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High School | General | 11/4/2019

Smith rehabs, remains upbeat

Jeff Dahn

Photo: Hagen Smith (Perfect Game)

High School Class of 2021 Player Rankings | Rankings Risers: Class of 2021

It became glaringly obvious not long into the outing that something wasn’t quite right with the tall Texas left-hander out of Bullard High School.

Just a little over a week shy of his 16^th birthday, Hagen Smith was struggling. He was pitching at the Area Code Baseball Underclass Games in Compton, Calif., the second weekend of August and nothing was working. Or, at least, not working as well as it had been earlier in the summer.

A fastball that was sitting at 90-93 mph in late July was now sitting 80-82 mph; the velos on his slider, curveball and changeup were also down. Scouts in attendance were busy taking notes when they weren’t too busy scratching their heads.

But it really wasn’t that much of a mystery at all. Smith, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound lefty who at the time had climbed to No. 47 in PG’s class of 2021 national rankings, wasn’t healthy. And as proof of that, it was just six weeks ago that he made the decision to undergo Tommy John surgery, a procedure that will keep him on the shelf throughout the 2020 spring and, most likely, summer seasons.

There is no panic here, however; no anger, no “Why me?” Perhaps the most remarkable angle to this story is just how upbeat Smith has remained considering his situation. He’s been handed a figurative basket full of lemons and is now intent on turning this sour tasting happenstance into a sweet tasting pitcher of lemonade.

“I’m really not too worried about it,” Smith told PG during a telephone conversation last week, speaking all the while without a trace of bitterness or regret in his voice. “I think it’s almost more of a benefit, because I can work out a lot and then get myself right mechanics-wise later on. I’m just trying to look at it as a positive, honestly.”

That is certainly an admirable and mature approach for a 16-year-old to take, and it’s a mindset that should serve him well as he rehabs his left elbow.

Perfect Game’s scouting department continues to be confident he’ll come back better than ever, placing him in the No. 19 spot in the recently updated 2021 prospect rankings. That’s down just a few slots from the No. 15 position he had topped-out at, but he continues to be the No. 1-ranked left-hander in his national class (Smith is ranked Nos. 4/1 in the state of Texas).

His rise in the rankings had been nothing short of meteoric. He was considered a top-500 prospect in November 2018 but as the calendar flipped into 2019 his stock began to rise. He soon found himself in the top-100 and after a very strong summer leading up to the Area Code Underclass Games, he had climbed up into the teens.

Smith’s summer included all-tournament team selections at both the PG WWBA 16u National Championship and the 16u PG World Series while pitching with Academy Select 16u Ingram. His fastball sat 90-93 mph throughout those events.

In announcing that Smith would stay in the top-20 in the latest version of the rankings, PG noted that he was “electric on the mound this summer at the WBBA & World Series; big angle on fastball, up to 93 mph with sink.”

Smith threw a combined 12 innings at those two PG national championship tournaments and allowed three earned runs (0.57 ERA) on eight hits, with 24 strikeouts and 12 walks.

An average of a walk an inning can be troublesome but it’s something he’s sure he can get more of a handle on once he’s healthy and throwing again. Most importantly, he’s also sure he’s going to return to the mound as a smarter pitcher than what he was at the end of the summer.

“I think my mechanics really messed me up with that,” he said of the number of walks he issued. “I was throwing a lot more strikes in high school ball and my coach (Brock Lemire) really helped me use my legs. I guess I kind of just got sloppy with it at the end of the summer.”

Smith is capable of throwing four pitches for strikes – fastball, slider, curveball and changeup – but relies primarily on his low 90s fastball and high 70s slider (his curve and change usually sit in the high 70s as well). He was fairly comfortable with the progression he was making with his pitches during the summer and right up until the injury and the subsequent surgery.

“I feel like I could have done better,” Smith said before once again bringing up a lapse that led to the injury. “Towards the end my mechanics kind of got sloppy, but overall I feel like I had a pretty good summer; it was a pretty good ride.”

Smith enjoyed a terrific sophomore season at Bullard HS in 2019, helping the Panthers to a 22-6-2 record and a spot in the Texas Class 4A state playoffs. He finished 3-1 with a 1.26 ERA while also striking out 86 in 44 1/3 innings.

“At our high school, we worked out five times a week and my coach really pushed us,” Smith said. “That made us stronger as a group and that kind of helped me get ready for the summer.”

Smith had originally committed to Oklahoma State but he said he decided to decommit when the coach that had recruited him to Stillwater left the Cowboys' program. He reopened his recruitment and eventually committed to Arkansas (he told PG he is really looking forward to pitching in the SEC someday).

College is two years off for this talented young pitcher, a kid who has shown he can compete successfully on Perfect Game’s biggest stages and on some of the biggest stages in Texas high school baseball.

Hagen Smith is facing a challenge during his junior year in high school that will require a certain kind of toughness – both physically and mentally – to overcome. But he is going into the fight knowing that what he hopes will ultimately become a very long and very satisfying baseball career will get back on track maybe as early as the fall of 2020.

“I actually don’t know when the end-goal is for my rehab,” Smith said. “My plan is to come out stronger, and I’m going to go to a pitching coach – I haven’t decided who yet – and work on my lower half. … I’ve worked with a couple of people (in the past) but not regularly.

“That’s my plan, to come back way stronger than I was before,” he concluded. “I think working on my lower half will really help me and I can come back and be really dominant.”

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