FAYETTEVILLE -- The Chicago White Sox selected Arkansas left-handed pitcher Hagen Smith with the No. 5 pick in Round 1 of the 2024 MLB Draft Sunday night.
As a junior, Smith also went 9-2 with a 2.04 ERA while holding opponents to a .144 batting average. He earned him multiple National Pitcher of the Year accolades.
Being picked at No. 5 makes him easily the highest drafted pitcher in Arkansas history. Nick Schmidt went No. 23 in 2007. It was Schmidt's strikeout record that Smith broke this season. Smith finished with a single-season record 161 to bring his three-year total to 360.
“I was kind of in shock, honestly,” Smith on Sunday night zoom with media. “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.”
He's the fifth Razorback to be selected in the Top-10 of the draft. Jeff King (No. 1, 1986, Pittsburgh Pirates), Heston Kjerstad (No. 2, 2020, Baltimore Orioles), Kevin McReynolds (No. 6, 1981, San Diego Padres) and Andrew Benintendi (No. 7, 2015, Boston Red Sox).
Van Horn felt any team that got Smith would be very pleased with their pick.
"A guy like Hagen, I’m just telling you, when they get him to their site and they’ll take him to their spring site and he throws a bullpen in front of them, and then they put him in a scrimmage against some guys, they’re going to go, ‘Wow, this is not normal,'" Van Horn said. "If he throws it over the plate, they may start him somewhere, they may just say, ‘Put him in the bullpen up there in September, what the heck. He’s going to be in the big leagues next year.’"
Smith, whose slot value is just under $7.8 million, talked about how much interaction he had with White Sox prior to draft.
“I met with them one time before the draft, maybe two or three weeks ago in Omaha, actually ” Smith said. “Really I loved everything they were saying, really loved everything they were talking about (in regards to) the program and the city.”
White Sox director of amateur scouting Mike Shirley praised Smith in a release.
“Hagen’s many accomplishments are incredibly impressive and certainly speak for themselves,” Shirley said in a statement. “Despite all of his success, I was struck most throughout the scouting process by his humility. We believe Hagen can be a foundational piece to what we are building in our organization in the years to come.”
In addition to Smith, Omaha (Neb.) Millard West shortstop Tyson Lewis was taken by the Reds Sunday night with the 51st overall pick of the Major League Baseball draft.
Lewis, the Nebraska Gatorade Player of the Year, was a D1 Baseball first-team high school All-American and MLB’s 39th ranked prospect in the 2024 draft. He hit .496 with 8 home runs, 41 RBIs and 31 steals his senior season.
The draft continues with rounds 3-10 today at 1 p.m. and rounds 11-20 on Tuesday at 1 p.m.