Oregon State’s Dax Whitney is dominating college baseball like the sport’s most legendary arms: the Paul Skenes and Stephen Strasburgs of the world. Comparing a sophomore with 20 starts in his career to a top-two pitcher in baseball and a World Series MVP might sound hyperbolic, but Whitney’s early-season dominance and underlying metrics have earned him a place in those conversations.
The scary part? He might be even better than Skenes coming out of college.
Whitney flashed glimpses of his potential as a freshman, establishing himself as a weekend starter for one of the elite programs in the past 20 years and pitching to a line of 76.2 IP, 120 K, 37 BB, 3.40 ERA, 1.28 WHIP over 17 starts. His advanced metrics support his strong performance, as he pitched to a 3.77 FIP and 2.22 SIERA, which is complemented by a strong 25.2% K-BB% (36.4 K%, 11.2 BB%).
Whitney’s strong freshman season, coupled with an anticipated leap heading into his sophomore year, earned him the No. 2 spot on D1 Baseball’s preseason top 200 starting pitchers, behind only Coastal Carolina’s Junior ace Cameron Flukey, a potential top-five pick in this year’s draft.
Flukey has unfortunately been sidelined by an injury. Still, even if he were healthy, it would be difficult to rank him above Dax Whitney currently, as Whitney has separated himself from the rest of the pack early in the season.
Through three starts—all against Power-4 teams—Whitney has thrown 18 innings, striking out 34 hitters while only walking six, and is allowing under one baserunner an inning (0.89 WHIP). This has led to a ridiculous 40.6% K-BB% and 0.52 SIERA, proving his 1.00 ERA isn’t a result of luck. Through three starts, these numbers line up eerily close to Paul Skenes‘ numbers through three starts at LSU:
While Skenes has the slight edge, it’s worth noting that this was Skenes’ junior season, and Skenes three starts came against Western Michigan, Kansas State, and Butler, while Dax Whitney’s three starts were against Michigan, Baylor, and Houston.
The Arsenal
Calling Whitney’s stuff elite might be underselling his arsenal. He’s a four-pitch pitcher featuring a fastball in the upper 90s, a hard slider/cutter in the high 80s/low 90s, a change-up in the high 80s, and a high 70s/low 80s curveball.
So far this season, we have been able to get Statcast metrics from two of his starts. In his first start of the season against Michigan, Whitney primarily attacked hitters with his fastball (62% usage), which sat 97.7 mph with 16″ IVB and 4″ of run. Aside from the fastball, he attacked righties with his slider/cutter (22% usage rate, 89 mph, 4″ iVB, 7″ glove side) and used his curveball (13% usage, -13″ iVB, 9″ glove side) to keep hitters off balance. He only threw three change-ups, which averaged ~88mph with 6″ iVB and 12″ of run.
While Whitney’s start would be exceptional for most pitchers—5 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 6K—he wasn’t satisfied. After this start, he made mechanical adjustments that immediately elevated his already elite stuff. Whitney dazzled in his second start of the season against Baylor, tying an Oregon State record with 17 strikeouts over seven shutout innings in which he allowed only two hits and a walk.
Thomas Nestico (@TJStats on X) captured Whitney’s pitch data from this historic start and published a pitching summary highlighting how dominant his arsenal was that night. Whitney’s fastball had an extra four inches of ride (20.4″ iVB) while maintaining the same run from his Michigan start. Whitney’s fastball coming from a 48-degree arm angle is similar to Spencer Strider’s fastball in 2023, except Whitney’s has less run and roughly two inches more iVB—and is five inches taller than Strider.
Whitney’s slider had roughly two inches more break as well, and his curveball—only sparingly used in this outing (4.2%)—saw a slight velocity increase to 80.7 mph with an additional 3″ of horizontal break.
All four of Whitney’s pitches graded out above average by his Stuff+ metric, with the fastball and slider 20% better than average, the changeup 16% better, and the curveball 4% better. Whitney finished the night with a ridiculous 66.7% whiff rate, highlighted by a 75.9% whiff rate on his fastball.
The College Elephant in the Room
Whitney, despite only being a sophomore, is already establishing himself as the next legendary college arm and has a deeper—and arguably better—arsenal than Paul Skenes, who was primarily a two-pitch pitcher (fastball/slider mix with the occasional change-up) with elite velocity and command. Skenes also established himself as one of the all-time greats in his junior season after transferring to blue-blood LSU.
Oregon State, a team that has only missed the tournament twice since 2005 and entered the season ranked 18th in the country, is currently unranked after a just okay start to the season. As of writing, they are 7-4, and the offense hasn’t shown any consistency. Whitney, despite his otherworldly start to the season, could easily have a record of 1-2 on the year.
So far this season, he has been getting deGrom’d by Oregon State. Whitney has to be more than exceptional for his team to win on his starts (lost his first one 5-3, won his second one 3-1, won his third one 2-1). Unlike Jacob deGrom, Whitney has a way out if he so chooses.
In the NIL era of college sports, transfers have become more common than ever as schools create NIL packages to lure players to their program. Whitney, who will surely be the best pitcher and early favorite for best player in the sport, will have no shortage of suitors.
If his sophomore leap is any indication, Whitney is only getting started.
