Locked On Razorbacks - Daily Podcast On Arkansas Razorbacks Football & Basketball

Hagen Smith Shines In His MLB Debut

How did former Razorback great Hagen Smith do in his official MLB Debut?

Which Hogs will be knocking on the door for the pros here soon?

BAUMBASTIC EDITION

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Broadcast on:: 27 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: other

It's the lockdown podcast network, your team every day. Every summer I find myself spending way more money than I need to going out and eating and I finally put a stop to it. Thanks our friends at home chef who have helped me save time and money with over 30 options every week. Chef design recipes, fresh ingredients delivered directly to my door for limited time. Home Chef is offering our listeners 18 free meals plus free dessert for life and of course free shipping on your first box. Go to homechef.com/lockedon for 18 free meals and free dessert for life must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. Bada, Bada Boom, sold. Just sold my car on Carvana, dropping it off and getting paid today. Already? What? You still haven't sold yours? You told me about it months ago. I just... Is the offer good? Oh, the offer is great. Another car yet? I could trade it in for this car I love. Come on. What are we waiting for? Ah, you're right. Let's go. Whether you're looking to sell your car right now or just whenever feels right, go to Carvana.com and sell your car the convenient way. Terms and conditions apply. Well razorback fans, football season is finally upon us and fall baseball is just around the corner. So we'll get our first look at what the current diamond hogs are going to look like. And as for right now, there's a lot of former diamond hogs who are making their waves at various pro ball levels all the way from rookie ball to the MLB. We're going to take a look at some of these that you might not have heard about on today's edition of the Locked On Razorbacks Podcast. Guys, you're not going to believe this, but it has come to my attention that Hagan Smith is still very good at baseball in particular, throwing a baseball. It doesn't matter what level of baseball this dude's at, he's always going to be shoving. He's always going to get swings and misses, get ridiculous whiffs on his slider. That's exactly what he did on Saturday night. Arkansas's ace from last year, he made his pro debut on Saturday for the Winston Salem dash, which is the high affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. So of course, drafted Smith, number five overall in this past summer's MLB draft. And like I said, many Razorback fans who watched him pitch won't be surprised by this, but he was nasty. As always, he only went three innings. He threw 38 pitches, 26 of which were strikes, he had four strikeouts, gave up two hits in the third inning, but immediately worked around it. I didn't walk anybody though. We did hit a guy, and thankfully, MILB.com or whatever the streaming site is, they were able to send a link available for everyone. So a lot of fans were able to watch. I also tweeted out a clip from it, you know, the first inning of his action there. It was really good stuff, man. It was, it was Hagan Smith that you would expect. I mean, he's just throwing that fastball up in the zone, getting swings and misses with the slider. It's been mixing in a little bit of a change up lately, and it really got me thinking how quickly could we see Hagan Smith pitching in the big leagues? Frankly, I think this dude could get any left handed hitter in the, in the world out right now. That includes show. Hey, Tony, obviously he would give up, you know, more hits, more runs, whatever against MLB competition. But I truly believe that if you put Hagan Smith in a big league bullpen right now, he would be a valuable piece that could help some teams out, could get some dudes out. And now obviously for his development, it seems like the Chicago White Sox are going to take their time with him. They have the worst record in the MLB right now. So definitely not in a hurry to test him and see what he's really made of just now. But man, when I watch him pitch, I really think that they're going to be tempted over these next, you know, nine to 12 months or however long it is to get him up there and get him facing big league hitters because I really think he's that special and he's that good right now today. Obviously, he'll be a lot better in a year or two or three years down the line. And you know, they of course want to make him a starter and so they want to let him get his seasoning, get his reps out there. I mean, you just look around the country, you look around the league, Dylan Cruz just made his debut. He was playing at LSU just last season. He made his debut for the Washington Nationals the other day. Paul Skeens literally started the MLB All-Star game this past year after pitching at LSU in 2023. I'm not saying necessarily, Oh, hey, and Smith's definitely going to be as good as those guys are. Yeah, you just throw him in the big leagues right now and he'll be mowing guys down. But now a