Ole Miss baseball on a roll, landing three more top pitchers from the portal

Bianco, Mangrum, and Ole Miss Baseball are continuing their retooling of the roster following the first successful season since the national championship in which culminated in the first Oxford Regional since 2021. Last week Ole Miss added four transfers, two pitcher and two outfielders. The focus so far has been on rebuilding the pitching the staff and that trend continued this past week with three more pitchers climbing into the boat.

RHP - Marko Sipila - San Diego State

Sipila will arrive in Oxford with one year of eligibility remaining and will be another candidate to challenge for a weekend rotation spot. He is not a flamethrower, sitting in the low 90s with his fastball, but flashes a four pitch mix. The highlight of his arsenal is a mid 80s splitter with some nasty movement which produced a near 40% whiff rate this season. He also has two breaking balls, a slider and a curveball that he mixes in.

Sipila also has had an interesting career where his stats have seen massive arithmatic improvement through his first three season. He spent the first two year of his college collegiate carrer at the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs. In his freshman season he really struggled, pitching 48 innings in 9 starts, with a 10.69 ERA and a WHIP over 2.

His sophomore season he made 11 starts, thorwing 55 innings, posting a 6.99 ERA and a WHIP of 1.663. His Junior season in San Diego saw his first real successful season. He made 12 starts and pitched 71 innings. He struck out 74 batters and only walked 25. He had a 3.91 ERA and a WHIP of 1.346.

RHP - Owen Kelly - Saint Louis University

The second committed comes from SLU right hander Owen Kelly. Kelly was an All-A10 pitcher this past season and is another candidate for the weekend rotation. This past season he made 15 starts and threw 80 innings in which he struck out 78 batters.

He posted an ERA of 4.61 and a WHIP of 1.350. Kelly has some velocity, sitting around 94 and touching 96. He also has a really plus slider which had a 40% whiff rate this season. Kelly will arrive at Ole Miss with two years of eligibility remaining. The Rebels beat out several other SEC programs for his services.

Kelly also has a few Ole Miss ties. First he has been training with from Rebel All-SEC closer Brett Huber for several years, Huber trains a lot of STL area pitchers. Kelly was also high school teammates in Illinois with former Ole Miss Commit Zander Mueth who was taken in the second round by the Pirates a couple years ago.

RHP - Landon Koenig - North Dakota State University

The final of the three committments is North Dakota State hurler Landon Koenig. His stats don't jump of the page, but there is plenty of upside here. Koenig projects more of a bullpen arm, especially for next season, but he has multiple years of eligibility remaining. He made 19 appearances this season all out of the bullpen, pitching a total of 46 innings. He had an ERA of 5.40 and a WHIP of 1.607, however there is some underlying metrics to suggest that the defense was not kind to him

There is some reporting out there that the coaching staff at NDSU did not do a great job of developing him and that he could be perhaps the most benefitted by entering an SEC program and being developed under Joel Mangrum. Koenig frequently touches 98 MPH with the fastball and given his 6'6 220 pound frame there is likely more velocity to be tapped into.