State of the Hogs

Arkansas baseball motivated for 2017 start

Arkansas' Carson Shaddy gets a lead from first base during a scrimmage Monday, Oct. 17, 2016, in Fayetteville.

— Over the last seven months, any time someone drove past Baum Stadium or the nearby indoor baseball facility, plenty of vehicles were parked outside.

Those lots didn’t look like they did in late September for Bikes Blues and BBQ, but it was obvious something was happening.

Arkansas baseball was trying to make a rebound.

The NCAA puts a limit on the hours allowed for organized baseball practices, but there is no limit on voluntary work. It’s clear that the 13 straight losses to finish the 2016 season has produced a lot of volunteering. The Hogs find out how all of that extra work has helped as they begin full practices Friday in advance of the season opener against Miami (Ohio) Feb. 17.

“We have not had to motivate anyone,” Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn said in the middle of January. “Our guys have worked hard and are ready to go. We have not had to tell them a thing.”

The Hogs went winless last May and finished last in the SEC. They finished 26-29 overall, 7-23 in the conference.

It was the first losing season for Van Horn, and also the first time in his 14 seasons that the Razorbacks missed the NCAA Regionals. Counting his last four years at Nebraska, he had taken a team to 17 straight Regionals and made six trips to the College World Series.

It’s clear that players and coaches took it personally. Tony Vitello, in his fourth year as Van Horn’s recruiting coordinator, knows what happened.

“We didn’t have enough options,” Vitello said. “We didn’t have depth. We were too thin. We didn’t have options as coaches. We didn’t have a true center fielder. We had no true third baseman. You can blame the draft, but in the end, you shoulder that responsibility as a recruiter. That’s my area. As the recruiting guy, we weren’t deep enough to withstand adversity.

“I know that the only time Coach Van Horn didn’t go to a Regional was last year and I was the recruiter. I feel that burden. I carry that with me.”

Actually, it was about the way the team was decimated by the draft over a two-year period. It wiped out a pitching staff that had been the nation’s best for the previous two years, then gobbled up some promising recruits.

Recruiting is done so far in advance, it’s not like Vitello recruited the bulk of the recent classes. Baseball players are committing between their sophomore and junior years of high school.

“It wasn’t Tony’s fault,” Van Horn said. “We had made some mistakes long before he got here. We took some we shouldn’t have taken, too, and they weren’t here long.”

And they did lose some to the draft that no one would have believed.

“We had a center fielder signed to replace Andrew Benintendi,” Vitello said. “I found out the day we got to Omaha that he was going to sign for $40,000. That’s almost nothing. His family didn’t need the money. He just decided that he didn’t want to go to school anymore.

“We didn’t see that coming. I didn’t believe it at first. I heard it from another junior college coach, pushing Jake Arledge. He called to tell me I have a player to replace the one you are losing. Who are we losing? And he was right.”

Van Horn didn’t want to go into all of the details in the collapse. He’s just glad that the Hogs are ready to turn the page for 2017.

“You can look up the numbers, but I thought in April we would get to a Regional,” he said. “What were we? I don’t even remember, but I wasn’t thinking (we would have a losing season).”

Yes, the Hogs were 26-16 before the wheels fell off. There were two crushing defeats that started to wobble the wheels. They blew a 9-1 lead at LSU before losing 10-9 in 10 innings. There was another blown lead to No. 2 Texas A&M. The Hogs were up 6-3 only to lose 11-8 in 11 innings.

Everyone around the 2017 Hogs thinks the wheels are rolling again. It’s a much deeper team, both on the mound and in the field. And all are motivated.

The Hogs are less than two years removed from playing in the College World Series, no doubt one of the reasons a losing season was so hard to fathom.

Carson Shaddy, a junior from Fayetteville, knows Arkansas baseball history and all of Van Horn’s Omaha trips. His father Chris and Van Horn comprised the terrific double play combination on the 1982 Hogs. Both were drafted. Shaddy was part of a core of returnees who stayed in Fayetteville for the summer.

“We are all bitter,” Shaddy said. “We are embarrassed. I feel like we embarrassed the state of Arkansas. I am an Arkansas boy, so I can say that. It’s been a long offseason. I’m ready to play.

“The older guys who went through it, we want to play like dogs. Don’t give into fear.”

The roster has been rebuilt, but not many outside the locker room know much about it. They are unranked, something that provides more motivation.

