Dave Van Horn on Hagen Smith: 'He's one of the best pitchers I've ever had'

Arkansas LHP Hagen Smith will be a top prospect for a team to take in the 2024 MLB Draft. With his collegiate career ending this week, Dave Van Horn has now offered his thoughts on his top pitcher and the impact that he made in Fayetteville.

Van Horn spoke on Smith during his postgame press conference after the season-ending, 6-3 loss for the Razorbacks to Southeast Missouri in the NCAA Tournament. He deemed him as one of his all-time best pitchers and a player that completely changed how great that the ‘Hogs could be.

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“Well, my thought on him is he’s one of the best pitchers I’ve ever had,” said Van Horn. “He’s such a difference maker for our team. Him pretty much taking his five, six, seven, eight innings in game one of every SEC series and giving us an opportunity to save our bullpen. Most of the time, we’d end up winning that game. We’d find a way to win another game, swept a few series here.”

“I mean you take him off our team and we’re just really average. That’s the way it is. One guy can make a difference,” Van Horn said. “You take Hagen Smith away from us and we’re just pretty average, you know.”

Smith has been as good as you can get as a collegiate prospect on the mound. He racked up 360 career strikeouts in 233 innings over 54 games with 42 starts. His ERA also improved in each of his three seasons with a career-best of 2.04 this year to bring the statistic for his career to 3.40.

Now, come mid-July, Smith should be one of the first names off the board in Fort Worth. That’s the expectation by essentially everyone, including his head coach who sees him as a lock in the Top-10.

“Hagen Smith – I have talked with him. He’s going to be a high, first-round pick. So to speak, I think the hay was in the barn, even though his last couple outings weren’t great. If he’d have had two great outings, it might have messed up some people,” said Van Horn. “I think he’ll be one of the Top-10 picks. Could be second, third. Could’ve been first. Might be fifth or sixth, probably would be my guess.”

Smith did what he needed to in college to win games and put himself in this position for the pros. That leaves it to him to now capitalize on it upon his arrival in the majors while the Razorbacks are left to continue on without their All-SEC and All-American lefty.