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baseball Edit

Additon and subtraction for Iowa baseball

Heller's Hawkeyes added an arm and lost an outfield to the transfer portal.
Heller's Hawkeyes added an arm and lost an outfield to the transfer portal.

Coach Heller has stayed busy with the transfers this year, as he added his sixth transfer to the 2022 roster Saturday evening. Left-handed pitcher Jared Simpson out of Clinton, Iowa becomes the second D1 transfer to join the Hawkeyes, as Simpson played with the Missouri Tigers this season.

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Simpson is a class of 2018 prospect, who was not ranked by the Perfect Game prospect rating system, but he was second team All-MAC Conference at Clinton, as a senior. He attended Iowa Western and had a fantastic freshman season in 2019, going 7-1 as a starting pitcher with a 2.33 ERA, while striking out 68 over 54 innings pitched. Simpson had quality two quality starts to open 2020 for the Reivers, allowing just two runs over 8.2 innings pitched, but a bad outing skyrocketed his ERA just before the season was cut short due to Covid.

Simpson transferred to Missouri for the 2021 season, but struggled in six appearances, posting a 22.95 ERA over 6.2 innings pitched. He allowed 15 hits, walked ten and struck out six in his short span of outings. His best outing came against Grand Canyon, when he pitched 1.1 innings, allowing an unearned run on just one hit.

Coach Heller and pitching coach Robin Lund must think that they can work with Simpson to get him closer to his numbers at Iowa Western. With no clear #2 bullpen arm behind Dylan Nedved, the Hawkeye coaching staff will be looking for a guy or two to step up and help lead the way next season. Simpson, along with other like James, Langenberg, Payne, Henderson and a couple others will get the opportunity during non-conference play to try to assert themselves as reliable bullpen options behind Nedved.

The general consensus is that the Hawkeyes will lose a couple of guys to the MLB Draft, so we will have to see what else Coach Heller would like to add, but a bullpen arm, who has shown reliability on another pitching staff would be big.

Meanwhile, Iowa also lost a player to the transfer portal.

The Hawkeyes saw their third player to the transfer portal this off-season, as second year freshman outfielder Paul Vossen entered his name into the quickly growing list of players looking for a new home.

Vossen played very sparingly this season, starting just two games in centerfield, while appearing in 11 total games. He was 0-9 at the plate, while drawing one walk. With the departure of Ben Norman, Zeb Adreon and potentially Trenton Wallace, Vossen would have had an opportunity to break into the outfield rotation.

Out of the class of 2019, Vossen was rated the #1 OF prospect and #26 overall prospect in the state of Nevada. He played in just four games as a true freshman in 2020.

With the transfer, Iowa is down to eight players listed in the outfield for 2022. Trenton Wallace (draft), Connor McCaffery (hasn’t played in two years) and Coy Sarsfield (leg injury) are all question marks for next season. With the concerns of outfield depth growing, I would not be surprised to see Coach Heller ramp up the search for a potential transfer portal addition.

“If the chips fall our way and we can go and get a couple guys, we would probably look at another corner outfielder that can really hit,” said Coach Heller earlier this month.

Iowa Western transfer Kyle Huckstorf, returning starter Brayden Frazier and redshirt freshman Keaton Anthony figure to be the top guys on the outfield depth chart entering next season.

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