More Than Stuff: Why Arkansas Still Values Pitch Ability Over Just Velocity

Despite trend of flame-throwing arms, Van Horn bucks national headwinds with variety of different types of pitchers

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The average fastball velocity has increased nearly 2.5 miles per hour since 2008, according to FanGraphs. Pitchers are also throwing their secondary pitches harder than ever. The "stuff" revolution is taking over baseball and it's not stopping anytime soon. The better your stuff is, the better chance you have of pitching at the highest levels, college or professional. 

In a recent interview on the Chris Rose Rotation, Blue Jays pitcher Chris Bassitt details a shift that MLB opted for roughly a decade ago.

"You set the precedent that stuff meant more than stats," Bassitt said. "Everyone in baseball started chasing stuff because you guys are changing the goalposts of what you want. You don't really want stats, you want stuff and then you're hoping for stats. There's a massive, massive trickle-down affect when everyone saw that because everyone started chasing velo. All the velos went up, all the stuff went up. The minor-leaguers started throwing it harder and then the colleges said if I want to get to the minor leagues, I've got to throw 95+, so the colleges started throwing it harder. 

However, for the consensus No. 1 team in the country, recruiting the next Arkansas arm goes beyond pitch velocity. Sure, the pitching staff has its flame throwers. Hagen Smith routinely touches 98-99 with his fastball and Gabe Gaeckle sits in the mid-to high 90s. For the rest of the pitching staff, who has been equally effective, you'd be hard pressed to see the radar gun go past 93 miles an hour. 

"Velocity is great," coach Dave Van Horn said. "I’ve got a couple guys on the team that throw in the upper 90s and they haven’t been on the mound yet. They’ve been injured a little bit, but you’ve got to be able to pitch. You think about a guy like Colin Fisher’s going to throw 88-92, and except for the other day, he’s been getting everybody out. Tygart’s not trying to blow people away. He’s pitching it 90-92, and he can throw 94, 95 if you just say, hey, go do it. But it’s pitch ability. It’s mixing and keeping guys off balance."

Van Horn pushes back on the narrative that velocity is the kingmaker of pitching. Will McEntire leads the team in innings with a low-90s fastball and a cutter. The skipper laid out the potential roadmap for how they look to evolve pitchers throughout their time in the program.

"If we see a right-hander pitcher that’s a junior in high school and he’s throwing 88 miles per hour that's ok but that’s not what everybody’s looking for," Van Horn said. 'If he has a really good breaking ball or he can spin the baseball, we’re going to recruit that kid because we know he’s going to throw 91-92 one day and that might be where he lives but he’s got that secondary pitch."

It's this kind of combined approach that has pushed the Razorbacks to be in the top three in ERA in the SEC four of the last six years (not counting the shortened 2020 COVID-year) and are well on track again this year. 

"I don’t buy all of that," Van Horn said. "I think that maybe at a different level, they’re looking for that. Velocity is great because as a hitter you have to make decisions quicker. But, you got to back it up with command and location because once kids get used to seeing 96-97, if you don’t have something else they’re going to hit it and they’re going to hit it hard."

With increased velocity comes increased injury. In a recent article in The Athletic, Dr Keith Meister, the Texas Rangers head physician and the director of the Texas Metroplex Institute for Sports Medicine, talked about the uptick in injury since the velocity and spin revolution took over baseball at the professional level. 

According to the article, Meister repaired approximately 230 elbow ligaments last year and is “way ahead of that pace” this year.

"Pitchers apply a “death grip” to the ball," Meister said in an interview with Ken Rosenthal and Eno Sarris, "Essentially pre-loading every muscle in their arms. At release, those muscles acutely lengthen in what is known as an 'eccentric contraction.' The result can be almost like a hamstring tearing, affecting different pitchers in different parts of the arm." 

In order to counter the massive uptick in injuries to pitchers, the Razorbacks have tried to keep an eye on everything their pitchers do, but admits it can be difficult with high schoolers coming in with already lingering injuries.

"We monitor just about everything that they do," Van Horn said.  "Every pitch that they throw, we keep an eye on it. We know how many pitches they throw in every bullpen, how hard they threw them, how they were spinning. It’s program to program. I feel like we do a good job of monitoring it. But sometimes we get some of these kids and they’re already hurt. We have a couple in here now that we took that were already hurt, whether they had surgery or they came in hurt and you try to rehab to get them right."

By teaching and prioritizing pitchability the Razorbacks have been able to combine Smith's flamethrower fastball with McEntire's pretty cutter to a staff that is on pace for some historic numbers. The Hogs also have up to this point, knock on wood, avoided major injury. All part of a calculated formula that looks beyond the national headwinds and led to over two decades of success at Arkansas for Van Horn. 

The Razorbacks take its vaunted pitching staff on the road against Auburn Thursday at 6 p.m. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network and FuboTV.

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