FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas baseball team opened its fall training season by conducting the first of 28 practices over a span of 45 days on Tuesday at Baum-Walker Stadium.
The Razorbacks, coming off a 44-16 season in which they claimed at least a share of the SEC West title for the fifth time in the past six years, reloaded both at pitcher and at the plate under 23rd-year Coach Dave Van Horn.
The fall season will likely be capped by a couple of scrimmages against Oklahoma State on Oct. 11-12.
By then, Van Horn said he hopes he and his staff will have a better grasp on a potential group of starters and the roles of a deep roster of pitchers.
“Before the smoke clears in the spring, just would like to have nine deep so that when you go through our lineup, you’re going to have to work for outs, and that’s what we’re really fighting for this fall,” Van Horn said in a video conference Tuesday.
Arkansas will carry 51 players in to the fall and must have its roster trimmed to 40 when the season starts next February.
“It’s kind of like the fall of ’21,” Van Horn said. “Got a lot of new players. … We just want to see what we have. It gives us a little bit more time in the offseason, in the 45-day window when that gets over in the middle of October, it gives us a little bit more time to make some adjustments, just get our roster right.
“We need to get our infield lined up, we need to figure out who’s going to play in that outfield. You know, it’s going to be a battle out there.”
In addition to returning senior Kendall Diggs, the Razorbacks added transfer outfielders in Justin Thomas, a former Georgia signee, Logan Maxwell (TCU), Charles Davalan (Florida Gulf Coast), Carson Boles (Lincoln Memorial), Rocco Peppi (Fresno State) and Kolton Reynolds (Crowder Community College) plus freshman Brenton Clark.
Diggs and shortstop Wehiwa Aloy are the only returning every-day players, while sophomores in catcher Ryder Helfrick and infielder Nolan Souza earned substantial playing time.
Kuhio Aloy, the younger brother of Wehiwa and a transfer from BYU, will get a look at first base and designated hitter; Vanderbilt transfer Cam Kozeal could be in the mix at second base; and Brent Iredale, an Australian from New Mexico Junior College, is an intriguing possibility on the infield along with third-year Reese Robinett, who had a huge summer.
Kuhio Aloy has been impressive in offseason workouts, Van Horn said.
“He’s got a little bit different body style than his older brother,” Van Horn said. “He’s thicker and really strong. If you go off of some of the metrics we’ve been keeping an eye on, I mean his exit velocity is the best on the team consistently right now. He hits it hard.”
The Razorbacks added veteran starters in right-hander Landon Beidelschies from Ohio State and lefty Zach Root from East Carolina through the transfer portal. They’ll join a stacked roster of arms, including prominent holdovers in Gabe Gaeckle, Christian Foutch, Gage Wood, Collin Fisher, Ben Bybee, Dylan Carter and others. With redshirt freshman left-hander Hunter Dietz coming back from injury and freshmen like Cole Gibler, Carson Wiggins and Lance Davis coming on board, there will be a lot of sorting on the pitching staff this fall.
“I appreciate those guys coming to Arkansas because they all had many, many options,” Van Horn said of the transfer newcomers in general. “There’s a lot involved when you’re talking about the transfer portal.”
Van Horn said pitching coach Matt Hobbs, considered at the forefront of Division I pitching gurus, played a key role in landing Beidelschies and Root.
“They came in here because they wanted to be a part of the Arkansas program, like I said, be with Coach Hobbs, and I think they just wanted to be on a team with a great pitching staff, and that’s what we foresee,” Van Horn said.
Root, who was 6-2 with a 3.56 ERA and 76 strikeouts in 68 1/3 innings last season, was widely pursued through the portal. He will be sporting No. 33 for the Hogs, a number that has gone to ace left-handers like Nick Schmidt, Drew Smyly and 2023 ace Hagen Smith.
“It is a left-handed pitchers number in my eyes and he’s left-handed,” Van Horn said. “Landon had already requested No. 35 and he got it. Then I talked to Zach about it and he kind of knew there had been some guys wearing that that were pretty good. I didn’t want to throw that on him if he didn’t want to handle it, but he was good with it.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-04 20:05:00
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