day is with the way that the SEC develops these guys and keeps these dudes ready for pro ball and really prepares people for the next level. I honestly don't think it's crazy to think that we could be seeing Hagan Smith pitch against Big League hitters. Maybe at the end of next year, maybe early 2025, 2026, whatever the case may be, man, looking at his debut and just the way he pitched in Ohio, he's not necessarily, you know, big league competition. But I would say high is, you know, it's certainly not anything to scoff at. I mean, there's a lot of Razorback players that we'll get into a little bit later who are currently in high right now and kind of going through their ups and downs. And so I think, you know, him being that dominant, you know, I know it's just one outing. It's just three innings, but I don't see it changing too much anytime soon. I feel like it's going to be a while before Hagan really starts making, having to make those adjustments and really face guys who were prepared for the level of talent that he has and that he presents on the mound. And I just think about, you know, guys like Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter, who were, you know, big names in college baseball over the last few years, I know Jack Leiter is about to make his debut for the Rangers and Kumar Rocker's had a ton of injuries, ton of setbacks and, you know, had his time on and off the mound, but he's now up in AAA and he's shoving. Looks like he could be making his debut by the end of the year, at least early next year. And so I really don't think it's crazy to think that we could be watching. Like I said, we could be watching Hagan Smith pitching the big leagues sooner than you might think. And I think it really speaks to one, the development of Arkansas and Mad Hobbes because they deserve a ton of credit. I mean, if you look at Hagan Smith when he was a freshman, the talent was always there. We always knew this kid was going to be really good, but he had to, he had to season a little bit. He had to develop and what he's been able to, you know, do in his career and the jumps he's made from a freshman to a junior and now all the way into pro ball. It's really remarkable. And I think it also speaks to just how highly competitive SEC baseball has become. And I don't think it's going to change. I mean, with NIL, I think you're going to see more of these top prospects like a Hagan Smith, like a Peyton Stovall, who we'll talk about a little bit later, you're going to see these guys starting to flock to SEC baseball. And so I think the gap between the competition you're facing and the SEC and the competition you're facing in pro ball, it's getting smaller and smaller by the day. And of course, there's still classifications in minor league baseball for a reason for those that aren't familiar. I mean, you know, you have your rookie ball, your low A, your high A, you go on to double A where the Northwest Arkansas Naturals have a team, triple A, and then on an MLB. And those steps still exist for a reason. And we're still going to see a lot of these guys, you know, like Hagan Smith, go through those steps and make his way up. But I think back to Andrew Bennett's, he made his debut back in 20, I guess 16 is when this would have been, he jumped straight from double A and it was only a year after he was at Arkansas. And so nowadays, it's kind of come full circle where back in the day you were like 19 making your debut fresh out of high school, it didn't really matter. There was a stretch there where it felt like they really kept these dudes in pro ball for a while, really let them season up in there for a while. And that's still the case for a lot of guys and every prospect is different. But it's, it's really exciting to be a baseball fan nowadays because that's really what makes it fun when you're watching, you know, a college football game on a Saturday and you're thinking, man, I'm a fan of so and so NFL team. I'd really like to see my team draft this guy. We could use him right now. We could use this Marvin Harrison, junior wide receiver on our team right now. You're really not able to think like that as a baseball fan. But nowadays with the way SEC baseball is kind of evolving in the way that college baseball has become such a massive sport with, you know, next level talent all throughout, it's really going to be interesting to see over the next several years how this evolves and how quickly some of these guys start to make their way up towards the big leagues. I mean, I just mentioned Paul Skeens literally one of the best pitchers in the NLP right now from day one. And so again, I'm not trying to put too much on Hagan Smith and say, Oh yeah, he definitely, you know, needs to be pitching to the big leagues right now. And, you know, as I mentioned, the Chicago White Sox, not necessarily in a hurry because they're like 30 and a million and four is their record at the moment right now. And they've got a couple other former pro hogs and Dominic Fletcher and Andrew Bennett's any on their team in a little bit of a rebuilding phase. So they might slow the process a little bit, but