Probably the most electrifying second of the NCAA Match got here in a recreation that was all however out of attain already.
Tennessee left-hander Liam Doyle, on his third workforce in as many seasons, was not current for the Vols’ School World Collection title in 2024. However over a short while in Knoxville, he’d nudged his means into a really choose group: Together with Florida State’s Jamie Arnold and LSU’s Kade Anderson, Doyle is a candidate to be the primary school pitcher taken within the draft.
Doyle entered the sport, Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello stated on the time, roughly on his personal volition. By the point Wake Forest’s Luke Costello got here to bat with two outs within the eighth inning and Tennessee main 10-5, the sport was effectively in hand. Doyle was nonetheless bouncing off the partitions anyway.
With one strike left within the inning, Costello stepped out and Wake known as an offensive timeout. A pitcher in Doyle’s scenario would normally confer along with his coaches and teammates. One final run-through of the scouting report, yet another encouraging slap on the bottom.
Not Doyle. The New Hampshirite, just a few hours from his twenty first birthday, waved everybody off. He stepped off the mound and began to mumble to himself, or slightly to Costello:
“You’re [doomed],” Doyle stated to Costello, utilizing a synonym that begins with F.
Certain sufficient, when Costello returned to the field, Doyle had already loaded up the subsequent pitch: a 99-mph fastball proper on the within nook. Already quivering with depth earlier than the pitch, Doyle sprinted off the mound, via a mob of teammates, and out the again of the dugout solely.
This was one of many greatest moments of Doyle’s profession, in a sequence the place nerves have been already worn extremely skinny. After all Doyle can be pumped.
However on the mound, at the least, he’s similar to this. I don’t assume I’ve ever seen a pitcher — particularly a starter — so relentlessly keyed up throughout a recreation. There’s somewhat little bit of Bob Gibson to how Doyle flings his arms and torso on the plate. When he will get strike three, he’ll both bounce off the mound or prowl towards third base whereas the catcher throws the ball across the horn.
All pitchers tempo the mound between batters, to get again to the rubber and clear their heads, however Doyle scans the infield like he’s ensuring no one else out there’s going to attempt to struggle him.
To be trustworthy, it’s very un-baseball, even after it stopped being towards the foundations to have emotions 10 years in the past. Doyle doesn’t simply problem his opponents by coming inside with the fastball, he challenges them verbally. His call-out of Costello is the closest factor I’ve ever seen on a baseball diamond to a basketball participant wiping off the bottoms of his footwear and calling iso on a weak defender. It’s nice. I can’t get sufficient of it.
Final season, when Doyle was enjoying at Ole Miss, he struggled to harness that depth into starter-length outings. “There have been pitches thrown the place that mentality grew to become a weak point as a substitute of a energy,” Vitello says. “Whether or not it’s 0-2 and he’s attempting to throw one via a brick wall, or a ball goes over a man’s head as a result of he’s attempting to do an excessive amount of.”
“I feel that’s simply type of how I’m,” Doyle says. “I at all times carry the underdog mentality with me wherever I’m going. Being a child from New Hampshire, that is one thing that may be very unusual. You get plenty of doubters with that… I convey that mentality to the mound: All the time have nice power and simply attempt to compete.”
Face-to-face, in avenue garments on the MLB Draft Mix, Doyle is the furthest factor from intimidating. He doesn’t appear as large in particular person because the Vols’ roster (which lists him at 6-foot-2, 220 kilos) would have you ever imagine. He nonetheless brings a palpable power into the room, however that power manifests itself not as swagger or bravado, however in Doyle being one of many quickest talkers I’ve ever met. He doesn’t cease to breathe or gather his ideas, and even transfer his jaw; that’d solely be wasted movement. As a substitute, Doyle dispenses no matter info he sees slot in a fast, however gentle, stream of consciousness. He’s very tough to transcribe and rattling close to not possible to punctuate.
However after only one yr in Knoxville, Doyle grew to become extremely in style within the clubhouse.
“Whether or not it’s Arnold or [Arkansas lefty Zach] Root or Kade, all of them appear to be nice guys, and so they wouldn’t be within the place they’re in in the event that they weren’t good teammates,” Vitello says, name-checking a few Doyle’s draft rivals. “However I feel, regardless of who you’re debating out of that group, Liam wins the clubhouse battle simply. I wasn’t within the large leagues, however I do know from guys I’ve coached that there’s plenty of time within the dugout, plenty of time within the clubhouse, and I feel he’s going to be phenomenal no matter group he’s in.”
