The tenor of the conversation that day in early November 2019 was surprisingly upbeat and optimistic, not resembling anything close to a gloom-and-doom scenario that may have understandably been expected.
It was a one-on-one between a veteran Perfect Game note-taker and a young, promising left-handed pitching prospect out of east-central Texas who unexpectedly found himself at a challenging crossroad in his career.
Just 16 years old, Hagen Smith had underwent the Tommy John elbow ligament replacement procedure only about six weeks earlier and was looking at an extended period of idleness. This at a time when he should have been out on the mound impressing scouts with his impressive talents.
Here he was with every excuse to take the “Woe is me” approach and settle into a corner stuffed with comfy pity pillows. But that wasn’t in Hagen Smith’s makeup. Seriously? What possibly could have been gained by such an approach.
“I’m really not too worried about it,” Smith told PG during that telephone conversation 18 months ago. “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.”
Time, as it so stubbornly is apt to do, marched on and now in the spring of 2021 Smith’s positive attitude and desire to get back up on the horse and ride it to an elite level has led to some remarkable performances.
Playing in his senior season at Bullard High School in a small east Texas city that sits about 115 miles southeast of Dallas and 190 miles north of Houston near Tyler, Hagen Smith has re-emerged as one of the country’s top left-handed pitchers from the graduating class of 2021.
The Bullard Panthers (22-3) are slated to take on the Liberty-Eylau Leopards (25-8-2) in a best-of-three Texas Class 4A regional quarterfinal series beginning with a doubleheader on Friday, May 21. Regional semifinal and final series will follow if the Panthers can keep winning with the state tournament coming next.
Smith, who has signed with head coach Dave Van Horn and the No. 1-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks, is scheduled to make what will be his 11th start of the season in one of Friday’s games. Based on what has preceded it, the outing promises to be nothing short of electric, or at least that’s the hope of Bullard head coach Robert Ellis, Smith’s teammates, and Panthers’ fans and the dozens of MLB scouts that are sure to be in attendance.
The reason for that? Seven of Smith’s previous 10 starts were completed as no-hitters, a fact that solidifies his standing as the No. 1-ranked left-hander in Texas from the ‘21 class (No. 11 nationally).
It’s certainly a notable feat for a 17-year-old who hadn’t pitched competitively since the Area Code Games in August 2019. Smith’s summer of 2019 had also 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.
“It was awesome getting back out there,” Hagen told PG during another telephone conversation earlier this week. “I waited so long and it felt really good to get out there for my first game back...I feel really good about where I’m at; I think all the (rehab) stuff really paid off. We’ve been winning games and I’ve been helping the team win.”
The son of Jeff and April Smith from Bullard, Hagen persevered through not only physical therapy and rehabilitation sessions necessitated by Tommy John surgery, but also through the roadblocks put in place by a global pandemic.
It’s ironic that the COVID-19 shutdowns and cancellations really didn’t alter Smith’s rehab from surgery all that much. He was, after all, doing the same things he would have been doing anyway while working with qualified trainers at the APEC facility in Bullard.
“Nothing really changed for him due to the pandemic,” Jeff Smith told PG this week, “other than it probably eased his mind not having to sit in the dugout and just watch everybody play for a whole season...So in his case, it kind of worked out in his favor a little bit, I guess.”
Hagen agreed: “It didn’t really change much for me because I still got to do everything I needed to do,” he said. “My gym was still open so I got to go work out whenever I needed to.”
The reality of not having a 2020 spring season also allowed Smith to take his time getting back on the field, knowing there wasn’t really anything to rush back to. Bullard did have a short 2020 fall practice season but that was more for the younger players, although Smith did play as an outfielder in a few games.
As the winter months passed, Smith did find time to go and throw with local coaches and then started working off of a mound a couple of months before the start of the spring season. At that stage of his recovery, things were already looking good as far as making the spring campaign a successful one.
“Just being able to watch him throw in his bullpens, he looked stronger than ever,” Jeff Smith said. “In talking with him, he’s not a person that didn’t really worry. He always had confidence – and he did hit a couple of stumbling blocks along the way – and he always just knew ‘I’m going to be back’ and ‘I’m going to be good’. So when we got to the season I knew physically he was going to be able to throw well.”
As might be expected, Smith’s numbers this season border on other-worldly for a kid who will still be a month shy of his 18th birthday when the MLB Draft is conducted in July.
Going into the weekend, he stands 10-0 and has thrown 69 innings and allowed just one run (0.10 ERA) on six hits with 157 strikeouts against 23 walks (6 HBP); batters make weak contact on his pitches 90 percent of the time and hard contact at only a 10 percent rate.