it was really exciting to watch Hagan pitch the other night. And I mean, it just it looked like Hagan Smith. And so it's nice to see him get some of this experience. And there's not a ton of season left for the minor league level. So I imagine he's only going to have maybe a handful of outings left in his in his season. And this is after pitching however many innings he pitched at Arkansas means pitching every Friday night thrown around a hundred innings. So decent amount of workload might have to watch that, but it was a it was really exciting to see him, you know, get his feet wet and get out there and pro ball. I also wanted to read this hilarious tweet that I saw from a guy named the Welsh who was apparently a baseball prospect guy. So Hagan's been throwing for the White Sox in their development system, not in real games against, you know, like games that count towards his pro stats and all that. But he's been facing pro hitters in some of these rookie leagues and a little breakout camps. And this guy says Hagan Smith is one of the nastiest pitchers I've seen fastball 98. It must have an 80% whiff rate currently. His slider is tough. And then as I'm told right before this pitch, sure hope he starts throwing a change up. He drops this and it's a video of a nice change up that I mentioned that a little split change that Hagan's been working on. So it's really cool to see White Sox fans already kind of celebrating because they know they have something special in Hagan Smith and I'm sure they're just buzzing on the south side waiting for him to get up there. And it's really going to be cool to watch some of these bigger baseball outlets and bigger baseball journalists start to really find out what Arkansas fans have known all along, which is Hagan Smith is that dude. And guys, we're going to get into a few more of the Arkansas Razorbacks that are playing pro ball at the various levels. We're going to kind of go level by level and go through it, but we're going to do it after this quick break. Just stick around. Do you ever just feel like you're exhausted in the middle of a work day or maybe after lunch and you feel like you're just hitting that wall? Well, you're not alone. In fact, research shows that over 70% of us hit that wall throughout our day during the lunch period. 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Tacovis.com/lockedon sees sites for details. Tacovis, point your toes West. Yeah, there's a lot of Razorbacks out there in the pro ranks and it's honestly been really fun over these last, I don't know, however long, however many years I've been covering this Arkansas baseball team to not only watch the guys that Arkansas and see their development but then see them go out to Pro Ball and it's, you know, baseball is a unique situation where a lot of times like with Hagan, you see these guys that are playing for Arkansas in 2024 this spring and then they're making their pro debuts and so it's been really cool to see some of that. I should mention recently we got Peyton Stovall who has become a Daytona Tortuga in the Cincinnati Reds organization and he almost got to be a teammate of Hunter Holland who made his pro debut earlier this year. Holland who we've had on the Bombasic podcast, he's been a little bit banged up, has not been the ideal start to his pro career. I know he's itching to get back out there on the mound and we look forward to seeing him do that but Peyton Stovall in the Cincinnati Reds organization, he's played a few games so far. He's 4-14, which is a 286 average, so good for him, Ben McLaughlin, shout out to him. He has played 14 games at the low A level and tell me if this doesn't sound a little bit familiar like Ben McLaughlin, so he's hitting 256 which, you know, you look at it and you say, "Okay, nothing great, he's kind of slow start," but his OPS is over 808. It's because he's drawn 15 walks in 14 games, he's got more walks than strikeouts as you'd imagine. He's already hit his first career home run, he's got a couple of doubles, so it's been really cool to see Ben McLaughlin and Peyton Stovall kind of hit the ground running in their pro careers and obviously Hagen doing it up there at the high A level which is frankly a lot higher than most guys typically make their pro debuts but just going on. So in the MLB, we're going to go back up to the top and then we're going to kind of work our way down the system here but at the MLB level, I wanted to touch on a few guys and I believe there's eight Razorbacks who are at least on Big League rosters playing to varying extents. Jalen Beaks, if you remember that name, that's a blast from the past, he was Arkansas's ace I guess you could say in 2014 which is a Razorback team that had a really good pitching staff and Jalen Beaks, I can't remember what round it was, it was like 14 or 15, certainly was not expected to be like an MLB star by any means and I wouldn't say he's a star but he's now in his sixth pro season and I say pro season, his sixth Big League season, he's been in professional baseball since 2015 but he's worked his way up through the Big Leagues, he first made his debut back