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College  | Story  | 3/10/2017

College Spotlight: Ole Miss

Jheremy Brown     
Photo: Joshua McCoy/Ole Miss Athletics
 


Perfect Game College Player Database
Weekly Spotlights: Week 1 | Week 2 | Frisco Classic | Dodgertown Classic
Shriners Classic Spotlights: LSU | Baylor | Texas Tech | Texas A&M | TCU

Every week during the 2017 college baseball season we will be pulling at least one report, and corresponding video when available, of a player entered into the College Player Database. This week will be a little different given Perfect Game's presence at three major college baseball tournaments, including the Shriners Hospitals for Children College Classic held at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas. Below we will share two detailed reports of players from each of the six participating teams (Baylor, LSU, Ole Miss, TCU, Texas A&M, Texas Tech) continuing with Ole Miss. All of the reports entered into the database can be found in one, easy-to-find place as linked above, and can also be accessed off of the individual PG player profile pages.

To access all of the reports you will need a College Baseball Ticket (CBT) subscription. To learn more about the CBT and to sign up today please visit this link.


Heading into the weekend of the Shriners Classic the Ole Miss Rebels opened 2017 red hot, coming off two straight weekend series sweeps over national ranked East Carolina and UNC Wilmington. The offensive results didn’t follow the club to Houston as they didn’t score their first run until the eighth inning of their second game, though to be fair they faced two arms who showed as much pitchability and command as any throughout the tournament.

And as we were all aware of from the start of the season, this is a relatively young, inexperienced club for Coach Mike Bianco who were bound to take their lumps at some point this season. Scanning the starting lineup you’ll note they had at least four true freshman playing with Cooper Johnson, Grae Kessinger, Cole Zabowski and Thomas Dillard, and though very talented, they are still green around the gills in regards to collegiate experience.

That said, there’s too much talent in the lineup for the Rebels to stay down for long with the likes of Tate Blackman, Will Golsan, Colby Bortles and Ryan Olenek leading the way. The pitching staff is deep and mightily talented both at the start and end of games with a nice mix of pitchability and command types, hard throwing relievers and ultra-talented freshmen.

Mississippi didn’t add one to the win column during the Houston Classic but they faced off against three of the top teams and some of their inexperience showed. The hot start wasn’t a fluke and look for the Rebels to bounce back to their winning ways this weekend at Swayze Field against the Paladins of Furman. 




Dallas Woolfolk, RHP

If you were to throw Ole Miss sophomore righthander Dallas Woolfolk into a minor league bullpen right now, nobody would think twice. And the reason for that is two things; the first is his strong and sturdy 6-foot-2, 225-pound frame and the second is the plus fastball velocity he’s able to produce while pounding the strike zone. 

A reliever who shows a feel for three pitches will be of great value for Coach Mike Bianco in the back end of games, especially when one of those pitches is a fastball that sat 94-96 mph and bumped 97 on a couple of pitches in his first inning of work from the Shriners Classic in Houston. With a high front side to his delivery which helps add some deception as he comes off his backside, Woolfolk showed a very quick arm action while working to a high three-quarters slot while pounding the ball downhill. And while there is effort to generate the velocity it in no way inhibited Woolfolk’s ability to throw strikes, nor did it take away from the late running life he was able to generate on virtually very fastball. 

His changeup should prove to be a challenging pitch for hitters to detect as there isn’t much variation from his fastball in terms of delivery or arm action and with it begin a straight changeup, hitters won’t necessarily detect the spin either. The handful he threw came across the plate in the mid-80s, 85-87 mph, which proved to be enough differential off of his heater to get hitters out on their front side. He also spun a slider in the low-80s for a legitimate three pitch mix, though when you have a fastball like that with the command he showed, Woolfolk doesn’t need much more than that plus fastball.




James McArthur, RHP
There are a lot of boxes you can check off when evaluating Ole Miss sophomore righthander James McArthur as he has the size, arsenal and future projection to develop into one of the top arms in the SEC and could very well be a high pick for next June’s draft. Listed at 6-foot-7, 230-pounds, McArthur has added noticeable physicality to his frame since last spring and with it has comes more coordination and balance to his delivery while providing an uptick to his stuff. 

The tempo to his delivery is deliberate and his arm action is both short and quick through the back before driving to the plate and producing a fastball that sat 92-94 mph in the opening frame before settling into the 90-92 mph towards the back end of his five inning start. There are still some inconsistencies to his delivery as he can fall off towards the first base side or get across his body at release, but when everything was on and he was showing solid life to his arm side McArthur looked very much like a future Friday night arm in the SEC. 

At times the Texas native showed the ability to sequence all three of his pitches just as he did by going changeup-curveball-fastball (away for a ball) before busting a 93 mph fastball with life in on the hands of a lefthanded hitter. There’s minimal effort to generate the quality velocity and if his delivery can take the next step in terms of consistency then watch out.

McArthur threw both his changeup and curveball for strikes throughout his five frames and each show potential and still project looking forward. He didn’t always finish his curveball and slowed his arm action upon release occasionally, but when he stayed on top of the ball he was able to generate nice depth and 11-to-5 shape. He mimics his arm action and release point well on his low-80s changeup to give him a legit three-pitch arsenal and it’s a trio of pitches that’ll only continue to sharpen moving forward.


Other Texas A&M players added to College Player Database:

• Tate Blackman
• Colby Bortles
• Chase Cockrell
• Will Ethridge
• Brady Feigl
• Will Golsan
• Grae Kessinger
• Cooper Johnson
• Ryan Olenek
• David Parkinson
• Ryan Rolison
• Cole Zabowski
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