Arkansas baseball lands commitment from Texas Tech transfer pitcher Mason Molina

Arkansas baseball has added to its pitching staff. The Razorbacks secured a commitment from former Texas Tech pitcher Mason Molina on Wednesday, he announced via Twitter.

Molina put up impressive numbers for the Red Raiders in 2023, totaling 108 strikeouts across 83.1 innings. He started all 16 games in which he appeared, finishing with a 6-2 record with a 3.67 ERA as a sophomore. One of his biggest games of the season came against Baylor when he allowed just two hits and had 12 strikeouts to lead Texas Tech past the Bears.

As a freshman in 2022, Molina mostly came out of the bullpen. In 57.2 innings of work across 20 appearances, including nine starts, he struck out 71 hitters and had a 2-5 record along with a 3.90 ERA.

Woo pig @RazorbackBSB pic.twitter.com/DkhE1w6aON

— Mason Molina (@masonmolinaa) July 20, 2023

Molina will join an Arkansas staff that had a combined 5.22 ERA as the Razorbacks went 40-18, including a 20-10 record in SEC play. Their season came to an end against TCU in the Fayetteville Regional.

Transfer portal background information

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.