PG South Region Director/Texas State Director Britt Smith has long thought highly of Hagen Smith and has been present for all seven of his no-hitters this season. In a recent email, PG’s Smith said what he noticed most about Smith coming off his surgery and out of the pandemic was his physical size. Hagen is now 6-foot-3, 220 pounds up from the listed 6-foot-3, 190 pounds at the PG 16u World Series in July 2019.
“He was always slightly on the taller side but was lean,” Britt Smith said. “Now he is a physical presence on the mound with a strong lower half, showing strength and stamina with the ability to maintain his stuff for a complete game. His command has improved, as well. Hagen has developed the physical strength to repeat his delivery more consistently than before the surgery.”
PG’s Smith noted that even before the surgery, Hagen had one of the better breaking balls in the 2021 class, a hard slider with a late bite that was his swing-and-miss pitch. And that pitch, Britt said, has gotten even more effective as this season progresses.
Jeff Smith, who played baseball through his high school years, doesn’t profess to be a scout but he and just about everyone else figured it would take some time for Hagen to regain the command of his fastball and the effectiveness of his secondary pitches, but that hasn’t been the case. As Jeff put it, he went into the spring season thinking that his son would be able to “throw” pretty well but he wasn’t exactly sure if he would be able to “pitch” really well.
The only person who didn’t give it a second thought? That would be Hagen, of course: “I wasn’t that surprised because that’s what I really worked on the most coming back and rehabbing,” he said. “I tried to work on my command of all of my pitches wherever I was at...I widened my stride a little bit and I kind of shortened my arm path a little bit just to be smoother instead of snappy.”
The decision to continue his playing career and academic pursuits at Arkansas is exciting for Hagen as it is for the rest of the family, but especially for his mom. April and her family are from Arkansas so that whole side was elated when they learned that Hagen had committed to the Hogs.
In reality, it wasn’t that much of a slam dunk. Hagen’s two finalists were the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Florida Gators, a pair of SEC powerhouses, but he ultimately chose Fayetteville over Gainesville.
It took only a couple of trips to Fayetteville for Hagen Smith to be sold on Arkansas. He went to a Razorbacks football game and then doubled back and went to a baseball game, and that’s when he really fell in love with the whole scene.
The on-campus facilities are second-to-none and they help, in turn, to create a championship atmosphere that is among the best in the country. Just like this year’s Hogs, who are ranked No. 1 in the country as the postseason approaches.
“I definitely want to be a part of that (team) and hopefully win a national championship,” Hagen said.
Perfect Game ranks Smith among the top-160 overall (college, juco, high school) prospects for July’s 2021 MLB Amateur Draft, placing him somewhere in the first 10 rounds. Family members have had conversations amongst themselves regarding the draft, there have been Zoom calls with most of the MLB teams, and Hagen does have an advisor who helps him sort through any outside noise, but it’s not a priority.
“Honestly for me, I have no expectations of the draft,” Smith said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen or anything like that, so I’m just going to play and see where the rest of the year takes me, I guess.”
Added Jeff: “Just let him be a high school senior and enjoy the season and with the draft being pushed back to July, you don’t really have to focus on it that much.”
Getting the most out of this final season of high school baseball is all that important to the Smiths right now. Hagen enjoyed tremendous support from his parents and his Bullard Panthers teammates since he first underwent TJ in September 2019 and he doesn’t take that support for granted. He mentioned specifically senior teammates Connor Carson (t-500, Abilene Christian), Gage Wakefield (t-500, Texas) and Bryce Jewell (t-1000, Abilene Christian).
PG’s Britt Smith has been most impressed with level of maturity Hagen Smith has shown this spring considering all of the attention he’s received as a by-product of the seven no-hitters. And he can’t wait to see that maturity on full display when Smith walks out to make another start this weekend.
“He consistently takes the mound to win and you never get the feeling that he is pitching for stats,” Britt said. “It just so happens that when he pitches the stats have accumulated into what are gaudy video game-like numbers.”
He also feels like Hagen Smith has answered every challenge put in front of him this season and said that Bullard head coach Robert Ellis – a former big-league right-hander who won a World Series title with the Diamondbacks in 2001 – deserves credit for the way he’s been handled this year.
“Coach Ellis has kept him on a routine throwing schedule with consistent rest between outings and has not over-used him, which is always a concern with high-value arms in high school.”
When Hagen spoke with PG in November 2019 he said it was his plan to come back bigger and better than ever and it’s now safe to say “mission accomplished” on that front. There were some highs and lows along the way during rehab – there always are – and most of them on the mental side of the coin.
But Hagen Smith never allowed himself to become discouraged, mostly because of the results he was seeing from all the hours spent in the weight room. Now he can go out on the mound knowing that his body in general and his arm in particular are going to feel as good as they’ve ever felt.
“It’s really good to see him come out on the other side healthy and feeling good and being able to compete and play with his classmates for this one last season,” Jeff Smith said. “It’s been fun, for sure; it’s rewarding just to see him enjoy it and be able to help his team.”