How Tennessee baseball's 'misfit toys' became SEC's best defensive infield

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Blake Grimmer made it look natural.

The Tennessee baseball second baseman slid to a knee and scooped a two-hop liner on a backhand. He popped to his feet in a fluid move, tossing a strike to first base to retire East Carolina’s Jack Herring in the first inning Friday.

It was all so smooth and all so flawless for Grimmer, a revelation at second base and part of Tennessee’s defensive renaissance in the infield. 

“We call ourselves ‘The Misfit Toys,’ ” Vols assistant coach Ross Kivett said. “You are probably not drawing up this infield as your prototypical SEC infield.”

It’s not. But the cobbled-together bunch known as “The Infield Club” works — and it’s in the middle of Tennessee’s SEC-leading defense, forged through the work and willingness of a core group of players and a pair of coaches determined to build a top-tier infield.

How Blake Grimmer became Tennessee’s answer at second base

Someone floated the idea in a coaches’ meeting early in coach Josh Elander‘s first season.

Could Grimmer play second base? Director of recruiting Ricky Martinez thinks either Elander or associate head coach Chuck Jeroloman floated the idea. 

“That is where the cards fell at the time,” said Martinez, who works with the infielders. “If we want to try to get the most bang for our buck in the lineup, Grimmer has to go play second.”

Grimmer has bounced between first and second base based on if Levi Clark is catching or playing first. But second wasn’t even a thought for Grimmer entering the season. He was a first baseman, third baseman or left fielder. 

Grimmer emerged as an option because his bat demanded an everyday spot in the lineup and the Vols had a glaring need at second base. 

“If you hit, you don’t sit,” Kivett said. 

Martinez and Kivett got to work immediately with the redshirt sophomore as he was thrown into playing a new spot on the fly.

“He is a high-level baseball player,” Martinez said. “It’s not like we are trying to build him from scratch. He has good feel already. It is more about the intricacies.”

Grimmer was a highly ranked high school shortstop in Michigan. His familiarity with the middle infield gave him a starting place. Kivett noted Grimmer’s glove work already was in a good place as he learned second base with a “workaholic gene.”

He honed in on his footwork, especially at second base on double plays. He had to learn how to play the shifts involved at second base, which can often position Grimmer in shallow right field. 

Grimmer took on every opportunity he could to get reps. He showed up every Thursday for extra grounders to learn the new position. The Vols nicknamed Grimmer “sourdough” because “he is not our fastest mover,” Kivett explained. But he makes slick plays sliding into his backhand with comfort like he did Friday.

He has only four errors in 249 chances for a .984 fielding percentage.  

“I wish I could tell you there was some secret sauce and we put him a lab that made him catch the ball over at second,” Martinez said. “But a lot of it just comes down to the prep work he has done with coaches and his own work ethic.”

Manny Marin is Tennessee’s stability up the middle

Tennessee’s infield started to settle into place when Manny Marin made a choice that the shortstop position belonged to him.

He hasn’t given it up since early in the season and has only gotten better. 

“We were very hard on Manny,” Kivett said. “There is a standard to play shortstop here.”

Marin has met that standard and given Tennessee stability up the middle. He has four errors in 203 chances with a team-leading 126 assists.

“Manny as a mainstay at short,” Martinez said. “He has been lockdown on defense, which gives you a lot of confidence.”

Marin and Ariel Antigua battled for the starting spot throughout the fall with neither having a stronghold on it entering the season. But Marin declared himself the starter in February with his combination of hitting and fielding. 

The Vols demand consistency throwing and making all the expected plays at shortstop. Marin has done that, but he also has buckled down on fine-tuning his defense. Martinez likened Marin’s defensive improvement to making small adjustments to a Ferrari engine.

Martinez knows the expectations of a shortstop at Tennessee. He played it as well as anyone in recent memory in 2019. He has seen Marin get down to the “granular level” defensively, taking on feedback and believing he is capable of being even better than he already is.

“Once he started to truly buy in and see that we trust him and believe in and know that he can do it, he kind of took off,” Kivett said. 

Marin excels on backhands on slow rollers, but he’s smooth around second base on double plays. Martinez said Marin brings some of the “Latin flair” to the infield, which shows up in his smooth mannerisms. 

The sophomore has given Tennessee all it asks for defensively at shortstop — and he is a major reason why the puzzle came together.

