By Otis Kirk
FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas' Dave Van Horn saw another SEC program win the College World Series this season which is something he's still building to try and do same with the Hogs.
Van Horn has been busy adding pieces from the transfer portal, but can't comment on them yet due to NCAA rules. Van Horn did say the Hogs are keeping options open as far as adding more transfers.
"Well, I think more than anything, if we do anything else, it just needs to be the right guy," Van Horn said. "It needs to be the right makeup, mentality, teammate. There’s a few high-profile names out there and it gets a little crazy. But I feel good about the guys we have coming back. We’ve got almost, shoot, 15-18 guys out playing summer ball, working hard and they’ve been in our program. So we feel good about them. Obviously if there was somebody who could really help us on the mound or in the field, we would definitely be interested. It’s not like we feel like we’re not going to be able to put good players at every position next year. So I would answer that with, ‘We’ll just wait and see.’"
Van Horn was able to comment on what he thinks of the players he's added from the transfer portal to this point.
"Well, I feel good about every one of them who’s committed to come and play for us," Van Horn said. "They’re just good people. We’ve had them in, been around them and I think they’ll contribute a lot next year. We’re good with what we have coming in so far."
The Hogs had some obvious needs coming into the recruiting process after losing in the finals of the Fayetteville Regional to TCU.
"Well, we just needed to get a little bit," Van Horn said. "Well, we had to fill in some spots, obviously. Maybe with a little bit of age. But I mean… It’s pretty simple. You know who you lose, you know who you’ve got coming back. Do you need to plug in a guy for depth or do you need a left-handed hitter, right-handed hitter, maybe a reliever or two? That’s kind of what we’ve done."
Van Horn has been very vocal about the decision that was made to move the MLB draft to July around the all-star game instead of in June like it used to be.
"The draft, I’m done complaining about it, and I think every Division I coach, we’ve talked about it until we’re blue in the face," Van Horn said. "The draft should have been two weeks ago. Or at the very latest now. At the very latest. So at least we could move on and figure this thing out.
"We don’t know what’s going to go on with Aidan Miller or Walker Martin. I could go on and on. We are talking with them, trying to figure out what kind of money they’re going to demand to sign and what they’re really thinking. Do they really want to go to school? Having all those conversations."
The draft is something Van Horn and the coaches have always had to deal with, but in recent years add the transfer portal.
"It’s just what you do," Van Horn said. "And then you threw in the transfer portal. They kind of tie into each other. You might not want to get too many guys out of the portal if you find out you’re going to lose some of your incoming class.
"But you have to be smart about it. You can dream about getting all these guys. We don’t want to dream around here. We’re more about reality. So we’ve tried to handle some things, take care of some things, and hoping we can maybe sneak one of those three or four position players that are going to sign through."
Despite signing the No. 1-ranked recruiting class Van Horn feels pretty good about getting several of those players to school. He feels better about one aspect of the class than the other as far as getting them in school.
"We’ve got some other guys that going to be really good that are not going to be drafted, or they’re going to be drafted low and they’re probably going to make it to school," Van Horn said. "Pitching-wise, with the high school kids, we’re going to get some of these guys. We may lose a couple, but we’re going to get a lot of them those guys through and there’s going to be a really good pitching class.
"The position players, it might be a little more difficult to get some of these high-end hitters unfortunately. But we’re doing everything we can figure it out. And then that leads us to the portal, when we know two or three guys aren’t going to get here, and a couple of our guys are going to sign.
"The ones that are up in the air right now. are say, a Call Cali or some of these guys, are they going to come back? If they don’t get drafted, will they take free agent money and how much would they ask for? There’s a limit, and is that going to be enough to skip your last year? We have a few of those guys out there. I mean, we won’t know where we’re at, honesty for maybe another three or four weeks."
Among the players that Van Horn is hoping to get back is pitcher Will McEntire. The former Bryant standout made the All-Regional team.
“Will is the same way unless somebody drafts him or gives him a really good opportunity, we feel like he will be back,” Van Horn said. “He is here, working camps and just seeing what happens for him.
“Obviously we want him back and his role - I think that is the role he liked. The first guy out of the pen, gets the fifth and let’s see if he can go the distance. You can close him. You got to see when he only had to throw one inning that he can get the ball up there a little bit. He pitched really well the second half.
“We had a great season and we wouldn’t have had it without Will kicking it into gear. I think a lot of that was lost in the way it all went down at the end of the season. We had an incredible season, went through a lot of injuries. We had great leadership from older guys and I thought the coaches did a great job."
The Razorbacks finished 43-18 last season and tied for the SEC Championship.