoughts about this tournament prediction to help explain (or defend) myself:

First Round

Florida and Mississippi State are two of the SEC’s hottest teams, Oklahoma has been slumping and Kentucky nearly won two games against Vanderbilt. Missouri is, well…it is what it is.

Second Round

Now we get to the part where an interesting strategy comes to mind. Teams in the first round will use their ace pitcher. But what about the teams with a bye? Should they start their ace?

Or would, for example, Tennessee be better off saving the nation’s strikeout leader (Liam Doyle) and try to win with Marcus Phillips and its bullpen against Alabama (and should Alabama use that strategy against Missouri)? That would allow the Volunteers to send Doyle to the mound against Texas and make it very hard to pick against Tennessee.

So, that’s the scenario I went with in my predictions. (I told you there’s got to be an entertainment element to this.)

Quarterfinals

That same scenario could decide who the Volunteers play in the tournament’s semifinals.

Vanderbilt will face Georgia, Kentucky or Oklahoma in the quarterfinals and my prediction has it being Georgia. The Commodores have been great at the plate in the last couple of weeks, but they have struggled mightily against the SEC’s best pitchers. Does Georgia feel like its second-best pitcher (statistically, Leighton Finley) is good enough to win the Bulldogs’ first game and send its best pitcher (again, statistically, Brian Curley) to start against Vanderbilt? Maybe.

Vanderbilt won the game Curley started this season, but he did pitch six scoreless innings. Conversely, JD Thompson had one of his best games of the season against the Bulldogs (14 strikeouts). Georgia likely won’t follow this strategy, which works out great for Vanderbilt.

Semifinals

These last three picks are all gut feelings based on what’s already happened.

If Tennessee makes it this far and uses Doyle on Wednesday, he could possibly start on (barely) three days’ rest against the Commodores and that would be bad news for Vanderbilt. But, in my predictions, that’s not the case.

As for the other game, anytime my initial reaction is to pick against LSU, I usually end up wrong. So, my gut tells me to follow that logic and pick LSU to win.

Finals

This pick comes to entirely how Vanderbilt uses its pitchers in the previous two games. The Commodores have three SEC-proven starting pitchers. But the Commodores’ quarterfinal game will be on Thursday. Should they win that game, the semifinal game would be Saturday and the final on Sunday. Could Thompson start both Thursday and Sunday?

LSU may not have the same option available (nor will Arkansas if I’m wrong). LSU, to get to the finals, will have to win games Friday and Saturday, potentially leaving the Tigers with their third-best starting pitcher or a bullpen game to win the tournament.

I think, in my bracket, we’ll see Thompson start Sunday too. If Connor Fennell isn’t used Saturday, he could come in for relief. That’s two of Vanderbilt’s best pitchers right there, plus the rest of the Commodores’ pitching staff which can match LSU pitcher-for-pitcher.

And that’s how someone makes a tournament champion prediction they wouldn’t have made three weeks ago.