photo courtesy of Joey Lorenzini
The final stretch of Joey Lorenzini’s trip to Fayetteville, where he would soon enroll in summer classes at Arkansas, was not like anything he’s used to.
After flying into Tulsa, the imposing left-hander and his family still had two hours of driving to get to campus, but the 80 mph speed limit offered by the Cherokee Turnpike was a welcome change of pace.
“Long stretches like this back home are bumper to bumper,” Lorenzini joked during an interview with Best of Arkansas Sports early in that trek on June 27.
Back home is Rocklin, Calif., a suburb of Sacramento and part of a metropolitan area with five times as many people as Northwest Arkansas.
With plenty of interest from West coast schools, Lorenzini could have easily stayed much closer to home, but that wasn’t what he had in mind.
“I always wanted to come play in what I thought was the best conference in the country and that’s what the SEC is,” Lorenzini said. “I never dreamed of wanting to go to a California school, I always wanted to get away from home and have a new experience.”
His journey to Fayetteville was nowhere near as smooth as that 33-mile toll road, though.
Joey Lorenzini Overcomes Adversity
On the surface, nothing about Joey Lorenzini’s timeline seems out of the ordinary. A high-profile recruit committing in September of his senior year is pretty common in football and basketball.
In baseball, however, that’s pretty late – especially for a left-handed pitcher who started picking up offers from the likes of Oregon, Stanford and UCLA as an eighth grader.
But for Lorenzini, there was a pretty simple explanation for the delay: He had Tommy John surgery in the summer of 2022, between his freshman and sophomore years at Rocklin High.
The elbow injury had likely been building for a while before coming to a head during a throwing session at his training facility, Alpha Prime. It was a devastating blow for a promising prospect, but everyone he talked to conveyed the same positive message.
“You can’t feel sorry for yourself,” Lorenzini recounted. “It’s a blessing in disguise. This is the healthiest my arm’s going to feel since I was a young kid. It’s a bad thing right now, but in the end…you’re going to be better for it.”
Rocklin senior Joey Lorenzini (@2025Joey) has become a name to watch in baseball circles. With an invitation to the MLB Draft Combine and a commitment to play at Arkansas, Lorenzini’s talent is clear—but it’s the adversity he’s overcome that truly defines his journey.… pic.twitter.com/Zd443QiFeI
— Kirsten Moran-Kellar (@kirstenlizmoran) May 19, 2025
That proved to be true when he finally returned to the mound. The 6-foot-5 lefty helped the Thunder win back-to-back league titles while posting a 1.55 ERA with 115 strikeouts.
Sandwiched between his final two seasons of high school ball, Lorenzini generated quite a bit of buzz on the summer circuit when he came out throwing 90-93 mph in his first appearance.
“Then my phone just started blowing up,” Lorenzini said.
Arkansas was among the schools that stood out to him, along with Georgia and Oklahoma, so his family planned a swing through the southeast for his official visits in September.
It started in Athens so he could check out former Arkansas assistant Wes Johnson’s club and continued with stops in Fayetteville and Norman. If it was up to him, though, Lorenzini would have cut the trip short because Arkansas blew him away with everything it had to offer.
They ended up still stopping by the Sooners because it was already planned, but it didn’t change his mind. Sure enough, immediately after that visit wrapped up, the Lorenzinis got back in the car and drove to Arkansas to deliver the news to pitching coach Matt Hobbs in person.
The longtime assistant was crucial in his recruitment. Not only is he good friends with Lorenzini’s agent, Mike Zirelli, but he also got a glowing review from a trio of Razorbacks – Colin Fisher, Gabe Gaeckle and Ryder Helfrick – who hosted the touted prospect during his visit. The latter two of those also happened to be from California and play for the same travel ball organization as Lorenzini, adding to his trust level.
“The consensus is if you want to be the best pitcher you can possibly be, you come to Arkansas,” Lorenzini said. “There’s no other better place, there’s no better instruction. That in itself right there was all I needed to hear.”
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What it Means for Arkansas Baseball
The only thing that can keep Joey Lorenzini from suiting up for the Razorbacks now is the MLB Draft, which begins with the first three rounds at 5 p.m. CT Sunday.
Considered the top left-hander from California in the 2025 class, he checks in as the No. 209 overall recruit on Perfect Game and attended the MLB Draft Combine. Several scouts have told him they’d like to get him in their system now and not after he’s developed at Arkansas, when “they would have to pay three times more” to sign him.
Luckily for the Razorbacks, he’s already in Fayetteville and doesn’t sound interested in leaving anytime soon.
“I’m set on coming to school,” Lorenzini said. “I think if I was at all really going to go toward a pro ball route, then I probably wouldn’t be here. But I’m here and I’m ready to get to work.”
However, in an interview with Gold Country Media that published June 27, he admitted it’s still “50/50” and would come down to whether or not a pro team offered enough money to warrant skipping school.
It’s clear why the Arkansas coaches and MLB scouts are battling over his services, though.
While his velocity sits in the low-90s and touches the mid-90s right now, Lorenzini’s frame indicates that will only continue to rise. He’s hopeful, with Arkansas’ resources, that can tick up to where he’s consistently in the low- to mid-90s and even creep into the upper-90s this year.
He also throws a splitter, but his best and most “big league ready” pitch is what he describes as a split-change. It’s a true “plus” pitch to complement the fastball and has a ton of horizontal movement away from right-handed hitters and into lefties.
Lorenzini said he picked up the pitch with the help of a big leaguer he befriended while working out at Optimum Athletes, another training facility in Sacramento. It happened while he was searching for a new way to throw his changeup because his large hand was making it tough to control.
That’s when Sam Long, a reliever for the Kansas City Royals in his fifth MLB season, suggested using his pitch grip. He also gave him some pointers on what he does with his wrist when throwing the pitch.
It’s a weapon the Razorbacks would love to deploy against SEC hitters in 2026 if they can keep Lorenzini from detouring into the professional ranks.
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More coverage of Arkansas baseball and the 2025 MLB Draft from BoAS…