2024 MLB Draft Report: Hagen Smith puts on a show vs. Oregon State

Last week, I marveled at how well Chase Burns pitched in his debut for Wake Forest. A lot of the chatter the previous weekend was how Burns may not even be on the board for a team like the St. Louis Cardinals if the draft were today, and they pick two spots after the White Sox. The assumption it would be an early run on college bats turned iffy. 

A new pitcher in Arkansas, lefty Hagen Smith, has grabbed the spotlight. 

If you listened to the Sox Machine Podcast episode a few weeks back with our best friend, Jim Callis of MLB.com, when we spoke about the 2024 MLB Draft, I felt higher than most about Smith. For a league that’s always desperate for pitching, especially arms that can project to be starters, I felt that Smith was someone who wasn’t a consensus top-10 pick, but could put together an excellent season for the Razorbacks and find himself drafted higher than expected. 

But it wasn’t a great start to 2024. Smith only lasted one inning the week before against James Madison. Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn didn’t want to make excuses, but the weather didn’t help. It played a significant factor in Smith getting fully warmed up, and it showed having to throw 42 pitches to get three outs —a far cry from the type of outing Burns had against Illinois. 

Many eyes were on the tournament played at Globe Life Field, featuring a tournament with No. 4 Oregon State, No. 5 Arkansas, Oklahoma State, and Michigan. I was giddy about how Smith would bounce back against Travis Bazzana and the Beavers. If Smith struggled, we might get more insight into how Bazzana fares against left-handed pitching, which is valuable intel. If Smith was solid against a stout offense, then this draft class looks more appealing toward the top. 

Smith was better than solid. He demonstrated better stuff than Burns did on Opening Day and downright embarrassed Bazzana. On just 78 pitches, Smith struck out 17 batters over six scoreless innings, allowing three hits and only walking one batter.

When watching Smith, the pitcher comparison immediately comes to mind: San Francisco Giants LHP Robbie Ray. Both southpaws' feet are placed as far toward the first base as possible with a modified windup from the stretch. Ray and Smith do an excellent job of hiding the ball as they go through their throwing motion. Ray makes a dipping motion as he elevates his high kick, but Smith has opted for a short-arm three-quarters delivery. For opposing batters, it must look like Smith is using a slingshot to throw the baseball. 

The short arm delivery does not hinder Smith’s velocity with his four-seamer. This past Friday, using the Statcast technology at the ballpark, Smith hit a maximum velocity of 98 mph, and could sit at 96 MPH as the game got deeper. It's encouraging to Hagen maintain a 60-grade quality heater maintain well into outings.

But the pitch that confounded Oregon State was the slider. That was especially the case for Bazzana, who went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts. Not only does Smith get an excellent horizontal break off the pitch coming out of his arm slot, but he also commands it so well. I am still determining how a left-handed batter makes quality contact against this pitch. They could guess where the ball could land and swing toward a spot in the zone. That’s asking to look pretty foolish if the pitch isn’t close to that area, and many Beavers batters did look silly this past Friday night. 

As soon as Smith got ahead in the count 0-1 with an early fastball, it was slider after slider for the lefties. Smith has two additional pitches for right-handed hitters that he flashes, but he doesn't throw them consistently. I've been hearing about a splitter that Smith has added, but it's more like a split-changeup variation in which Smith aims for the outside corner to get back ahead against righties, or to induce a ground ball. He didn't need that splitter against Oregon State, and I saw a couple of curveballs to mess with batters' timing. I will need to see if those two pitches are used more later in the regular season, as I'm intrigued to see what else Smith can offer.

I'm confident in giving Smith a 60-grade four-seamer and 60-grade slider with at least 50-grade command. Those two pitches alone will allow Smith to put up big performances in 2024. As SEC play starts and more teams are familiar with Smith's tendencies, I hope we see more of the arsenal. Suppose Smith demonstrates an effective third pitch, whether the changeup or curveball; that's enough to give scouting departments pause in determining the best college pitcher in this class.

I'm excited that we are seeing quality pitching from top prospects early in this college baseball season. Considering Wake Forest and Arkansas's roster strengths, seeing the Burns vs. Smith matchup in the postseason would be a delight.

