DII Report ™️: DII baseball player profile —Mackenzie Wainwright, Lenoir-Rhyne

Home runs, speed, and a team in the super regionals. Wainwright does it all.

(Lenoir-Rhyne Athletics)

We are headed to the DII baseball super regionals. While Brevin McCool was named player of the year by the NCBWA, Mackenzie Wainwright has his team inches away from Cary. Before we break down his phenomenal season, make sure you take a look at some other profiles I’ve put together.

Adam Paniagua | Brevin McCool | Mikey Scott | Jordan Williams | Andrews Opata

Mackenzie Wainwright by the numbers

Wainwright is no stranger to success in baseball, originally drafted by the Cincinnati Reds out of high school. Baseball was in his blood, as his father played a year of college baseball at Kent State. Looking to restart his baseball career and get back to the pros, Wainwright enrolled at Salem (WV) last year, and tore up the DII baseball world. He hit .449 with a 1.403 OPS with 16 home runs, 63 RBIs and 18 stolen bases. He hit the transfer portal and landed at Lenoir-Rhyne, where he has continued to light up opposing pitchers right through the Southeast regional tournament.

Wainwright 2025 (through 5/18)

Vitals: 6-foot-2; 230 pounds; outfielder; bats and throws righty; advanced skills both at the plate and in the field; bat speed is insanely quick and drives balls everywhere in the field

Stats: .427 batting average (top 20 in DII) * 1.376 OPS * 92 runs scored (leads DII) * 23 doubles (top 10 in DII) * 24 home runs (No. 4 in DII) * 74 RBI * 23 stolen bases * .871 slugging percentage (top 10 in DII) * 7 outfield assists

Mackenzie Wainwright in his own words

Wayne Cavadi: So can you take me back yo how you wound up at Salem?

Mackenzie Wainwright: One of my guys is really close friends with the coach and I took a visit there. I thought it was a good opportunity for me to get back in to play on the ball.

WC: What brought you to Lenoir-Rhyne?

MW: A couple of the guys I played against this summer [in the Coastal Plains League where he smacked 11 home runs in 41 games] are on my team now, and I enjoyed playing with them, so I wanted to keep playing.

WC: Last year, you hit .449. You had a 1.403 OPS, 12 doubles, 16 home runs, 63 RBIs and 18 stolen bases. Those are great numbers, but they're all less than this year's. What do you see as the big difference this year?

MW: You're seeing that I've been back in the game for a longer time now than I was before. Seeing more pitching and being able to play every day has been helpful. And then obviously, I have a really great coaching staff out here and a good team to push me.

So for me, it's just being in that cultured environment. And we have guys [at Lenoir-Rhyne] that all want to play at a high level and all want the team goal, which is to win a national championship. So, I feel like that betters me to play better because I feel like our team goes as I go sometimes, and I'm a big energy guy. So if I have good energy, if I'm playing well, I feel like the guys feed off that well.

WC: Salem is in a completely different region. What you did is you transferred to the Southeast Region, which is, in my opinion, the best in DII baseball. You've adapted very well. Talk a little bit about your conference and what it's like having to play basically a nationally ranked team every other weekend.

MW: It's as close as you can get to Division I. That was the whole point of me coming out here, was to be able to play against that competition consistently and trying to change those words around from ‘he did it because he was in an easy conference’ to now ‘he's just doing it because he's as good as he really is and not because of the conference that he was in.’ That was a big thing for me, to prove people wrong. I wanted to show people that I still could play at a very high level.

WC: At the plate also, you're very disciplined. You get more walks than you do strike out. Can we talk a little bit about your approach at the plate and how you go to how you face every pitcher?

MW: I just try to stick with whatever my approach is that day. So my approach could change depending on who I’m facing because obviously, every pitcher is different. Whatever that approach is at that moment, that's the approach that I trust, and I'm going to die by it because that's just the ball player I became as I've developed over the years of playing the game.

I have a good eye. I know what I'm looking for and what I'm not looking for. So confidence, almost more so than anything, is knowing that I can be one of the best if I just do what I'm doing and what I'm supposed to be doing. For me, that's just the biggest thing. My dad always told me, ‘Somebody's going to be the best, why not be you?’ And that's just what I've taken as a mindset this year. I want to be the best. I want to leave a mark on college ball.

WC: So you're already a 20/20 guy. When you look at yourself, they have so many ways of defining people. They are power hitters, they are speed guys, they are five tool players. Do you see yourself more as that all-around player, or do you like being known as a speed guy over a power guy? Is there a way you define yourself?

MW: I think I have some of the best power in the country, but I think I can also do it all. That's what makes what I do special to me. That ability to be able to hit for power and then go and hit doubles and then steal bases is going to raise my game to another level, which is going to make me more versatile and more of a threat. And I want to be as much of a threat as possible in every game I'm playing. And I always want to put a threat in the game to do something, to impact the game in a positive way.

WC: You said earlier that when you have high energy, everyone feeds off it, and you bat in that lead-off spot. And obviously, you're comfortable and you do a great job there. Do you ever have an itch to move a little bit lower in the order and get even more RBI chances and sometimes more pitches to hit?

MW: No, because at the end of the day, I'm helping my team where I am. Because if I don't get pitches to hit, I'm on base, which means somebody is going to get the RBI. If somebody else has the opportunity to do the work, I have another way to impact the game. Our coach always said, ‘just because you get walked or just because you get on base, your job is not done.’

There's always a job to do until you cross that home plate. You have to always stay locked in and always do what you're supposed to do. And if one person slacks off, then it could impact a big game and you can end up losing. That's a difference in one or two runs. And so for me, no, I don't wish I moved down. I get a lot of at bats, and I get on base a lot. It allows my team to feel less of pressure, and we can just go to work. I set the tone for the offense, and I think we all pretty much think that when I get on base, there's a good chance I'm going to score because somebody's going to put us in a motion to be able to get a run across.

I think we have a great lineup and a great set up and I wouldn't change anything. Honestly, I love where I'm at, and I have great hitters behind me, too. You can't just pitch around a hole on that lineup.

WC: Who's a player that you model your game after?

MW: I wouldn't say I model my game up to them. I'm so happy that I think I model my game off myself. I just have my own model. How I play a game — I feel like it's been like that since I was younger. I always had that mindset of I want to be my own player.

I want to play with the best, and I'm just going to do my thing. It took a long time for me to bring that fully into my game, but now I feel like it is. It's probably helping me more than it's ever done in the past because it's causing me to stay hungry and stay with a chip.

WC: What's next?

MW: Out of high school, my ultimate goal is to get back to play pro ball. I love the game very much. I never really got the opportunity to play pro ball yet, so I'm hungry for it. And that's been the goal.

Obviously, I'm trying to win a national championship here. That's my number one goal. I feel like we have a great opportunity to do that here. But at the end, yes, I would love to potentially get back into pro ball next year, if I can. I hope for that to happen with the right timing. If it doesn't happen this year, then go back to college and play another season.

WC: I know you were drafted by Cincinnati. You were born in Ohio, too, right? Was that a dream for you when that happened?

MW: It was a dream to get drafted by any team. I think the thing that made it special was being in Ohio. But I grew up a [Cleveland] Guardian fan. That was my original team. It was a dream come true to be able to play pro ball and get drafted by a team that was relatively close to my family.

I love having my family come. This is the first year my family actually hasn't really been able to come out a lot. But if I was playing in Cincinnati, they would be able to come up every weekend. I'm a big family guy when it comes to support. My family has supported me throughout my career. So being in Ohio would have been amazing for me.