OXFORD | Ole Miss baseball, in recent years, has had a type.

The Rebels, 12 months removed from a national title but coming off their worst season in 26 years at 25-29 overall and 6-24 in the SEC, typically fill its pitching roster with right-handers who throw in the low-to-mid-90s and use the slider as their main secondary pitch.

The format, more or less, worked for a long time, as Ole Miss has consistently been a postseason team that relied on frontline pitching and multi-inning relievers. The Rebels, this season, had only two active left-handed pitchers following Hunter Elliott’s injury, and the only left-handed reliever, Jackson Kimbrell, threw eight innings all season.

Ole Miss only had two meaningful left-handed arms in each of the years from 2016 through the present, having to go back to 2015 for a season when three lefties threw at least 39 innings.

The heavy right-handed roster limits the ability to play matchups out of the bullpen. There’s almost always a left-hander in the rotation — Dough Nikhazy was three of the aforementioned seasons — but bullpen versatility is sparse.

It’s not just the throwing hand, though. Ole Miss is somewhat caught in the middle in regards to throwing vs. pitching. The Rebels in 2022 didn’t have the 100 MPH arm that seems to be scattered through the SEC, while the pitchers as a whole didn’t throw many changeups or offer different velocities or arm slots.

With the transfer portal season starting to take shape, Ole Miss, via the portal and traditional recruiting, needs pitchers and for them to not all look the same. Velocity has become all the rage, and it matters, but actually being able to pitch is still important.

“When we’re evaluating kids in the portal, we need to know command and also the specifics of what he throws,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “You can use data to see what they can actually do. You have to be careful, and you have to get guys who can pitch.

“And maybe it’s command and it’s the fastball isn’t super dominant, but he throws the breaking ball and changeup so that’s really good. Dylan DeLucia could throw the breaking ball in any count and command it. Scott Bittle overwhelmed you with stuff. It needs to work and you need all of it.”

Ole Miss’ only public transfer portal pitcher commitment is Arkansas State right-hander Kyler Carmack, who had a 3.23 ERA in 2023, which was second best in the Sun Belt Conference. Carmack, who is draft eligible in 2024, struck out 60 and walked 37 in 69.2 innings. The walks are a touch high, but he features an elite changeup and profiles as a versatile arm for the Rebels.

The Rebels’ incoming recruiting class is ranked sixth nationally and features five top-100 prospects, including four in the top 61. Ten of the 19 are pitchers, and two of the 10 are left-handed, highlighted by No. 91 prospect Wesley Mendes.

The top two pitching signees are names to watch in the MLB Draft this summer. No. 27 prospect Zander Mueth is a coin flip to show, and the Rebels will almost assuredly lose No. 37 prospect Josh Knoth to the pros. He’s the only signee to not register for summer school in Oxford.

Ole Miss also has a couple junior college arms signed. Traditionally JUCO transfers have high upside but face the same transition as freshmen.

Depth of pitching staff has never been so important in college baseball. It’s harder to pitch in high-level college baseball compared to any time since the drop-five bats of the 1990s, so teams need to avoid walks and throw a bunch of different arms at opponents.

Paul Skenes at LSU was the only SEC pitcher to average at least six innings per start. Only three pitchers averaged five or more innings per appearance.

“That’s part of the conversation with recruiting; be careful what you’re getting,” Bianco said. “Let’s really investigate the command and the walks. Know what you’re getting. We have to be better with that…The normal can’t be 5-7 walks a game and you can’t survive that.”

Ole Miss, in SEC games only, was 13th in ERA, opposing batting average, hits allowed and runs allowed, home runs allowed and 11th in most walks.

Walks and runs are up more than one per game since 2019, as several factors have played varying roles. The pitch clock doesn’t allow pitchers the chance to reset during an at-bat, a change that seems to affect young pitchers to a larger extent.

With the portal era and some lingering COVID-19 roster composition, more older and talented hitters are making up SEC lineups. Hitters who have come up with the recent velocity surge and are used to it.

The change that coaches believe contributes most to the offensive increase is the advancement in umpire data. Umpires get a detailed report of every game and thus have tightened strike zones to more correct but more difficult levels. The pitch umpires most often miss is the high strike, tightening things even further on pitchers.

“The umpires aren’t worse, the umpires are better but it’s better for hitter and not the pitcher,” Bianco said. “The zone has gotten tremendously smaller. There are times I thought the guy was terrible, but I’d see the guy was good and only missed two in the box. Your pitcher wasn’t as good and there were close pitches that are balls you didn’t get. You feel it more.

“Guys aren’t learning to pitch; they are leaning how to throw stuff,” Bianco said. “And the hitters have always seen high velocity and they are better than ever. It’s a perfect storm.”

Many coaches also believe the baseball is more lively compared to past seasons.

Bullpen depth is imperative since more pitches are high-stress with all those factors. Teams with the most pitching success are the ones with the most usable arms. That also allows them to make it through the inevitable arm injuries. Josh Malitz and Elliott going down with elbow injuries greatly impacted the Rebels’ season, but Ole Miss wasn’t an anomaly.

Teams all across the SEC lost key pieces to elbow and shoulder injuries, a trend that has to be baked into roster management moving forward. Major League Baseball arm injuries are up 44 percent compared to last season.

It takes 81 outs over the course of a three-game series, and the reliance on a few arms to do it doesn’t fit college baseball currently. Between the Draft, keeping signees, retaining players (Xavier Rivas?) on the roster and having success in the portal, Ole Miss has to find and develop as many players as possible to contribute to that out total.

The current list of pitchers isn’t bare, including a lot of potential upside with freshmen JT Quinn, Grayson Saunier and Sam Tookoian (and Elliott could return from Tommy John surgery), but reinforcements are mandatory to keep up in the nation’s best league and to retool the roster makeup for today’s game. The MLB Draft ends on July 11, and the portal closes on July 13.

The next month will set up where Ole Miss is in its hopes of making this past season an anomaly.