Bazzana bounces back after Arkansas game

It figures that as soon as Hagen Smith left the game, Travis Bazzana had some success at the plate. He singled in his final plate appearance against Arkansas, stole second base, and came home to score off Mason Guerra’s home run. Sure, there will be some pointed questions about Bazzana’s ability to hit quality left-handed pitching during the season. But again, I’m not sure many major league left-handers would have much success against Smith last Friday.

I don’t hold those three strikeouts against Bazzana, so he still had a great weekend. Facing pitchers not named Hagen Smith, Bazzana went 5-for-9 for the weekend and racked up his second multi-home run game against Oklahoma State. Bazzana has five homers and nine RBIs in the first eight games with a slash line of .438/.526/1.031. He’s looking every bit as a contender for both the Golden Spikes and Dick Howser awards. In just a couple of weeks, I feel like I’ve gotten to see the best and worst of Bazzana, and I come away thinking that it would be a great addition by the White Sox if he fell to Pick 5.

Notable Performances

• North Carolina OF Vance Honeycutt had a solid weekend against No. 13 East Carolina. Pirates RHP Trey Yesavage (No. 32 Sox Machine Top 100) gave Honeycutt fits with the slider, but he rebounded to hit the go-ahead home run to help North Carolina win Game 1 of the series.Honeycutt followed that up with another home run on Saturday, and before the midweek series, he has five homers and 12 RBIs with a slash line of .296/.441/.852 in the first seven games. What’s odd, and I’m not entirely sure if this is great, but Honeycutt only has eight hits on the season. That’s five home runs and three singles. It’s weird, but I’m sure the other types of extra-base hits will come. 

• Georgia’s Charlie Condon has 21 hits in his first eight games this season. That’s a crazy hot start for the Bulldogs slugger, who hit three home runs against Michigan State on Wednesday night. Condon has a video-game-on-easy-mode slash line of .650/.706/1.575.My only concern, and maybe that’s too strong of a word, is that Condon hasn’t faced quality pitching yet in 2024. He can mash upper 80 MPH fastballs and demolish weak breaking pitches, but I’m curious if the upcoming weekend series against Georgia Tech will give Condon more of a challenge. Nobody has so far in 2024. 

• Preseason No. 1 prospect JJ Wetherholt of West Virginia missed the weekend series due to a hamstring injury. We’ll learn more about the extent of Wetherholt’s early season injury, but in the opening weekend against Stetson, he went 4-for-13 with a double and had three stolen bases.
• Chase Burns hit 101 MPH on the gun in his start against Dayton, but the overall result was a step back from Opening Day. On 93 pitches, Burns posted a line of 5.1 IP 5 H 3 ER 4 BB 8 K with 1 HR allowed.
• Georgia Tech freshman outfielder Drew Burress already has nine home runs this season, largely thanks to hitting four against Georgia State on Tuesday.

Games I’m Watching This Weekend

• No. 21 Indiana vs. No. 15 Alabama - D1Baseball.com Stream - Friday, March 1 - 6:00 PM CT

Indiana OF Devin Taylor had a big freshman season for the Hoosiers, hitting 16 homers and 59 RBIs with a slash line of .315/.430/.650. He's off to a fast start with three homers and eight RBIs in the first seven games with a .552 batting average. 

For the 2024 MLB Draft, I'm watching to see how Indiana RHP Connor Foley and Alabama RHP Ben Hess pitch this weekend. Hess is the Sox Machine's No. 36 ranked prospect, and Alabama has put him on a pitch count early this season, limiting him to just four innings in each outing. Meanwhile, Foley hasn't allowed a run in his first two starts spanning 10 innings. His strong performance could bump him to the Top 100 on many prospect lists.

• No. 14 Texas vs. No. 2 LSU - YouTube - Friday, March 1 - 7:00 PM CT

LSU as a team is off to a good start despite early season struggles from 3B Tommy White and RHP Thatcher Hurd. White only has two extra-base hits in his first eight games, and Hurd hasn't gotten past the fifth inning in any of his starts. I'm watching to see what's happening with both first-round talents.

• No. 17 South Carolina vs. No. 11 Clemson - SEC Network

It's always a great series when South Carolina and Clemson get together. Tigers OF Will Taylor was highly regarded as a prep player but went to Clemson partly to play football, but now he's fully committed to baseball. He was off to an awful start in 2024, going 1-for-23 at the plate in his first six games. But on Tuesday against USC Upstate, Taylor hit three home runs. I'm watching to see if he catches fire against the Gamecocks.