Doyle’s teammates appear to like him simply as a lot.
“He’s certainly one of a sort with the best way that he goes about issues on the mound,” stated the Vols’ no. 2 starter, Marcus Phillips. “His emotion, his character, the best way that he pitches; he’s an unbelievable human, unbelievable participant, certainly one of my higher mates at Tennessee. He’s only a good dude, man.”
Infielder Andrew Fischer transferred to Tennessee from Ole Miss alongside Doyle, and sees him as a kindred spirit by way of depth and emotion on the sphere. Vitello says Doyle and Fischer are “like brothers.” And having performed with Doyle on two totally different groups, Fischer was capable of supply some distinctive perception on his pal.
“He’s an unbelievable particular person, only a nice man, nice teammate, actually dedicated to his craft,” Fischer says. “He modified his physique over the course of the previous 18 months. In the event you ask him to take his shirt off, he’s acquired a six-pack now.”
Doyle says enhancing his health was the most important optimistic change he’s made this season. After getting stronger and fitter, he’s in a position not solely to throw tougher however to throw extra. The end result: 164 strikeouts in a career-high 95 2/3 innings.
“After I acquired to Tennessee, all of it acquired mapped out for you by the energy coach,” Doyle says. “He simply type of laid it out on the desk for me, confirmed me what I needed to do. I used to be both going to purchase in or I wasn’t, and I totally purchased in. Simply put my head down, put within the work due to that, lifting 4 or 5 days every week, ensuring my operating was very constant, and my food plan was all wholesome, good protein and stuff like that.”
As helpful because the underdog mentality has been for Doyle, he managed to get recruited by — and throw 56 1/3 innings for — Coastal Carolina in 2023. From there, he transferred to Ole Miss, the place some hassle with house runs inflated his ERA to five.73. When he began the 2025 season, Doyle’s upside was apparent: It’s an upper-90s lefty fastball with tons of carry that’s almost unhittable on the high of the zone. However questions on his observe document and sturdiness left him within the 20s in our preseason draft rating.
It was solely after Doyle established himself at Tennessee that he rose to the place he’s in now: A lock for the highest 10 picks, with an outdoor shot at being the primary pitcher off the board. He’s certainly one of three school lefties combating for that distinction. One is Anderson, final seen tossing a complete-game shutout in Sport 1 of the School World Collection remaining.
The opposite is Arnold.
Final season, Arnold was the one underclassman chosen as a finalist for Nationwide Pitcher of the 12 months. He went 11-3 (plus a save in his solely aid look) with a 2.98 ERA in 105 2/3 innings in 2024. In 2025, he put up comparable numbers general: 8-2 with a 33.9% strikeout charge, in 21 fewer innings because of the Noles’ earlier exit from the NCAA Match. Arnold’s ERA remained the identical: 2.98.
There’s some debate over which of the three high school lefties ought to go off the board first, however whereas Anderson, Doyle, and Arnold are valued equally throughout the trade, the label “school lefty” elides how totally different they’re as pitchers. Anderson is a smooth-as-silk southpaw with a number of breaking balls who will get comped to Max Fried. Doyle has his ball-of-plasma fastball and pitches like he’s chained to a chair and is attempting to get out.
Arnold is somewhat totally different:
“I threw from a high-three-quarter slot in highschool, which was most likely 5-foot-4 to 5-foot-6 launch peak,” Arnold says. “I gained 30 kilos my freshman summer season earlier than school, in order that dropped my slot somewhat bit. And I felt comfy, the ball was popping out about the identical, so there was no want to alter it. However because the years have gone on, I’ve discovered my slot somewhere else. After my freshman yr it was low, so I raised it again as much as the place it’s at now, and I’ve caught with it and gained some velo with that.”
Arnold’s lengthy arm swing and excessive low launch level make it exhausting to seek out a straightforward comp for him. There are just a few lefty starters who come at hitters from that angle, like Chris Sale and Nick Lodolo, however they’re each 5 or 6 inches taller than the 6-foot-1 Arnold. When it comes to a sophisticated school starter with a low slot and a giant breaking ball, possibly Arnold comps to a younger Aaron Nola. However as a lot as Nola’s movement made it seem like his arm was going to return unstuck on the elbow, he didn’t have Arnold’s ridiculous plate-traversing slider.