“We are ready to show people that’s not right,” Shaddy said. “We have a chip on our shoulders. I promise we have a different team and a different mentality this year.

“I figured we’d be picked near the bottom based off of last year. We had a bad season, but last? We will keep that in the back of our heads.

“Coach Van Horn has talked to us about that. He said he’s always liked it when someone picked us down. I know this: Arkansas doesn’t stay down long. We won’t be down this year.”

Vitello emphasized the lack of knowledge about the 2017 Razorbacks outside of Fayetteville. He took a call from a national writer just after the Christmas break. One of the bright prospects on the mound is sophomore Isaiah Campbell.

“I don’t think anyone knows what we’ve got,” Vitello said. “I received a call from a national baseball writer. He said, ‘That Elijah Campbell is pretty good, right?’ That’s the deal. They don’t even know our names yet.

“We’ve got a bunch of nobodies trying to become somebodies.”

No one will forget what happened last year, but Van Horn said it’s also good to highlight the positives of the program through the years.

“We’ve touched on those things, what we’ve done for around 15 years around here,” he said. “You do want to build some confidence that they can do those sort of things like we’ve done in the past. And we can.

“Again, we weren’t far away last year. We didn’t have enough firepower, but everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. I made some mistakes. I tried to push some of the same buttons I’d pushed in the past, but it didn’t happen last year.”

One of the big positives is Shaddy. His bat is a known quantity. He hit .337 as a redshirt freshman, second to Andrew Benintendi. He led the team at .332 last year, fading a bit at the end because of a sore arm.

It’s that arm that has always held him back. He’s healthy now after a fall fix to remove bone spurs and scar tissue from Tommy John surgery to his elbow after the 2015 season.

“I’m more healthy than I’ve ever been,” Shaddy said. “My arm is finally right.”

He learned second base in the fall, probably his position in pro baseball. He could also play the outfield or third base, the two positions he played last year. He’s also a reserve catcher, a position he played for the Hogs two years ago.

“I can throw or swing the bat with zero pain,” Shaddy said. “I’m 100 percent.”

Where Shaddy will play or bat is unclear.

“I promised him when he was thinking about coming back that I would teach him second base,” Van Horn said. “He pretty much has that. He may not be our best defensive second baseman, but he’s good.

“He could play a lot of different spots. So how others develop might determine how we use him. He really does have a lot of versatility. He could bat anywhere from second to fifth, sixth or seventh. That depends on how others come along and maybe what we want to do as far as right/left situations in the lineup. But it won’t matter to him. He can handle all of that.”

There is a leadership role, too. Shaddy was voted team captain along with senior pitcher Dominic Taccolini and sophomore catcher Grant Koch.

“We have good leaders,” Van Horn said. “We were going to have two, but there were three with about the same vote from the players.”

Vitello saw that leadership take control over the summer, especially with Luke Bonfield, Shaddy and Taccolini.

“I have a lot of respect for those three,” Vitello said. “All summer, it was all about getting Arkansas baseball better. I don’t think it was added pressure, just a matter of shouldering some responsibility for what happened.”

Along with leadership, there is fire to compete scattered throughout the team.

“We’ve got more depth and more options,” Vitello said. “but what this team has that I really like is the competitive nature all the way through the roster.

“Pound for pound, this is the best bunch of competitors I’ve been around. They want to get after you. They want to compete — against each other and against the other team.

“We have good competition for a lot of positions on the field. We have competition on the mound. I don’t think we know who is going to play first or third because it’s still a battle. We’ve got five or six outfielders fighting for the three spots and maybe the designated hitter spot.”

That’s why Van Horn said he isn’t ready to fill out a lineup card.

“We’ve got a lot of things to work out, but it’s a good situation in a lot of places because it’s good competition,” Van Horn said. “Some years, you knew who was going to play what.

“The options are there to do some platooning and we aren’t sure exactly all of the roles on the mound. But there is a lot of good pitching. We have good balance with some left-handers we lacked. That’s on the mound and with the bat.”

For example, Van Horn isn’t sure who will be weekend starters, although most assume sophomores Blaine Knight and Campbell will be in the mix.

“They are both competing to be that Friday night guy,” Van Horn said. “They like each other on and off the field, but they are competing and that’s good.”

Barrett Loseke, Josh Alberius, Keaton McKinney, Weston Rogers, Jordan Rodriguez, Kacey Murphy and Cannon Chadwick have experience on the mound. All have improved under new pitching coach Wes Johnson. Newcomers Trevor Stephan, Dylan Thompson, Evan Lee and Angus Denton have a chance to help.