“He has done a really good job of separating and an even better job of putting himself in that Gold Glove category,” Kivett said. 

Henry Ford has proven he can be a professional third baseman 

South Carolina’s Ethan Lizama chopped a high-bouncer into the ground at Hoover Met in the SEC Tournament.

Henry Ford charged in from third base and came around the bounding ball, picking the ball off a wicked short hop laden with top spin.

“That is one of the toughest plays a third baseman can make,” Kivett said. “He throws it away, but a good throw gets the guy by a step or two and it is probably something we put on our highlight reel.”

Tennessee signed Ford to be an outfielder, but as the roster settled it was outfield-heavy and light in the infield. Ford willingly accepted playing third base.

It wasn’t a pretty or smooth process early. He was rocky in the fall and had to relearn playing the position. It wasn’t pretty early in the season either. Ford had a two-error game against UCLA in Arlington, Texas, but the Vols believed in him.

Ford had to remake his footwork. He typically moved toward center field instead of positioning his body toward first base. UT showed Ford video of his movements and he adjusted. Playing third base relies heavily upon good footwork leading to good angles and good body positioning. 

“I have just been really proud of his glove work and the way he has really grinded out his feet leading his glove,” Kivett said. “We always say eat it with your feet. Go catch it with your feet. He does that.”

The Virginia transfer did ladder work and cone drills to improve his footwork. He improved his first-step quickness. He also accepted that he might miss a ball because he chose an angle to make an easier throw instead of the most direct angle to the ball. Ford also worked to find the best arm slot for his cross-diamond throws. 

Ford retreated slightly when East Carolina’s Grady Lenahan hit a soft one-hop liner Friday. He angled his body to reach out for the ball, spun to square his body to first base and fired to first for an out in the 12th inning. 

“That is my proud dad moment,” Kivett said of Ford’s defense. 

How Levi Clark’s catching skills make him an excellent first baseman

Ford’s throw to first didn’t quite make it there on the fly.

Clark didn’t mind. He strode toward the throw, got low and came up to pick the ball easily.

“He bails out all of them,” Kivett said.

Clark has split time between catcher and first base as a sophomore. It’s his work at the former that helps at the latter. 

Clark is a one-knee down catcher, which means he ends up picking the ball on pitches in the dirt more than he does blocking it in a traditional sense by dropping to two knees and smothering the pitch with your body. He takes that skill to first by bringing his confidence picking the ball to play low throws.

“It is all trusting your hands,” Kivett said. “He has got really good hand-eye and he has got really soft hands and he can pick through a lot of stuff.”

Clark and Grimmer work extensively at first base with Ethan Payne, who played at UT and now is on staff. Clark and Payne often work for so long on pick drills on Tuesdays that Kivett has taken to going on a lunch run and coming back.

Clark is good around the first-base bag with his feet but he also is comfortable being on an island on the right side of the infield when UT shifts three defenders to the left side of the infield. He has one error in 450 chances.

But so much of his success comes back to his skill as a catcher: He can pick it and makes everyone else look better by cleaning up throws. 

“He is not afraid to put his nose on it and be a hockey goalie,” Kivett said. 

Ariel Antigua, Jay Abernathy are essential 

Antigua entered in the eighth inning of all three game of Tennessee’s sweep at Mississippi State in April.

The junior infielder has been a late-inning ace as a defensive replacement as part of UT’s successes. 

“He goes in there at the hardest times,” Kivett said. “He has go in late in games when he has been sitting for six or seven innings and make a play.”

Antigua is Tennessee’s most elite defensive player, which leads to his usage as a defensive replacement. He has often played second base, bumping Grimmer to first base, at times. 

Jay Abernathy, who mostly has started in center field, also has been used at second base when Garrett Wright is in center field. Kivett lauded the sophomore as Tennessee’s best athlete. 

“He is just so tooled out,” Kivett said. “I like when he goes out there.”

Kivett feels that way about the whole infield as the Vols play in the NCAA Tournament. It’s not how anyone expected it to unfold in the fall or in the preseason. But players put in work with Kivett and Martinez, showing up for early work every Tuesday and Friday with consistency to create a group that went from second-to-last in the SEC in 2025 to be the best in the conference.

It worked and it is a major reason for Tennessee’s successes in Elander’s first season.

“It is awesome we can move so many different pieces in there and you know you are going to get a high level of play with any of them,” Martinez said. “That has allowed us to do pretty unique and cool things with the lineup.”