Hagen Smith kept piling up the strikeouts on Feb. 23 against Oregon State.
When he was finished, the Arkansas left-hander had matched the school record with 17 strikeouts. He needed just 78 pitches to accomplish the feat in six innings.
“In the moment, you’re locked into the game so you don’t really realize what’s happening,” Smith recalled Sunday. “I didn’t realize until I got pulled from the game that I had that many strikeouts. It was like, ‘What in the world?’ I was shocked after that.”
The performance stood out to Chicago White Sox director of amateur scouting Mike Shirley.
“He took Oregon State for a ride I’ve never seen a college pitcher take any lineup for,” Shirley said. “On the big stage. It was (17) punchouts. It was the most dominating stuff I’ve ever seen since I’ve been scouting.
“As the great Jim Thome said, ‘I might need to take a day off when we face this guy.’ That’s part of it, this guy’s real.”
The Sox are hoping Smith becomes the next successful left-hander in the organization after selecting him with the No. 5 pick in Sunday’s Major League Baseball amateur draft.
“I was kind of in shock, honestly,” Smith said. “You dream about it growing up. Especially in college, that’s the goal, to be drafted in the first round, for a bunch of my friends and I. Just hearing my name be called was kind of surreal, honestly.”
Smith, 20, went 9-2 with a 2.04 ERA and 34 walks to go with 161 strikeouts in 16 starts for the Razorbacks.
The 6-foot-3, 225-pound Smith also had a .144 (41-285) opponents average and 0.89 WHIP this season. He led the country in strikeouts per nine innings pitched (NCAA-record 17.25), opponents average and fewest hits per nine innings pitched (4.4).
“The weapons, the arsenal, is real,” Shirley said. “When you dominate the varsity league — we call that the varsity league, the SEC — at the levels that you did that, and you do it without a third pitch, that’s a pretty good indicator of how good the two weapons (the fastball and slider) are.
“I think the changeup comes. He feels good about the changeup, he feels good about developing that pitch.”
His accolades included being named National Pitcher of the Year by the likes of ABCA/Rawlings, the Collegiate Baseball Foundation and Perfect Game. He was a unanimous First Team All-American selection by Baseball America, D1Baseball and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and also earned SEC Pitcher of the Year honors.
“Just having a good group of guys around me and a good coaching staff at Arkansas,” Smith said of some of the reasons for the success. “It’s one of the top programs for a reason. The coaches do a tremendous job of preparing you and developing you.
“Being around high-level talent day in and day out, especially with this special group this past year. As a pitching staff, in general, everybody wants to get better every single day, and I feel like we all pushed each other every single day, even in practice. That kind of brought the best out of everybody.”
Smith had a program-record 11 double-digit strikeout games in 2024, including the 17 against Oregon State.
He had an 8-2 record and 3.64 ERA in 18 outings (11 starts) the previous season, striking out 109 while walking 42 in 71 2/3 innings.
Overall, Smith went 24-6 with a 3.40 ERA, 360 strikeouts and 122 walks in 54 appearances (42 starts) during three seasons for the Razorbacks. He is Arkansas’ career strikeout leader.
Smith, who had Tommy John surgery as a 16-year-old in 2019, also threw seven no-hitters as a high school senior in Bullard, Texas.
It’s the second straight year the Sox have drafted a player from the SEC in the first round. Last year, they took shortstop Jacob Gonzalez from Mississippi.
And it’s the third time in the last five years the Sox selected a left-handed pitcher in the first round. They drafted All-Star Garrett Crochet at No. 11 in 2020 out of Tennessee and Noah Schultz from Oswego East at No. 26 in 2022.
“We feel good about that left-handed arsenal and that stable we are building,” Shirley said. “Garrett is significant, Noah is significant, Hagen Smith is significant.”
Smith was recommended by Sox area scout Dan Budreika and southwest supervisor Ryan Dorsey.
No. 43: Caleb Bonemer
The Sox selected high school infielder Caleb Bonemer from Okemos, Mich., at No. 43. Bonemer was the Gatorade Michigan Player of the Year for 2024 and has a college commitment to Virginia. The right-hander is listed at 6-1 and 195 pounds.
“We want to send him out as a shortstop and exhaust every avenue to keep him at that position,” Shirley said of Bonemer. “Up the middle of the field player, with bat. Bat ability, those are the type of profiles we continue to try to attack.”
No. 68: Blake Larson
Larson is a high school pick from the Des Moines, Iowa, area who finished his senior year at IMG Academy in Florida. The 6-2, 180-pound left-hander has a collegiate commitment to Texas Christian. The Sox had received a compensation pick at No. 68 from the Seattle Mariners in the Gregory Santos trade.
“He gets stronger as the game goes, which is uncommon in this world of stuff,” Shirley said of Larson. “This guy is really competitive. You’ll see his best stuff sometimes later in the game because he’s trying to put his foot on the gas pedal when it counts and he’s trying to get wins.”
Here’s a look at the team’s remaining picks.
White Sox’s Day 2 picks
- No. 78, 3rd round: OF Nick McLain, Arizona State
- No. 107, 4th round: OF Casey Saucke, Virginia
- No. 140, 5th round: INF Sam Antonacci, Coastal Carolina
- No. 169, 6th round: C Jackson Appel, Texas A&M
- No. 199, 7th round: RHP Phil Fox, Pittsburgh
- No. 229, 8th round: RHP Aaron Combs, Tennessee
- No. 259, 9th round: RHP Jack Young, Iowa
- No. 289, 10th round: OF Cole McConnell, Louisiana Tech
White Sox’s Day 3 picks
- No. 319, 11th round: P Blake Shepardson, San Francisco
- No. 349, 12th round: OF Nathan Archer, Bowling Green
- No. 379, 13th round: P Pierce George, Alabama
- No. 409, 14th round
- No. 439, 15th round
- No. 469, 16th round
- No. 499, 17th round
- No. 529, 18th round
- No. 559, 19th round
- No. 589, 20th round
