FAYETTEVILLE — It has been nearly eight months since the MLB Draft plucked away Arkansas’ top pitchers from its national runner-up staff and just how the Razorbacks will fill those holes is starting to come into focus.
With starters Blaine Knight and Kacey Murphy, relievers Barrett Loseke and Jake Reindl, and a few others beginning their professional careers or moving on, Arkansas must replace close to two-thirds of its innings pitched from last season.
Isaiah Campbell has been expected to take on the role of staff ace, but who will start after him has been a mystery. Now with about six weeks of individual workouts and bullpen sessions, though, head coach Dave Van Horn has a better idea of what the rotation will look like.
Although he said he could list four or five potential starters behind Campbell, Van Horn specifically mentioned that Kole Ramage has “looked really good” and Patrick Wicklander’s “bullpens have been outstanding.”
Of those two pitchers, only Ramage - a right-hander - has pitched at the collegiate level. His 21 appearances as a true freshman included two starts and he posted a 4.00 ERA with 50 strikeouts and 16 walks in 36 innings.
Wicklander comes to Arkansas as a highly-touted freshman from California. Perfect Game ranked him as the No. 267 overall player and No. 30 left-handed pitcher in the country.
All three of the projected starters are expected to pitch in the Razorbacks’ intrasquad scrimmages over the weekend. They had planned for their first scrimmage to be Friday, but cold weather and snow flurries led them to push them back to Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Van Horn said they will also scrimmage the following two weekends, with the pitchers throwing on the days they’d pitch in a regular-season series in order to get them on track and into a route before opening weekend against Eastern Illinois on Feb. 15-17.
That will give new pitching coach Matt Hobbs ample opportunity to continue to get a feel for his pitching staff and vice versa. They are meshing well so far, Van Horn said, even though he has a slightly more serious personality than Wes Johnson, who became the Minnesota Twins’ pitching coach in November.
“I think the mesh has been good because it’s a lot of the same philosophy that Coach Johnson had with analytics and different things and the way he evaluates pitchers and how to develop hitters,” Van Horn said. “That’s one reason I wanted to get Coach Hobbs here.”
Hobbs will be tasked with tapping into Campbell potential and molding him into an SEC Friday night starter. The hard-throwing right-hander was eligible for the 2018 MLB Draft as a redshirt sophomore, but fell to the 24th round because of signability concerns.
After missing the 2017 season with an elbow injury that required surgery, Campbell had an up-and-down year as the Razorbacks’ third starter last season. He went 5-7 with a 4.26 ERA and 75 strikeouts in 69 2/3 innings, but those numbers are somewhat misleading.
In several of his starts, Campbell would look really good for three or four innings before falling apart. He threw more than five innings just three times - highlighted by eight innings of three-hit ball against Kentucky’s dangerous lineup - and averaged less than four innings per start.
Getting deeper into games has been his focus since the Game 3 loss to Oregon State in the College World Series finals and he’s taken advantage of a full, healthy offseason.
“I feel my stamina has gotten a lot better,” Campbell said. “I put on some muscle and some extra weight that I didn’t have last year and I think it’s helped a lot with recovery and just being able to keep my velocity and my stuff longer in the game than I did last year.”
Another pitcher who could compete for a spot in the weekend rotation is fourth-year player Kevin Kopps. He flashed some potential as a redshirt freshman in 2017 (3.31 ERA in 49 IP), but missed all of last season with an injury.
Now 15 months removed from Tommy John surgery, Van Horn liked what he saw out of him in the fall. What role he ends up having likely depends on quickly he can build up his stamina.
“He had some good bullpen sessions when you’re kind of going, ‘Wow,’” Van Horn said. “Don’t know exactly where he’s at as far as building that pitch count up, if he’s going to be ready for that first weekend we play in February, but that could happen as the season goes on.”
Although the idea was kicked around, Arkansas has decided to keep closer Matt Cronin at the back end of the bullpen instead of trying him as a starter - which Van Horn said he would leave to the pros “when they have time to experiment.”
The day after setting the UA single-season saves record with 14, Cronin was on the mound for a five-out save opportunity against Oregon State, but blew the chance as the Beavers forced a third and deciding game in Omaha. Van Horn said he hopes to not have to put him in those kind of situations this year because he can be dominant when not stretched out so much.
“If you throw him once on the weekend and you use him two (innings), that may be it,” Van Horn said. “If we’re only throwing him one (inning), we could probably throw him another inning or a big hitter or two.”
Outside of the previously mentioned pitchers and with sophomore Caleb Bolden undergoing Tommy John surgery in December, the Razorbacks have only four other pitchers with a combined 57 career innings at the Division I level: junior Jacob Kostyshock (19 1/3 IP), redshirt junior Cody Scroggins (18 IP), redshirt sophomore Angus Denton (10 1/3 IP) and sophomore Zebulon Vermillion (9 1/3 IP).
They also have 10 freshmen in addition to Wicklander and a junior college signee - Collin Taylor - on the roster, so there’s a good chance a few of them will emerge as contributors.
“We’ve got some young guys who don’t have any experience, but I think once they get out there, they are going to be really good,” Campbell said. “We’ve got some freshmen and some upperclassmen who haven’t had the chance that I think are going to help us a lot, as well, this year.”
Vermillion is probably the most intriguing of the four returning players with minimal experience. The Razorbacks rested him in the fall because he returned from a “tremendous” summer in the Florida League with a sore shoulder, but he is throwing 94-95 miles per hour and has been working on pitching out of a windup with Hobbs, Van Horn said. He could evolve into a starter, but could also be a middle reliever, close or situational spot reliever.
Another player who had a strong summer and whose role is still up in the air is Kostyshock. After pitching well in the Northwoods League, he landed on D1Baseball’s list of the top 150 MLB Draft prospects for 2019. Putting on weight and consistency on the mound have held him back in the past, but Kostyshock managed to gain seven or eight pounds over the break thanks to his mom’s cooking and he’s been throwing strikes with improved velocity since returning to campus. He is likely a candidate to be a midweek starter for Arkansas.
Although Wicklander may begin the season as a weekend starter, most fans will be paying attention to another freshman - Connor Noland. The two-sport athlete has already impressed Hobbs and will have to balance baseball and football practices this spring, but Van Horn already sees him as a major contributor because of the command his shown in bullpen sessions.
Following the opening weekend series against Eastern Illinois, the Razorbacks head west for a Thursday-Saturday series at USC. After that, Arkansas adds one or two midweek games each week leading up to the SEC opener against Missouri on March 15, so there are plenty of opportunities for Van Horn and Hobbs to figure out exactly how they want to set up their rotation and bullpen.
“We just need to make sure we have it fairly squared away by the time we play Missouri,” Van Horn said. “We feel great about our bullpen, but we’re stretching some of those guys out. Someone’s going to end up starting that maybe came out of the pen last year and it’ll be fine.”
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