Dave Van Horn calls moving Peyton Holt to second base an easy choice

Ahead of the 2024 baseball season, Arkansas Razorbacks head coach Dave Van Horn made the decision to move Peyton Holt to second base.

Van Horn explained that the decision to move Holt to second base was an easy choice. He also took the time to emphasize the importance of the move.

“It was an easy choice for me because we had already talked about it,” Dave Van Horn said. “You’ve got to plan because things happen in the middle of a game that, if [Peyton] Stovall was to get hurt, how would we handle it? If [Wehiwa] Aloy was to get hurt, how would we flip it around? Things like that.”

Unfortunately, for Arkansas, an injury did occur to Stovall, who will now miss time with a broken foot, pushing Holt into action.

That decision to go with Peyton Holt over Jared Sprague-Lott was one that came down to range and keeping Sprague-Lott at third base where Dave Van Horn and the rest of the Arkansas staff felt it made the most sense to use him.

“Holt has better range than Jared does. No knock on him, Jared can field with anybody in the country. His glove is outstanding, but the experience that Holt gained last year playing here, and Sprague-Lott has been more of a third baseman in college and a little bit of a shortstop, played some second as well as a freshman,” Van Horn said.

“But we just feel that double play combination up the middle might be a little more athletic with Holt at second.”

Peyton Holt played in three of Arkansas’ four games to open the season against James Madison. In those games, he had three hits, two RBIs, and a walk. Defensively, he played a clean set of games, with three assists, a put out, and no errors.

Dave Van Horn describes emotions of hearing about Peyton Stovall’s broken foot

Shortly following the news that Peyton Stovall would miss time with an injury, Dave Van Horn shared his reaction to that injury.

“It was tough for me personally and Peyton. Our team feels really bad for him. He was upset about it when he found out. He was just like, ‘Why me? Why does this keep happening?’ He missed games last year. He was really swinging the bat too,” Van Horn said.

“I just told him, ‘You’re of the stronger guys mentally. You can handle this and that’s why it was put on you.’ I think he’ll be even more ready to go once he gets it going and gets his live at-bats. But, it was tough.”