in 2018 with the Boston Red Sox and they got traded to Tampa Bay, they had a good little run there with the Rays, he is now yeah like I said in his sixth Big League season and he's had a sub one ERA since getting traded to the Pirates, so it's just good to see you know an in-state kid, a guy who's you know a nice left handed pitcher for Arkansas, he had that funky little throw in motion and I know he's another guy who always comes back to campus like during the offseason right before Arkansas was about to start their baseball season, a lot of these pro guys are also getting ready for their seasons, you can always see Jalen Beaks making the most of that performance facility that Arkansas has now in right field, they now have that little pro locker room for some of the guys to come back and allow Lockhart who will touch on here in a second, he's always there too but it's always cool to see Jalen Beaks and just be like oh that's a Big League here right there, so that's always cool, so good for Jalen Beaks and another left handed pitcher who Arkansas, I mean frankly has had a longer run in the Big Leagues and even I expected and I was a huge Drew Smiley guy growing up, Drew Smiley for the Chicago Cubs has had a lengthy career, I mean this is his 11th year in the Big Leagues which is nuts and he's also had some years where he's been banged up and he's had to fight through some injuries, he's had to fight bounce around from team to team, he is now working out of the bullpen, he's 35 years old Drew Smiley, it's crazy that he's still playing baseball and still been around this long, he was a starting pitcher for a long time with a bunch of different teams, the Cubs signed him a couple years ago to be a starter and now he's kind of made that shift to the bullpen, he's got a 2-8-4 ERA in 50 innings this year, so it looks like Drew Smiley still got some tread left on those tires still kicking in the Big Leagues, really fun to watch, I mean he's made a lot of money, I mean not a crazy like you know, Shohei Otani type of deal, it's been really cool to see him you know sticking around in the Big Leagues as long as he has, another guy at the Big League level that I want to touch on is Isaiah Campbell, who technically is actually playing in AAA right now, start of the year, he was actually the first guy out of the Red Sox bullpen this season at the Big League level, which is pretty cool, he got banged up like right away and he had a really good start to his MLB career last year playing for the Mariners who are you know rivals of my beloved Astros, who somehow don't have any prohogs throughout the entire system, it's kind of crazy, but yeah Isaiah Campbell had a really nice start to his MLB career last year, he was traded in the off season, now he's with the Red Sox, had a rough start of the season and then he had a long injury that kind of kept him out for a few months there, he's made his way back now and he's in AAA and he has a 2-2 ERA in 16 innings of the AAA level, but he's on the 40-man roster and for those that don't know, the 40-man roster, when September rolls around, teams are allowed to expand their roster a little bit from 27 to 40 and so they pretty much anyone who's in your system that you have in that top 40 is on your Big League roster for the rest of the year, so soon in the next few days, you'll get to see Isaiah Campbell right back in the Big Leagues with the Boston Red Sox and we'll see if he's able to kind of build on the momentum he had started to build last year, but going back down to the AAA level, I want to touch on a couple of guys who frankly, if you have not been keeping up and haven't really been checking these guys stats because you're not a weirdo like me, you probably would be a little bit surprised if I told you these guys were knocking on the door of the Big League level, I mentioned Lyle Lockhart earlier, the left-handed pitcher who transferred to Arkansas from Houston, he is currently in the Tigers system and he got traded, he was with the Dodgers, he got drafted by the Dodgers at Arkansas, he had been with him for the last few years and had a nice little run, got up to AA and was doing pretty well, he gets traded the Tigers about a year ago and since then it's kind of taking his game to another level, so this year overall, he's throwing over 100 innings, he's got exactly a 500 ERA, now I'll be honest with you, it was about 193 when he was in AA and then it's been up around in the sixth range at AAA, but again, Lyle Lockhart, a guy that you probably didn't expect to be knocking on the door of the Big Leagues, at least at this point in his career, he's kind of right on that cusp and we'll see if he's able to finish this year's strong and we'll see what his prospects look like going into next year, another AAA guy that I frankly, again, did not expect to make the progress he's made this quickly, shout out to Connor Nolan, the QB won the winningest quarterback in Arkansas football history at 1-0, he is having an awesome year right now, so he started the year in AA where he had a 250 ERA and 86 innings and that bumped up, he gets bumped up to AAA and just