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This is the 12th story in our series spotlighting members of Arkansas baseball's highly touted 2020 signing class, which is ranked third nationally by Perfect Game and Baseball America. Links to previous profiles can be found below.
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When he first stepped onto a mound four years ago, nothing about Matthew Magre screamed “future SEC signee” - especially as a pitcher.
Forced to pitch first for his summer team and then the freshman team at Fayetteville High out of sheer necessity because of a lack of arms, the left-hander’s fastball topped out at 72 miles per hour and it went “about as good as you could expect from somebody who’d never pitched before.”
Fast forward a few years, though, and Magre has evolved into one of the top pitchers in Northwest Arkansas with a fastball that touches 90 mph and earned a coveted offer from the Razorbacks - a lifelong dream for the Fayetteville native.
“Freshman year, it didn’t seem like that logical of a dream to have, even into sophomore year,” Magre said. “Whenever it did start happening, it was surreal. I had never really anticipated that actually happening. My development and hard work and everything just opened that door and whenever it was there, I was really happy.”
Magre committed to Arkansas last May, joining a loaded 2020 class that’s ranked third nationally by Perfect Game and one that features nine in-state prospects. In college baseball, that’s quite late in the recruiting process to make a decision, but it makes sense considering how far he came in such a short time.
After being thrust into action on the mound as a freshman, Magre started taking pitching lessons and began a weekly workout program, which led to his velocity ticking up. He got up to 82 mph that summer and then topped out at 86 during the fall of his sophomore year, sitting in the 84-86 range during the season.
At that point, the only school that had expressed much interest in him was St. Louis and they were excited about him as a hitter because he went 2 for 3 against Springdale Har-Ber’s Blake Adams, a future Arkansas pitcher.
All of his hard work on the mound culminated the summer between his sophomore and junior seasons, though, when he was invited to the PBR Futures Games in Indianapolis. Magre threw harder than ever before, touching 88 mph, and received some interest from a few Ivy League schools and Army, who were also intrigued by his solid ACT score.
“On the way home from Indianapolis, I looked at my dad and I said, ‘Am I going to end up being a PO (pitcher-only)?’” Magre recalled. “He just looked at me and said, ‘I don’t know. You did pretty good on the mound this week.’ That was kind of the initial reaction - I couldn’t really believe that it was happening.”
Shortly after getting back to Fayetteville, Magre’s travel team played in midweek team camp at Baum-Walker Stadium. He was still a little tired from Indianapolis, but he still threw an inning and got up to 86 mph, which was enough to earn an invite to an individual camp a month later.
Magre pitched well at that event and caught the attention of Wes Johnson, Arkansas’ pitching coach at the time. He let him know the Razorbacks were interested and planned to keep an eye on him during his junior season, which would be easy considering he played just down the road from the UA.
That spring, new pitching coach Matt Hobbs and hitting coach Nate Thompson each made it out to some of his games. He and Hobbs started talking on the phone and Hobbs eventually called him with an offer. Within a month, Magre was in head coach Dave Van Horn’s office to talk about his future.
Having also visited West Point and Yale, it came down to Arkansas and Columbia for the left-hander and he pulled the trigger for the Razorbacks on the eve of the Fayetteville Regional last year.
“I realized I could go to Columbia and get a really good education, but…a lot of people can say they got a good education somewhere,” said Magre, who scored a 34 on the ACT. “Not a lot of people can say they went to a place and were able to compete for a College World Series.”
With his commitment out of the way and becoming more and more comfortable on the mound, Magre was gearing up for a big senior season. After a tournament in Dallas, Fayetteville hosted Mountain Home for its home opener on March 12 and he got the start.
Conference play was only a few days away, so he knew it’d be a short outing and he turned it loose for two innings in front of a large crowd that included a lot of his friends seeing him pitch for the first time since signing with Arkansas.
Unfortunately, that game also proved to be senior night because the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancelation of the rest of the season.
“Last year, I felt like I started the transition from being somebody who goes up on the mound and throws to being a pitcher,” Magre said. “I started that in my junior season and then I think over the summer, I kind of refined that a little more and this spring was supposed to be the first time anybody had ever seen me really be a crafty pitcher on the mound capable of locating all of my pitches and really making it hard for people to hit whenever they get in the box against me.”
Fayetteville High was breaking in some new technology this year and they were still working out the kinks when the season ended, so Magre never got an updated reading on his velocity this spring. However, he knows he usually sits around the 88-89 mph range and that he topped out at 90 mph.
That’s a pretty drastic improvement from when he was throwing just 70-72 mph as a 170-pound freshman. Now 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, he’s hopeful he’ll experience another velocity jump at Arkansas.
“With the coaching from Coach Hobbs and all of the technology they’re talking about having in the new pitching lab in the new facility they’re building out in right field, I honestly couldn’t tell you what I think my velo is going to end up at,” Magre said. “They tend to really get numbers out of guys and that’s why I’m pretty excited to get up there and get to work and see what we can do.”
In addition to his two- and four-seam fastball, Magre also throws a changeup and curveball. With nothing else to do over the last few months, he’s been working on a split changeup and slider, as well.
The latter two of those pitches are still far from game ready, but he likes his other two off speed pitches in his arsenal.
“I feel pretty comfortable with my curveball and changeup,” Magre said. “I really like it when I throw the changeup because I get to throw it really hard and everybody thinks it’s a fastball, so I just like that little bit of deception that comes with it.”
Although he’s more than capable with a bat in his hands, with some of the smaller schools recruiting him as a two-way player, Magre admitted he wasn’t nearly athletic enough to pull that off in the SEC.
Luckily for the Razorbacks, he fell in love with pitching and said it wasn’t too hard of a decision to put the bat down in college and focus on the mound. It also probably didn’t hurt that doing so gave him an opportunity to play for his dream school.
“I committed because it’s just a great fit,” Magre said. “Growing up being a Hog fan and going to all the football and baseball games, it just felt like the fruition of all my hard work was finally there.”
Diamond Hogs 2020 HS Signee Spotlight Series
RHP Markevian "Tink" Hence - Watson Chapel (Ark.)
INF Jackson Cobb - Texarkana (Texas) Pleasant Grove
3B/OF Cayden Wallace - Greenbrier (Ark.)
LHP/OF Nick Griffin - Monticello (Ark.)
RHP Louis Stallone - Kings Park (N.Y.) St. Anthony's
INF Zac White - Little Rock (Ark.) Joe T. Robinson
OF Clayton Gray - Cabot (Ark.)
INF Michael Brooks - Wellington (Fla.) Palm Beach Central
INF/RHP Ethan Bates - Hot Springs (Ark.) Lakeside
RHP/OF Nate Wohlgemuth - Owasso (Okla.)
LHP Matthew Magre - Fayetteville (Ark.)
