Arkansas
Arkansas baseball adds to pitching depth with highly ranked transfer from ECU
FAYETTEVILLE — The rich got richer Monday, with Arkansas baseball adding one of the best players available in the transfer portal to its pitching staff.
East Carolina lefty Zach Root announced his commitment to the Razorbacks on social media Monday evening, becoming the 10th Division I transfer to join Arkansas this offseason. According to 64analytics, Root is ranked as the No. 2 player in the portal.
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Root was the Saturday starter for the Pirates in 2024, going 6-2 with a 3.56 ERA. He struck out 76 batters and only allowed 21 walks in 68 ⅓ innings. Root held opponents to a .228 batting average.
Root is a rising junior who hails from Florida. The lefty primarily worked out of the bullpen during his freshman season at ECU, sporting a 3-3 record and a 5.33 ERA.
Arkansas will need to replace consensus national pitcher of the year Hagen Smith and all of its weekend rotation next season. Still, the Hogs are blessed with plenty of options, and Root will add to the depth.
Freshmen Gabe Gaeckle, Colin Fisher and Hunter Dietz are all potential options. Gaeckle was the bullpen ace this spring, while the two lefties both had their seasons cut short due to injury. Gage Wood finished the year as a starter, while Ben Bybee took over as the top midweek option after Fisher’s injury.
Root is also the third potential starter added through the transfer portal. Ohio State’s Landon Beidelschies (6-7, 4.15 ERA) and Oregon State’s Aiden Jimenez have also joined the program. Jimenez missed the entire 2024 season with an injury.
Rex Nelson
Rex Nelson has been senior editor and columnist at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 2017, and he has a biweekly podcast called “Southern Fried.”
After graduating from Ouachita Baptist University in 1981, he was a sportswriter for the Arkansas Democrat for a year before becoming editor of Arkadelphia’s Daily Siftings Herald. He was the youngest editor of a daily in Arkansas at age 23. Rex was then news and sports director at KVRC-KDEL from 1983-1985.
He returned to the Democrat as assistant sports editor in 1985. From 1986-1989, he was its Washington correspondent. He left to be Jackson T. Stephens’ consultant.
Rex became the Democrat-Gazette’s first political editor in 1992, but left in 1996 to join then-Gov. Mike Huckabee’s office. He also served from 2005-09 in the administration of President George W. Bush.
From 2009-2018, he worked stints at the Communications Group, Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities, and Simmons First National Corp.
Dylan Sherman
Dylan Sherman is a business reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He is based in Northwest Arkansas and focuses on Tyson Foods Inc. and the transportation industry. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he has been with the newspaper since 2023.
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