This week, I caught the Friday night game between Kentucky and Arkansas and the Backyard Brawl between West Virginia and Pittsburgh at PNC Park on Tuesday. Both games offered looks at potential first-round picks in this year’s MLB Draft, including Hagen Smith, who could be the first pitcher off the board.
Hagen Smith continues to rack up the Ks
Smith has been a potential 2024 first-round pick dating back to his freshman year at Arkansas, and he’s gotten better in each of the past two seasons, peaking at just the right time this year, most notably with a 17-strikeout performance against Oregon State in Week 2. The lefty is a clear top-10 pick and could go in the top five, as he’s the top southpaw in the class with two 70s (on the 20-80 scouting scale) in his arsenal. I saw a strong performance from him on Friday night against Kentucky, but saw some very minor things that might cause me to grade him just slightly lower than you’d infer from the stuff and the stat line.
HAGEN SMITH 🤯
14 strikeouts tonight.
125 Ks on the year.Absolutely unreal stuff.@RazorbackBSB x #SECBSB pic.twitter.com/TdUtNiFqe8
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) May 4, 2024
Smith punched out 14 batters in six innings, giving up just one run, but it wasn’t quite as dominant as the stat line implies — certainly not as dominant as the historic start he made at Globe Life Field in February, which established him as a top-10 pick. Smith came out very strongly on Friday, sitting 95-96 mph in the first three innings with an easy plus slider and an above-average changeup, preferring the slider even in typical changeup counts to right-handers. However, during his second and third times through the Kentucky lineup, he started to labor and his difficulty getting to his glove side started to show.
He works from the extreme first-base side of the rubber, so while he’s on-line to the plate from that point, the only pitch he can reliably locate inside to righties is the slider, which he usually goes to as a chase pitch aimed at the batter’s back foot if he pitches in. His pitches all lost a little velocity in his last three innings; he didn’t throw a fastball under 95 in the first two frames, then was down as low as 92 in the sixth, with similar drops in his changeup and slider. His delivery started to break down a little, as he wasn’t finishing out front on every pitch in those later innings, almost flinging it more and seeing the ball sail more to his arm side, although he did finish on enough pitches to get out of trouble.
GO DEEPER
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Smith takes a huge stride towards the plate in his delivery, coming off the rubber quickly, with very rapid acceleration once he gets his arm started, although his back elbow gets a little high and he pronates late relative to that front landing. Between that and the low three-quarters arm slot, Smith’s delivery and stuff have earned him some comparisons to Chris Sale as a rookie, when the White Sox tweaked his hand position to give him the wipeout slider that became his out pitch. Smith’s slider isn’t quite that good, but it’s a clear out-pitch with tilt and some sharp downward break when he lands it, and he has good enough arm speed on the changeup to keep some right-handers off the fastball.
He’s clearly the top lefty in the draft, college or high school, and could be the only left-handed pitcher taken in the top 20. The real debate is whether he is the first college pitcher taken or whether it’s Wake Forest right-hander Chase Burns. I’d prefer Burns, as he has never had a major arm injury while Smith had Tommy John surgery when he was 16. Burns has shown better command this year, but there’s an argument that Smith has a better track record of throwing strikes and he has the advantage of being left-handed. I’d be surprised if either of them was still on the board after the Angels pick at eighth…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .