New prospect left-hander Blake Larson says White Sox are getting “someone that’s funky”

Arkansas pitching coach Matt Hobbs was on the phone to talk about Hagen Smith, but with his season and his draft in the rearview, his mind was transitioning toward future projects and a target that had gotten away.

"That's a good pick," Hobbs said of White Sox competitive balance round pick Blake Larson, signed out of his college commitment to TCU for a cool $1.4 million.

Having helped Smith transform from a wiry swingman as a freshman to a jacked strikeout machine in few years time, Hobbs' interest in Larson was similar to that of the Sox; as a compelling collection of tools in a still-growing 18-year-old left-handed frame, but with plenty of development remaining.

"Now stuff, with a bunch of projection," said scouting director Mike Shirley.

Brian Bannister lauded the potential for leveraging "seam effects" on Larson's burgeoning mid-90s fastball and called his slider shape "a dead ringer for Chris Sale," but spent as much time talking about how much room there was to add strength, and the teenage lefty's cold-weather Iowa origins meant he was relatively inexperienced, theoretically with more room to improve than most.

For now, still buzzing off excitement from attending the White Sox's initial camp for recent draft selections at the team complex in Arizona, Larson sees things pretty similarly.

"We're going to be patient, we're going to take things slow, but we're also going to develop every day and get better," Larson said. "They're getting someone that's funky, hard for hitters to pick up."

Larson's pragmatic view of his development path already came into play a year ago, as he transferred from his hometown of Des Moines to the baseball factory that is IMG Academy in Florida, where fellow 2024 Sox draft pick Aaron Combs also pitched before attending Tennessee. IMG head coach Kason Gabbard said that while they accept a few senior year transfers per season, Larson wasn't on their radar until other players who had faced him on the showcase circuit vouched for his cause.

"That feels really good, seeing that I've drawn attention from other players," Larson said. "I want to play with a lot of energy and be remembered, so that excites me and I really appreciate it."

"They're a tremendous resource," Gabbard said of his players' scouting and recruiting work. "He didn't have a lot of innings in the two seasons prior to this, so we were a little wary on that, but he was healthy when he came down and threw his bullpen, and impressed everybody."

Upon arrival, Larson's self-taught slider and his velocity that eventually touched 95 mph stood out, and his low slot made him unhittable for left-handed batters in intrasquad games. But he would learn the current grip for his fledgling changeup while facing better hitters at IMG, searching for something he could throw for strikes without having to manipulate with his hand. And there were tweaks needed to successfully walk the tightrope of trying to preserve the funkiness of Larson's delivery, and making it consistent enough so that his deception would play.

"The couple big things we worked on mechanically was just him staying on line. Early on, he'd lose his front side and be working side-to-side, so it was hard to repeat his release point," Gabbard said. "We were good with the [big] leg kick. We didn't want to emphasize too much on that because it works for him. But the timing with his glove and his tap [at hand break] would get too big at times and then throw off his upper body when he was landing to make him spin off of it. We minimized his tap with his glove and it seemed to help big-time throughout the whole year."

"I feel like if I can keep some of that weirdness, but also be able to repeat it every time, that'll help me down the road," Larson said.

One look at Larson's gangly 6-foot-3 frame on video and imagine that it will all look and operate differently, 2-3 years in a professional conditioning program and 30-40 pounds from now. Rather than race toward the day where he's filled out and bulked up, Larson's training focus centers around core stability, building the strength to stay balanced all the way at the top of his big leg kick and reliably launch into the same positions in his delivery.

"In the weight room it's all about core stability, motor pelvic control. My delivery needs to get out some of the quirks and become a stronger, more repeatable delivery," said Larson, recalling how weight room gains keyed command improvements at IMG. "Sometimes I would fly open, my body would be out of whack. It all started in the weight room when we were doing split squats, we'd keep my front leg as strong as possible. That allowed my core to stay stable and that translates out onto the field."

Held out from pitching until he was nine years old because his youth coaches feared he would hurt the other kids, Larson grew up idolizing Sale, as well as Sale's own inspiration in Randy Johnson. Yet his arm slot was higher as a high school underclassmen, and he estimates that it dropped as he developed more rotational strength in his hips. Upon arrival at IMG, he found he was actually dropping down too low on his offspeed pitches, which was driven home by Rapsodo data that showed the pitches performed worse when he dropped down in an effort to manipulate them into more action.

Now, Larson already sounds like an acolyte of Bannister's oft-repeated emphasis on throwing the way that feels natural to him. He recently received 1.4 million sources of confirmation that what his natural arm slot does to his pitches is worth embracing.

"I'm getting a lot of run, I'm getting a lot of sink and it's just allowing me to throw the pitches how I want to throw them and I'm happy that people are seeing the upside of the arm slot," Larson said. "They haven't seen a slider come out of that slot and I feel like it tunnels really well from that slot with my fastball. It's going to get some hitters in trouble and I'm excited to look at the data on that and see how I can get better, see what I do well and get ready for the next level."

That will probably be some slow going for a while. The White Sox have made it clear they're not looking to de-load any of their young arms, but as Shirley noted on draft night, Larson is coming off his first year in Florida where he was throwing as early as January. The team plans to keep him at the complex in Arizona through the rest of the season and prepare him to pitch in instructional league.

"It's always been my dream to get drafted out of high school and go play professional baseball," Larson said. "I was talking to my agent [before the draft] and he said 'the White Sox like you,' and leading into the draft that day, about an hour before the draft he goes 'Hey man, there's a possibility the White Sox are in play today at pick 68.' So, I had an idea, and I really liked the White Sox and their track record with lefties and what they plan on doing. Happy I'm in the organization and I'm ready to get going."