Diamond Hog leaping into 2025 with revamped roster and increased expectations

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – Now that the calendar has officially bounced to 2025, Arkansas baseball fans can turn their full attention to the upcoming season on the diamond.

The Razorbacks will get back to practice on January 24 in preparation for opening the season Feb. 14 against visiting Washington State in a 3 p.m. contest.

Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn loved what he saw from his new roster in fall drills and scrimmages and two exhibition games with Oklahoma State that capped the slate.

It is a college baseball program that has been ranked as fifth-best nationally overall by D1 Baseball behind fellow SEC clubs LSU, Tennessee, Florida and Vanderbilt.

“I think with this group right now, that we have a chance to really elevate from where we were last year,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said of a program that finished 44-16 overall and 20-10 in SEC play.

The Feb. 14 lid-lifter will be the start of a four-game series at Baum Walker Stadium between Arkansas and Washington State.

It will be followed by the Diamond Hogs’ traditional early season trip to Arlington, Texas on Feb. 21-23 for the Amegy Bank Classic.

The Diamond Hogs will play Kansas State Friday at 7 p.m., TCU Saturday at 7 p.m. and Michigan Sunday at 11 a.m. at the Texas Rangers’ Globe Life Stadium.

“It’s second-to-none,” Van Horn said of playing in Arlington. “The competition is amazing. The weather is always good in [the retractable-roof stadium] and that’s what we like. We’ve made a commitment: we’ll come back whenever they ask us.” 

The Razorback’s 56-game regular season scheduled features 11 opponents that played in last season’s SEC Tournament – including a home series with defending national champion Tennessee and another with runner-up Texas A&M.

The Razorbacks lead the nation with 333 wins since 2017 and won five of the last six SEC Western Division titles.

The SEC will no longer divisions this season now that Oklahoma and Texas are entering the league to make it a 16-team mega conference.

Arkansas and Southern Miss are the only two colleges to win 40 games in each of the last seven full seasons.

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Arkansas will enter the season with a revamped roster that includes seven players ranked in D1 Baseball’s Top 150 college prospects for the 2025 Major League Baseball Draft.

Shortstop Wehiwa Aloy is the top Razorback prospect at 22 and is followed by left handed pitcher Zach Root (51), third baseman Brent Iredale (73), right handed pitchers Christian Foutch (77), Landon Beidelschies (81) and Gage Wood (97) and outfielder Justin Thomas (106).

Four of those seven were portal transfer additions.

“I think we have done a pretty good job of finding some guys that are really going to help us right away,” Van Horn said. “ For the most part it has gone that way the last four years for us.

“I feel like…we have done a pretty good job of getting guys in here that want to get better. They are bringing what they already had got going for them and they are letting us coach them.”

Van Horn is thrilled about a group of freshman pitchers that shined during the fall to add to his returnees and the aforementioned transfer portal mound additions.

“We have brought in some really, really talented young freshman pitchers that I am excited about. These guys throw strikes, they compete, they got good stuff. It is a really good mix.”

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The Razorbacks had to trim the roster down to 40 after fall baseball.

No longer with the program are nine players, none of which have played in a game in their college career.

That list includes pitchers Josh Hyneman (Crowder College), Diego Ramos, Kel Busby, Eli Crecelius, Jawood Cho, Tucker Holland and Jack Smith, who is headed to Chipola (Fla) College.

It also numbers outfielder Kolton Reynolds (Tennessee Wesleyan) and infielder Trenton Rowan.

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Van Horn notes the roster management will get even tougher next year when NCAA teams will be able to hand out full scholarships instead of a combined 11.7, but limited to 34 players on the roster from the start of school.

That will be a reduction from the 50 Arkansas and other programs were allowed to have in the fall.

“We have got a lot on our plate going forward with the possibility of a 34-man roster next year walking in the door and you are signing kids in November, you have got kids in here now,” Van Horn said.

“There is not a Division I program – at least at the Power 4 level – that is not really, really concerned with this.

“I don’t understand it…when it comes to taking opportunities from male baseball player/athletes and putting this walking in the door roster instead of letting us have more than 34 next August so to speak.

“There are going to be hundreds of really good baseball players – in programs or coming out of high school – that are going to have to find new places to play because teams can’t get them on their roster now.”

Photo by John D. James