This fall could be the last of its kind for Arkansas baseball.
Just as he has the last few seasons, veteran head coach Dave Van Horn has stockpiled a surplus of talent and will parse through it in the coming months as the Razorbacks practice and scrimmage amongst themselves.
Between returners, transfers and signees, there are currently 54 players projected to go through fall practices with Arkansas, meaning it could probably field two pretty competitive teams. The key will be figuring out the top guys who will actually contribute in 2025.
Despite the scholarship limit increasing from 11.7 to 34 in time for the following 2026 season, there’s a chance the Razorbacks’ overall depth will decrease next fall.
In fact, that’s one reason Van Horn isn’t exactly jumping for joy about the scholarship limit nearly tripling. That limit is also a roster cap — down from 40 players this coming season.
Nothing has been officially decided yet, but he is under the impression that it will be a hard 34-player cap that applies to the fall, not just the spring as it does currently. That means Arkansas would have to field 20 fewer players in the fall of 2025 than it is set to do so this fall.
While there is uncertainty surrounding the changes to all of college athletics in 2025-26, there is plenty of that for this upcoming fall, as well.
Best of Arkansas Sports will take a deep-dive look at those uncertainties in a two-part breakdown of Arkansas’ potential depth chart for fall ball, beginning with the infield…
Projected 2025 Arkansas Baseball Infield
Catcher
- Ryder Helfrick
- Elliott Peterson
There are also a couple of freshman catchers coming in this year, but the battle for the starting job is expected to be between the two guys with collegiate experience.
As the lone returner from last year’s catcher room, Ryder Helfrick is the front runner. He was a heralded recruit out of California last offseason, checking in as the No. 46 in Perfect Game’s Class of 2023 rankings, so even getting him to campus was a win for the Razorbacks.
There was legitimate talk of Helfrick and Hudson White rotating between catcher and designated hitter heading into the 2024 season, but things didn’t go as planned for the freshman.
Even though he still started 26 games, Helfrick slashed just .179/.320/.321 with three home runs and only eight RBIs in 84 at bats.
However, he started to turn the corner late in the season and followed it up with a massive summer in the Cape Cod League. If he can continue that into his sophomore campaign with the Razorbacks, he’ll almost certainly be the primary catcher in 2025.
That said, Dave Van Horn would like to have a second catcher so he can give Helfrick days off to save his legs from the wear and tear that comes with that position.
With every other catcher moving on, Arkansas dipped into the junior college ranks for Elliott Peterson. He is coming off a monster season in which he led all of NJCAA with a .517 batting average and finished third with 91 RBIs. The Nebraska native also hit 15 home runs and was 25 of 25 on stolen base attempts in 59 games, plus had a 1.479 OPS.
Those are video game-like numbers, but they also came at the JUCO level, where top-level players regularly hit over .400. The SEC is a significant jump in competition, so it’ll be interesting to see how he adjusts to facing better pitching.
First Base
- Michael Anderson
- Reese Robinett
A few other players could be in the mix at first base, such as BYU transfer Kuhio Aloy, but our initial thought is it’ll be a battle between a transfer and a home-grown talent.
We’ll start with the transfer. Listed at 6-foot-3, 227 pounds, Michael Anderson is a true first baseman whose likely only other position is designated hitter. He spent the previous two seasons at Rhode Island, where he earned Freshman All-America accolades in 2023.
Anderson hit .316 with 10 home runs and 43 RBIs that year. He experienced a bit of a sophomore slump, as his batting averaged dropped all the way to .252, but he still had 13 home runs and 41 RBIs despite having fewer plate appearances. His OPS actually increased from .951 to .985.
While strikeouts have been an issue for him in college, Anderson did display some pop in the Cape Cod League before ending the summer on a slump. If he can cut down the strikeouts and still hit for power, he’ll have a shot to be the everyday first baseman. That won’t be easy going from the A-10 to the SEC, but Jared Sprague-Lott did fine making that same jump last season.
Reese Robinett is a name some Arkansas baseball fans may have forgotten. The Kennett, Mo., native had one of the biggest swings of 2023 when he launched a 10th-inning, pinch-hit home run to help the Razorbacks beat No. 1 LSU, but then redshirted this past season because Dave Van Horn didn’t want to waste a year of his eligibility on a season in which he wouldn’t get a significant number of at bats.
Despite not playing this season, Robinett went off and dominated summer ball. Albeit in a lesser league than the Cape (he played in the New England Collegiate Baseball League), he hit .331 with 11 doubles, nine home runs and 32 RBIs in 37 regular-season games and was named an All-Star in the league. That’s impressive production regardless of level.
If that can translate into a strong fall in Fayetteville, Robinett will be firmly in the mix for playing time at either of the corner infield spots or potentially designated hitter. We’ve slotted him at first base here because that’s the position at which most believe he best projects. On the flip side of that, he may be a candidate to transfer to a JUCO at midyear if he struggles in the fall and looks like he’ll be on the outside looking in for playing time next spring.