Arnold can hit the mid-90s and maintain his velo all through a begin, regardless of his lack of dimension and unorthodox arm slot. A fastball at that velocity and from that launch level might be unnerving for left-handed hitters and downright horrifying for righties, if Arnold can find it inside. However the slider is Arnold’s greatest weapon. He can bury it back-foot to righties and sweep it away from lefties, altering form and velocity as he pleases.
“I’ve a fantastic really feel for it, so I’ve had the flexibility, if I wished, to simply sweep straight throughout,” Arnold says. “And if I wished to have some two-plane depth, I type of get to the facet of it, simply make that motion work.”
Arnold’s favourite out pitch is a two-plane slider right down to lefties.
“Earlier within the yr, I used to be attempting to comb lots to lefties, and so they have been doing job staying on it, as a result of it stays of their bat path,” he says. “But when I’m going two strikes, I’m going to attempt to throw a two-plane, virtually pondering curveball, and it will get guys swinging on high of it. It’s been good, as a result of I don’t assume guys see the identical slider twice.”
Arnold isn’t as intense on the mound as Doyle, although I assume that isn’t saying a lot. Begbie from Trainspotting isn’t as intense as Doyle is on the mound. He says he’s a laid-back Florida man, and he needed to put actual work into amping himself up.
On the urging of his pitching coach, Arnold began watching movies of Kobe Bryant to discover ways to play with an edge. (Which involved me at first; I fearful {that a} pitcher who tried to be taught from Kobe would throw plenty of pitches however not likely care if he hit the strike zone. Arnold assured me this was not the lesson he discovered.)
“[I was] simply looking for some edge once I went on the market and assault hitters,” he says. “That was large for me, as a result of off the sphere I’m very chill and relaxed, however it helped me lots. Now I get fairly fired up once I pitch, and it simply occurs. I don’t have to coach myself to do something.”
Even in Clark Kent’s garments, Arnold exudes confidence. MLB put the FanGraphs delegation in a set at Chase Area for our interviews, and Arnold supplied that, having grown up in Tampa, he went to plenty of Rays video games as a child, and Tropicana Area didn’t have services like this. That very same day, information had damaged that Rays proprietor Stu Sternberg had entered unique negotiations to promote the membership to a gaggle of traders headed by Jacksonville-based developer Patrick Zalupski. So naturally, I requested Arnold if he’d heard.
“Actually? I hope,” Arnold stated. “I imply, that proprietor simply wants to maneuver on. I don’t assume he’s carried out job coping with every little thing. I imply, Tampa is booming proper now with sports activities and every little thing else. So simply transfer the workforce to Tampa.”
I interviewed virtually 20 gamers over three days on the Mix; suffice it to say that Arnold is the one one who dropped a “Promote the workforce” inside 30 seconds of me turning on my recorder. (I checked; the Rays don’t choose till no. 14, by which era Arnold should be lengthy gone.)
As totally different as Doyle and Arnold are, each by way of repertoire and persona, I like the identical factor about each of them: They’re not the prototype. The highest of each draft has its fast-to-the-majors workhorse starter, and from Stephen Strasburg to Gerrit Cole to Paul Skenes, these guys are usually large. They’ve immaculate mechanics and prototypical secondary stuff. It’s simple to place the fortunes of a franchise on a participant who seems like what you understand.
Doyle and Arnold are somewhat bizarre. They’re small, they don’t have prototypical arm actions. You don’t must know a factor about pitching to know why Doyle can climb the ladder so successfully along with his fastball, or how Arnold could make guys fall over swinging at a slider within the reverse batter’s field. But it surely’s not what Skenes, or Cole, and even Chase Burns, seems like on the mound.
With fashionable coaching and pitch design, and the understanding that when you have one 70-grade pitch you possibly can construct a starter’s arsenal round it, Doyle and Arnold are breaking the mould, and new floor for school pitchers within the draft. The pitchability lefty with the humorous arm slot can hit 97 now, and the max-effort fastball man can throw strikes and pitch into the sixth and seventh inning. A brand new period is dawning; would possibly as effectively stand up and pump your fist about it.