Tony Vitello: Tennessee will handle designated hitter spot 'day-by-day'

With a batting lineup as loaded as Tennessee’s, decisions can be pretty hard for Tony Vitello when it comes to selecting a designated hitter every time out.

The Volunteers have terrific hitters in droves, even off their bench, so balancing which players out to hit out of the DH spot vs. playing in the field or not playing at all that day can be a real challenge. But in college baseball, having too many solid batters is certainly a first-world problem.

After the Vols’ victory over Vanderbilt on Saturday, Vitello was asked about his ever-rotating DH spot and what goes into the decision-making process when it comes to slating a designated hitter in their various lineups.

“You know, the DH spot is one where we can be pretty — you know, we can adjust pretty quickly,” explained Vitello. “There’s a lot of guys that were ready to go and I find myself, as well as the other coaches, telling a variety of guys to be ready in case we want to send them up there; not just one guy.”

With that mindset at DH, the Tennessee coaching staff has options and can assess each game to decide which of their many capable bats can slide into the designated hitter role.

“And we’ll just go case by case, situation by situation,” he added before breaking down some of those decisions made this week.

“But (Cannon Peebles) is so good back there defensively, you know, you got to kind of judge how you want to handle him and (Charlie Taylor) behind Cal (Stark) as well. So we’ll see how it goes going forward.”

What’s a little tough for Tony Vitello is that all three of those guys he mentioned — Peebles, Stark and Taylor — all play the same position: catcher. And catcher can be one of the rare positions that doesn’t offer a ton of versatility the way that infielders and outfielders can be shuffled around a bit more.

In the Saturday game vs. Vanderbilt, it was Stark who played catcher while Peebles and another hitter, Reese Chapman, split at bats at the designated hitter spot. Stark came through with two hits, including a triple. Peebles was also able to get aboard with a hit in one of his two at bats while Chapman finished just 0-1 on the day.

When it comes to the catcher and DH positions, Tony Vitello certainly has his pick of the litter among a talented cast of guys.