Second Base
- Camden Kozeal
- Carson Schrack
This is where things get a little bit tricky because Dave Van Horn can get flexible. Even though we have Nolan Souza at third base and Gabe Fraser at shortstop, both could conceivably play second if they outperform the players listed above.
However, the favorite to win the starting job at second base is Vanderbilt transfer Camden Kozeal. He was the No. 115 overall recruit in the Class of 2023, according to Perfect Game, and signed with Vanderbilt out of high school.
As a freshman with the Commodores, Kozeal started 35 games and slashed .284/.349/.439 with five home runs – including the bomb below – and 28 RBIs in 148 at bats. Those aren’t superstar numbers, but he was a freshman playing in the toughest league in all of college baseball.
Considering how he was viewed as a recruit, it isn’t a stretch to think he’ll make a significant jump as a sophomore. Plus, one Vanderbilt reporter told Best of Arkansas Sports that Kozeal has “tons of potential” and was a “big loss” for the Commodores.
The backup — or even starter, if it’s not Kozeal — may end up being one of the other guys mentioned above, but for the purpose of fall scrimmages, Carson Schrack makes sense as a second baseman because he played the position at Coffeyville C.C., where also played some third base.
On paper, Schrack appears to be the prototypical leadoff hitter. While he hit only seven home runs in 114 career games in junior college, he did score 103 runs, had nearly twice as many walks (65) as strikeouts (37) and was 28 of 31 on stolen base attempts. He also slashed .377/.468/.550 across those two seasons.
Third Base
- Brent Iredale
- Nolan Souza
One again, both of these players are fully capable of starting for Arkansas baseball in 2025, as it wouldn’t be surprising to see Nolan Souza end up at second base (or possibly in the outfield) or either of them end up as the designated hitter.
Even getting Brent Iredale to campus was a success for the Razorbacks. It likely played a part in them moving on from Georgia State transfer Maximus Martin, who flipped his commitment to Kansas State.
A top-500 MLB Draft prospect this summer, the Australian was tabbed the second-best JUCO prospect in the class by Prep Baseball Report. The No. 1 player on that list was Florida State signee Mack Estrada and he signed with the Yankees as an 11th-round pick, so Iredale is the best junior college prospect to make it to Division I this year, at least according to PBR.
He’s coming off a season in which he earned second-team NJCAA All-America honors for slashing .441/.576/1.000 with 25 home runs and 78 RBIs in 58 games. On top of the power, Iredale showed improved plate discipline with more walks (30 in 2023, 47 in 2024) and fewer strikeouts (41 in 2023, 32 in 2024), plus he was 40 of 45 on stolen base attempts over the last two years.
As for Souza, the top-100 recruit from Hawaii got off to a great start as a true freshman, but struggled mightily down the stretch. In fact, he went 6 for 47 with 21 strikeouts to end the season, resulting in his batting average dipping nearly 100 points to .255.
Still, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Souza hit seven home runs in limited playing time. Dave Van Horn mentioned several times that he’s an elite athlete who was still a bit raw as a baseball player, so a jump from his freshman to sophomore year wouldn’t be surprising at all.
Who ends up winning this job will boil down how well Iredale adjusts to the SEC vs. how big of a jump Souza makes in his second collegiate season. Again, there’s also a scenario in which both of them find their way into the lineup in 2025.
Shortstop
- Wehiwa Aloy
- Gabe Fraser
The closest thing to a guarantee for next year’s Arkansas baseball lineup is Wehiwa Aloy being in the middle of it as the starting shortstop.
Despite an up-and-down sophomore season, the Hawaiian was the only player to start every game and still posted an .840 OPS while leading the team in home runs (14), RBIs (56) and stolen bases (7).
Strikeouts were a bit of an issue, as he had a tendency to chase pitches out of the zone and swing for the fences, but Aloy produces elite exit velocities when he makes contact. The good news is he showed some encouraging signs of doing that more often with a huge summer in the Cape Cod League.
Not only was he leading the league in home runs when he went home, but Aloy was also slashing .309/.352/.642 in 81 at bats. His production at both Sacramento State and Arkansas, plus the Cape, has led to some outlets already projecting him as a first-round pick next summer.
Last fall, Nolan Souza got a lot of reps at shortstop in intrasquad scrimmages, but his playing time came as a designated hitter, second baseman or third baseman. That is probably the best potential route to playing time for another heralded freshman this year — Gabe Fraser.
A top-150 recruit in the 2024 class, according to Perfect Game, he is a product of the prestigious Trinity League in the Los Angeles area. There was a chance he wouldn’t even make it to campus, but Fraser announced during the MLB Draft that he’d be coming to school.
Immediate playing time might be hard to come by, but if he sticks around, he could be the shortstop of the future because Aloy will be taken in next summer’s MLB Draft.
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Here’s a look at our projected 2025 Arkansas baseball roster, as things currently stand:
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