SURPRISE, Ariz. -- Hagen Smith provided three scoreless innings in his Arizona Fall League debut for the Glendale Desert Dogs on Wednesday night, yet he wasn't completely satisfied.
The No. 5 overall pick in the 2024 Draft by the White Sox and one of the top left-handed pitching prospects in the Minors, Smith battled his control and command at times and threw 20 balls among his 48 pitches. At the same time, the White Sox No. 5 prospect's fastball and slider overmatched the Surprise Saguaros, who later rallied from an 8-1 deficit for a wild 11-10 victory in 10 innings.
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Smith's fastball averaged 95 mph and touched 97, generating four called strikes (three resulting in strikeouts) and seven swings-and-misses. His sharp slider ranged from 81-85 mph, creating four called strikes and four empty swings. One indicator of the nastiness of his stuff was that his overall called/swinging strike percentage was 40 percent, while the MLB leader this year (minimum: 50 innings) was the Padres' Mason Miller at 36 percent.
"I put up zeros so I took that away from it, but my stuff was a little here and there," Smith said. "The slider was just kind of pulling off a little bit at times. There were some good ones, some bad ones, but overall I thought I was decent.
"I'm still working on my command every day. I've been working on it since high school and now in pro ball, just kind of battling through some stuff. I'll just keep working on my command and hopefully it gets better."
During his Draft year at Arkansas, Smith set an NCAA Division I record by averaging 17.3 strikeouts per nine innings. He was similarly unhittable in his first full pro season at Double-A, fanning 108 in 75 2/3 innings while posting a 3.57 ERA and limiting opponents to a .166 average.
Smith did face more adversity than expected, however. He came down with a sore elbow in mid-May and took six weeks off to recover and to improve his mechanics. His crossfire delivery with a low arm slot creates plenty of deception but can make it difficult to throw strikes, as evidenced by his 18 percent walk rate at Double-A.
"I'm still working on it," MLB's No. 88 overall prospect said. "It's kind of a day-by-day thing, just kind of slowing down everything. I was getting too rushed in my lower half and just kind of causing my front shoulder to lean a little bit, so kind of working against my body and trying to throw strikes."
In addition to making up for lost innings and trying to add some more polish while he's with the Desert Dogs, Smith also hopes to refine his upper-80s splitter. He used it only 4 percent of the time at Double-A and threw it just twice against the Saguaros because he struggles to land it for strikes, but it features intriguing tumble.
If Smith can make the necessary adjustments, he could arrive at Rate Field at some point in 2026. So could Noah Schultz (CWS No. 2/MLB No. 40), another bat-missing left-hander who also was scheduled to play for Glendale. That plan was scratched when Schultz didn't fully recover from a right knee injury sustained at midseason.
"Me and Noah are pretty close," Schultz said. "We try to pick each other's brains a little bit. I think we're a little different pitching-wise, like repertoire. So it's kind of hard to say, what do you feel on this, because he throws a big slider and I throw a short slider. He throws more sinkers than four-seamers and I throw a lot of four-seamers. But I think just talking pitches and sequences and everything is really good."