Baxendale Moving into GM Role Won't Have Effect Hogs Fans Suspect

When it came down at the Swatter's Club Tuesday that former Razorback and current analytics director DJ Baxendale is going to handle GM duties for Arkansas baseball, the reaction by fans was oddly curious.

Rather than seeing the position for what it is, a chance to take a lot of annoying things that eat up Van Horn's time throughout the day that he'd rather not deal with, it was taken as an opportunity to finally get Arkansas baseball recruiting back on the right track. Yes, it is accurate to perceive Baxendale's role as an asset to the recruiting process.

He will be available to talk about NIL and other player retainment issues throughout the season, which is something Van Horn specifically refuses do. Also, rather than pumping hours upon hours talking to agents and players about money, something he gets zero joy from talking about, Van Horn can go back to focusing on the little things that used to make a big difference in the offseason that are way more in line with the coaching part of the job.

However, no matter how well Baxendale does at his job, he isn't going to make a lot of improvements in terms of recruiting. Perhaps fans see recruiting as an issue because for much of the season, they have been mired in frustration caused by drilling down on specific negatives rather than stepping back and looking at the overall positives.

Because some of the hitters went into a slump during the heart of SEC play and a couple of pitchers had to be shuffled around into roles for which they are better fits, fans have wrongfully assumed this is because Arkansas hasn't been able to land the quality recruits Van Horn and his staff typically lure to Fayetteville.

However, that's simply not the case. In fact, on paper, this should be the greatest collection of talent most Arkansas fans have ever witnessed on the field at the same time.

See, while Baxendale's history of mingling with up and coming stars during the various camps Arkansas hosts and, as attested by Van Horn directly, he has extensive relationships with agents across the baseball world, all those connections can't help Baxendale land an even better set of recruits.

In 2023, while recruiting the juniors who are to be currently leading the Hogs today while padding stats for the upcoming Major League Draft, the Razorbacks held off the nation's current No. 1 team, UCLA, to land the highest rated recruiting class in the country.

That number fell off to No. 17 in 2024, which, while being the lowest rating of this decade, is still pretty much in line with where Arkansas is most seasons. The Hogs are usually between No. 11 and No. 17 most years in the recruiting services.

However, Van Horn's staff bucked the trend again in 2025 with the third best class in all of college baseball on a tier tightly packed with No. 1 Tennessee and No. 2 Texas. After that is a massive drop-off to No. 4 Virginia and if there were a more effective word for massive to describe it, it would certainly be used because it is indescribable how far things fall off from the Razorbacks to the Cavaliers.

That means the Hogs are suiting up a group of veterans who should be the best in the country with full incentive to pack out the first round of the upcoming MLB draft with Arkansas players and surrounding them with the nation's best freshmen, which explains the play of guys like Carter Rutenbar and Sunday's unlikely hero, Christian Turner.

Of course, a No. 17 class isn't talentless, so the holes are filled with pitchers Cole Gibler and Carson Wiggins, the latter of whom keeps inching closer to returning to what Arkansas fans hope will be something close to the dominant monster he was evolving into before his injury.

All the pieces should be there according to what's on paper without a GM. And, if the Hogs keep pulling it together by developing younger guys like Hunter Dietz while also getting veterans to return to their projected form, it's going to be one wild ride once postseason play arrives.

Just know if Arkansas bombs out in the regionals, which this program has been known to do every now and then, it won't be because the Razorbacks didn't have a GM in place yet. It will be just because that's how life goes sometimes.

However, if Van Horn keeps coming back for the next few years and finally gets to claim the national championship he's earned so many times over, that will be because of the role Baxendale will play. It will be because he is going to serve as the shield to all of the stuff that drives Van Horn mad and potentially makes him not want to come to work one day.

"We need somebody to be able to handle a lot of things, talking with the guys that are on our team already, you know, to talk to them towards the end of the season and talk to their advisors," Van Horn said after the weekly Swatter's Club meeting. "And, then maybe even the kids that are coming in, the high school kids or the transfers, you have to talk to them. You just have to get some things straightened out. And you know, it's it's the way it should be."

It gives Arkansas the chance to make the job of the head baseball coach strictly about coaching, not all of the other junk that has run so many legendary coaches out of sports. Baxendale's arrival to the role probably couldn't have come at a much later date without damaging the program.

Consider it the equivalent of putting a new engine in the vehicle that is Van Horn's career. It allows more opportunity for moments like the usually reserved Van Horn had when he enthusiastically celebrated Turner's shocking home run to take the series over Ole Miss.

Can't say it any better than DVH pic.twitter.com/No7srFtuzs
— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) May 3, 2026

So, don't get it twisted. This isn't about getting Arkansas back to where it used to be in the recruiting game.

The Razorbacks never left. It's simply about getting a lot of stuff off Van Horn's plate that should have never been there in the first place.

It's about letting one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game focus on what he's supposed to be doing — coaching baseball. And now, with Baxendale deflecting phone calls and talks of money, Van Horn's likely to do that for a few years more than he would have.

Hogs Feed:

Add us as a preferred source on Google