kept it going, he has a 270 ERA and 30 AAA innings this year, so he added all together, Connor Nolan has thrown 116 innings and he's got a 255 ERA and we're talking about the AA and AAA levels, which is certainly nothing to scoff at, I mean that's legitimately impressive stuff there, I mean for a guy that's a starting pitcher, doesn't have a ton of strikeouts, he's only got like 86 strikeouts in those innings, just throws a ton of strikes, consistent, reliable, I mean you just know what you're getting out of Connor Nolan, that's kind of how he was during his final year at Arkansas and that's how he's been now, it's been really cool to see Connor Nolan make his way up through the system and Jack's Biggers, now Jack's Biggers has been around for a while, he got drafted at Arkansas as a shortstop in 2018, he's been in the Rangers system for the last six plus years, just firing away, cranking away every single day, I mean I feel like I've been checking these minor league stats for a while now, every year I'm checking Jack's Biggers, I'm like oh he's still there in AA, oh there he is, oh now he's up in AAA, oh he's struggling a little bit, back down to AA, like he's had the full roller coaster of a pro career, but he's in the AAA level right now, he's got a 277 batting, or a hidden 277, I mean you know we'll see how it works out for him, with his defensive versatility, he's played some second base, played some shortstop, played third, played left field, played right field, I'm going to watch him play against the naturals a couple of years ago and he was starting in the right field which I thought was interesting, but shout out to Jack's Biggers man, that's a name you guys probably forgot about, but he had a really fun Arkansas career and was a part of some really good teams, I'll be honest with you, he's one I just frankly thought never would play in the big leagues or even really get as close as he's gotten now and there's been times over the last few years where I'm like, I really think Jack's Biggers, it might be time for him, but whatever, he's figured it out man and credits at him and it's been really cool to watch him and he's with the Rangers who again are a rival of my Astros, but I'll cheer for Jack's 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Tacovis crafts quality Western boots for everyone from generational ranchers and lifelong cowboys the first time boot buyers. Born in Texas in 2015 Tacovis makes it easy for anyone to find their perfect boot. Born of Tacovis' boots are handcrafted with over 200 meticulous steps for broken in comfort right out of the box. Whether it's a long day or a big night your Tacovis are built to last and impress. Ever wondered if you can pull off boots with your personal style? You owe it to your feet to pull on a pair of Tacovis. Right now get 10% off at Tacovis dot com slash locked on when you sign up for email and text. 10% off at T-E-C-O-V-A-S dot com slash locked on to kovis dot com slash locked on. See sites for details to kovis point your toes West. So moving on down to the double level which I guess before I do that I should mention Heston cursed dad who we've all been kind of cheering for maybe the best razorback hitter we've ever seen. He got up in the big leagues there for the Orioles for a while then went through a little bit of a dry spell and they sent him back down as they made room for some other guys. He's now been banged up. He's on the 10 day IL so we'll see if he's able to get back up there get back in action. He's of course on the 40 man roster so we will likely see him at the big league level here if he's able to return by the end of the year wishing for the best for Heston cursed dad. He was having a really really monster triple a year and was having a nice little little run on the MLB hitting 261 with some power so we'll see if he's able to get back up. Going down to double A though Christian Franklin you remember that name the center fielder from kind of that COVID era razorback teams he's having a really solid year in the Cubs system. He's hitting 268 with 764 OPS and he's stolen 34 bases which kind of jumped out to me. He's a pretty good base dealer at Arkansas but I don't know if I would have had him as a guy who's going to steal 30 40 bases a year at the professional level so really interesting to see his development how he's evolving a little bit only five home runs you probably would have expected a little more power out of Christian Franklin because that was something he did a lot of when he was at Arkansas but good to see him cooking I mean he's 24 years old he's played all three outfield spots for the Chicago Cubs or I say Chicago Cubs the South Bend Cubs I believe is their double A team so you know that defensive versatility the athleticism and the power potential that we all know is in there it's been cool to watch his development a little bit see him grow and Caden Wallace is a guy who is looks like he may be shut down for the year he's on the 60 day I'll he also got traded he wasn't Northwest Arkansas planned for the naturals I was hitting 282 there before he got banged up and then eventually