“Wes has really trained our pitchers,” Van Horn said. “He uses sleds, weighted balls and our guys have taken to it. A lot of guys have made jumps in their velocity. You’ve got a group who got to pitch some last year and then some like Kevin Kopps, a redshirt who has gained about 20 pounds and is like a different pitcher.

“I know Taccolini is better, but he’s still got to prove himself. To have a good year, we need guys like Taccolini and McKinney to step up. But there is a lot of competition for guys like that to get on the mound, competition I’ve not seen in awhile.”

As far as the lineup, there are lots of options there, too. The competition is intense.

“We may be able to platoon, go defense for offense when we have a lead, those type of things,” Van Horn said. “Some of it has to play itself out. We need to see who is going to hit, but we think we can hit.

“It’s always interesting in the fall. Pitchers are worn out a little. They’ve pitched in the spring and summer and so when they come back, they are tired.

“But we thought the guys we had on the mound in the fall can pitch. There were days when we hit them pretty good. So you ask yourself, what do you have? But we think we can pitch and we can hit.”

There is experience in the heart of the lineup, led by Bonfield and Chad Spanberger, perhaps the corner outfielders. Shaddy hits streaks where he carries the offense.

Spanberger appears poised for a breakout season. The big, left-handed right fielder mashed the ball in the summer and again in the fall.

“He kept it going in the fall after a good summer,” Van Horn said of the 6-3, 235-pound junior. “It’s his time. I want to see him be that intimidating force with the bat. He’s also a good defender, throws well. He’s that power guy from the left side, a lot of tools. He’ll get every opportunity to be the guy for us in the middle of the lineup.”

Bonfield had a chance to turn pro, but came back to finish his degree. He’s a doubles machine with long ball power, too.

“The key is Shaddy, Spanberberger, Bonfield and Koch,” Van Horn said. “Solid guys. Koch made a huge jump in the fall at the plate and catching.”

There are three options in center field. The best defender is true freshman Dominic Fletcher. Arledge blossomed in the fall. Eric Cole started and finished strong last year as a true freshman and carried that into the summer.

“Fletcher plays center really well and has lefty power,” Van Horn said. “We also have a true freshman in Evan Lee who has some lefty power. He can play outfield and he can pitch.

“For some of those guys, it will come down to how well they hit lefty pitching. We may platoon.”

In the infield, it starts with Jax Biggers at shortstop. The 5-11, 175-pound sophomore from Cisco (Texas) Junior College dazzled in the fall.

“He’s as good as anyone in the conference,” Vitello said. “We could be very good through the middle. You have Koch at catcher, Jax at short and I also think Fletcher can play center as well as anyone in our league and that’s saying a lot.”

Van Horn said Biggers “is as good as anyone we’ve had. He can run and hit. He had a hamstring issue the last part of the fall, but he seems healthy.”

Freshman Jaxon Williams will team with Shaddy to man second base. Williams is probably better defensively, but Shaddy has the better bat.

“I can’t exactly tell you how we’ll line up at first and third, but I do know that we’ve got a lot of good players,” Van Horn said. “That makes you nervous because a lot of things happen on the corners. We are just going to have to play a little bit to see who emerges.

“But we’ve got guys like Jared Gates who was a double machine in junior college. He really got going at the end of fall. There’s Jordan McFarland, a freshman from Illinois. He’s got a lot of tools.”

The Hogs open the season with three games at home against Miami (Ohio) Feb. 17-19. There are two trips in the nonconference — two games at Louisiana Tech starting Feb. 28, then three games in the Frisco (Texas) Classic against Arizona, Nebraska and Oklahoma State.

The SEC schedule is tough, as usual, although the Hogs may have drawn some breaks. They don’t play Florida or South Carolina. LSU and Vanderbilt come to Baum Stadium, along with Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Georgia.

“The schedule is not real forgiving,” Van Horn said. “I wanted to take our team to Louisiana Tech. It’s a hard place to play and that should help us. It will be good experience. There are no easy games in Frisco, either.”

The Hogs won’t back down from a challenge. Van Horn thinks he’s got a tough team with an attitude.

“I do think what happened last year gives you an attitude,” he said. “We are a work in progress, but the positive is that I think this bunch will compete. They are going to play to win and compete on every pitch.”