Indiana baseball catcher/outfielder Hogan Denny has always been strong, and he’s always hit the ball hard, but the last piece of player development that takes a good prospect into elite territory is the ability to hit the ball hard in the air.
Denny hit six home runs in 50 games as a freshman with the Hoosiers. After an offseason spent better incorporating his lower half into his swing, Denny is tapping into a power stroke that could make him one of the better sluggers in the Big Ten, which the first league series begins Friday vs Washington.
During the Hoosiers home opener against Bradley, Denny put on an impressive show of power hitting a moonshot home run to left field in the first inning. Denny’s next at-bat in the third inning featured another well-barreled ball. The sophomore got a hold of a pitch out of over the plate, lifting another no-doubt home run over the left-field fence.
“(Hogan) has worked really hard to stay behind the ball better and use his lower half better and it has allowed him to drive the ball really well, without getting the ball in the air too much,” IU coach Jeff Mercer said. “You can get a guy who hits low line drives, singles and doubles, and then you hit a few home runs, and you try to get the ball elevated too much and go the other way. He’s done a good job of staying on a line and he’s so strong and impacts the ball so well it carries out because of how he impacts it.”
Denny is pairing improved swing mechanics with renewed focus at the plate to fuel his second-season breakout. The three-sport star at Mooresville had never struggled at any athletic endeavor he tried before college. Denny was a versatile wide receiver and quarterback for the football team, a guard on the basketball team and a do-everything two-way standout on the diamond. Despite his high-level athletic traits, making the jump to the Division-I level was an eye-opening experience for him. Denny, for the first time, had to home in on his process at the plate while trying not to fixate on the results.
Thirteen games into his college career the right-handed slugger was batting .194 with two home runs and eight strikeouts. Even with a strong slugging percentage, a batting average under .200 is unplayable in today’s baseball. Denny said he was trying to force his way out of his slump instead of letting the game come to him. With the help of hitting coach Zach Weatherford, Denny shifted his mindset and the positive results followed.
“Going into the season I was super comfortable and confident. I had a really good fall, had a good spring training coming back from Christmas break, but toward the first third of the season I ran into a little adversity,” Denny said. “Things weren’t really going my way. I was putting good swings on the ball, but things weren’t falling. That caused me to get into my head a little bit, but as the season went on, I started to relax and not really press.
“About halfway through the season I talked to our hitting coach and he calmed me back down. He said, ‘It’s your freshman year. Throughout your college career everybody goes through a slump, it just happened to you at the very beginning of your freshman year.’ We just went back to the basics and all the training and work we did. Once I let the game come to me instead of trying to do too much is when I found my success.”
Denny finished his first year slashing .292/.420/.504 with six home runs, 11 doubles and 22 walks to just 31 strikeouts. Over the summer, Denny played in the Northwoods League for the Kenosha Kingfish. Denny dominated the wood-bat league slashing .328/.423/.500 with 11 extra-base hits and 21 stolen bases. The strong performance helped Denny regain his confidence, and he’s carrying the strong offseason over to the early part of his sophomore season with the Hoosiers.
Pro scouts across the country are intrigued by talented run producers. A middle-of-the-order bat who can also play catcher is extremely rare, making Denny a rising prospect for the 2027 MLB Draft. Denny is the 53rd-ranked 2027 college prospect per Baseball America.
Mercer said Denny’s multi-sport background makes him the ideal catching prospect. Denny is cerebral, athletic and competitive. Catchers have to process the game at hyper speed, while learning scouting reports on opposing hitters, controlling the opposition’s running game and giving quality at-bats of their own. IU’s two-catcher system has Denny sharing catching duties with junior T.J. Schuyler in addition to playing the outfield. Denny has the versatility to play anywhere on the diamond, but he knows his best chance at a long professional career will be developing into a reliable backstop.
“He was always in competition and that belief in yourself that you can problem solve on the fly, I don’t have to have the answers scripted before, but I can figure it out along the way, that takes great courage and confidence,” Mercer said. “That’s where you see his competitive spirit shine is his ability to figure things out on the fly.
“That coordination that comes from doing different things and his ability to go behind the plate and catch. He’s gotten so much better defensively. He and our catching coach Denton Sagerman have worked really hard. The ability to jump back there and develop quickly behind the plate. The instincts, helping with pitch calling, all the intricacies of catching, blocking, block recovery and throw, all those things come from the confidence and competitiveness that comes from being a multi-sport guy.”
Denny has started all 12 games of the Hoosiers’ 5-7 start. He’s hitting .333 with three home runs, nine RBIs, two doubles, eight walks to nine strikeouts and is 3 for 4 in stolen bases.
Want more Hoosiers coverage? Sign up for IndyStar’s Hoosiers newsletter. Listen to Mind Your Banners, our IU Athletics-centric podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the latest on IndyStar TV: Hoosiers.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: This Indiana baseball star having breakout sophomore season, drawing MLB teams’ attention
Reporting by Akeem Glaspie, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