got traded he is now in the nationals organization so we'll see if he's able to meet up with his boy Matt Cronin who is also at the double A level for the Nash nationals and so we'll see if we can see them kind of make their way up through the big leagues together but Caden Wallace is one that I would expect once he gets healthy and gets ready to roll I think he's going to make his way up through that system pretty quickly I think a year from now we could be talking about Caden Wallace is a potential making his debut we've got a few more recent razorbacks that I wanted to touch on before we get out of here Jase Borfen but if anyone knows me or has been following my work for the past few years they know I'm a huge Jase Borfen guy I loved him at Arkansas loved his potential was really happy to hey he had the junior year that he had the Borfen lorian if you will I had a little bit of a slow start to his season this year he had a really nice start to his pro career last year at the rookie level and low A ball was hitting like around 300 by the end of the year of that so he started off a little bit slow and high A which again a little bit more of an they they caught high A for a reason a little bit more of an advanced competition of course that's where Hagan Smith's that right now so you're facing that kind of competition but he's had a really nice run here and he was just recently named the Northwoods League player of the week for hitting three home runs last week that now gives him 12 home runs on the year hitting just under 250 which again may not blow anyone away but we're talking about a young guy he's still only 22 years old so look out for Jase Borfen he's going to be making his way up through the Toronto Blue Jays system pretty quickly and razorback fans will not be surprised when I tell you this Caleb Callie got off to a little bit of a slow start which razorback fans may remember that he had a little bit of a rough going in Arlington his first weekend as a razorback but like his razorback career he's starting to pick it up right now for the Everett Aquasox he's in high A in the Seattle Mariners system he's now up to 13 home runs on the year he's been on an absolute tear so he got his batting average at one point this year was like in the 160 165 170 range he's now worked it up he's hitting 212 he's got 13 home runs he's another one where I expect he's once that light bulb goes off get a little bit more development a little bit more seasoning he's going to be a guy that I'll be interested to see how far he's able to make it in the Mariner system I also want to give a quick shout out to Evan Taylor the left handed pitcher who had a really interesting Arkansas career kind of took him a while to work his way into the fold he did he eventually had a really good senior year for Arkansas was a big part of that 2022 team that went to Omaha he's in the Miami Marlins system for the Florida Marlins or the Miami Marlins Miami Marlins system he's got a 2 8 4 ERA with 52 strikeouts and 44 and a third innings pitch this year they're taking their time with Evan Taylor trying to work him up but he's been closing a lot of games for their I a team and so really nice to see that for him and I mentioned Hunter Holland earlier who we're really hoping is going to be able to get back get healthy we'll see if he's able to get back on the mound this season but if not we'll see if he can hit the ground run a next year in his first full pro season a few other ones that I didn't mention Tavy and Jozenberger and Jared Wagner both got call or Jozenberger recently got caught up a few weeks ago to the double a level and Wagner's been there all year he's had his ups and downs in the Yankees organization but think you know when you talk about Borfen Wagner and in Jozenberger really makes you realize how talented that 2023 Arkansas outfield was guys that's all we got for today hope I hope you enjoyed that nice little rundown of all the Arkansas baseball players who were or the former Arkansas baseball players who were crushing it their various pro levels let me know let me know what you guys think cuz I'm always keeping track of these guys and keep my eye on them and seeing who's doing what and stuff like that and there's plenty of names I know that people are going to comment oh why don't you talk about Jackson Wiggins oh why don't you talk about Robert Moore why don't you talk about Casey Martin whoever there are no shortage of these stories that we can talk about so if you guys like this we'll keep doing it and we'll keep providing the pro hog content but soon we're going to be out there in bomb stadium to watch some fall ball and I can't wait to come and bring you guys some actual takes actual analysis of this year's team because I'm really excited to see how this group comes together but for now that is all we got appreciate you for joining me on today's edition of the bombastic locked on a Razorbacks podcast have a great day a prime members you can listen to this locked on podcast add free on Amazon music download the Amazon music app today. 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