In today’s age, the highest-profile professional and collegiate baseball pitchers are known for their velocity. The best major league arms are hurling nearly 100 miles per hour, and their collegiate counterparts aren’t far behind. That doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions, though. 

Connor Fennell, with low velocity but pinpoint accuracy, is one of those exceptions. 

Fennell’s baseball journey began in Londonderry, New Hampshire, where he competed in both travel and high school baseball. During his senior year in 2023, Fennell exploded. He went 8-0 and led his high school to a state championship, racking up 82 strikeouts over 59 innings of work en route to a 1.19 earned run average. For all of Fennell’s success, he still struggled to gain traction during the recruiting process.

“I didn’t have many Division I offers,” Fennell told The Hustler. “In high school, [in] my senior year, I had a good year, but, obviously, my [velocity] wasn’t that jumpy, so not many people reached out.”

Then, during a summer stint with his travel team, things started to click for the right-hander.

“I [played with] the New England Ruffnecks my senior summer, when I was actually headed to do a post-grad year,” Fennell said. “I started to get some more exposure that summer, and that’s really where teams started to reach out.”

That’s when Jayson King, the head coach of the Dayton Flyers and a fellow New Hampshire native, reached out to Fennell, and the rest is history. He went 4-4 in his first season as a college starter, striking out 66 batters over 74 innings of work, allowing 39 earned runs (good for an earned run average of 4.74) while walking just 13. 

“[King] giving me that opportunity really started this whole journey,” Fennell said. “He’s my guy. His personality is great; he’s a funny dude you can joke around with, but when it comes to baseball, he’s a serious guy who wins and gets stuff done. I love King.”

So, when King departed after seven years at Dayton to join head coach Tim Corbin’s staff at Vanderbilt, Fennell followed his coach, entering the portal and committing to play for the VandyBoys. 

Fennell has loved his time with the Commodores so far. He has bonded with their pitching staff and attributes much of his recent success to pitching coach Scott Brown and his team. 

“I like the whole staff here. [Brown] is a guy who’s always going to be the same no matter what. If you have a bad day, he’ll talk to you the same way as if you went out there and threw a perfect game,” Fennell said. “He’s taught me a lot. Especially in the fall, I wasn’t outstanding, but I’ve developed a lot as a pitcher [since then]. A lot of that is from Brown just doing what he does and developing people.”

Fennell has also enjoyed getting to know his teammates better throughout the season, and feels like their relationships have helped him on and off the field. 

“I think I have a great relationship with all the guys on this team. I love this team,” Fennell said. “I’ve definitely learned some stuff from older guys like [Ryan] Ginther and Sawyer [Hawks]. I room with Sawyer on the road, so I pick his brain sometimes.”

While Fennell might credit Brown and his teammates for his newfound success, he noted one specific aspect of his own game that helps him dominate on the mound..

“I’ve always had very good command,” Fennell said. “That command is a huge thing, to be able to put the ball wherever you want it.”

Fennell’s fastball tops out in the high 80-mile-per-hour range, significantly lower than either of Vanderbilt’s other weekend starters, JD Thompson and Cody Bowker. His slider sits below 80 miles per hour and his changeup isn’t much faster, but the righty has a level of control in the strike zone that few others can match. 

His ability to locate those pitches allows Fennell to rack up strikeouts despite their lack of velocity.

“The metrics on [my] fastball are nothing crazy. It [doesn’t have] absurd vertical [movement] like JD [Thomspon] or Bowker,” Fennell said. “I think the command is probably the biggest piece [to my strikeout numbers].”

The sophomore hurler has started in five games for Vanderbilt but has managed to collect 46 strikeouts. All in all, including his relief appearances, he boasts a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 63:6 through only 34 innings of work. He hasn’t quite reached the 40-inning minimum to qualify for the NCAA’s statistical leaderboard, but Fennell boasts a strikeout rate (K/9) of 16.7, which would be first in the country if eligible. 

For Fennell to do that without a single pitch that eclipses 90 miles per hour speaks to his unparalleled command.

He most recently went 7.0 innings against Ole Miss on April 27, striking out a career-high 12 batters while allowing just 3 hits and 1 walk. He lowered his earned run average to 2.38 in the process and was subsequently named the SEC Pitcher of the Week. The outing was a microcosm of what Fennell has done all year — dominate the strike zones while simultaneously generating whiffs on low-speed pitches. 

How did the sophomore, who had a 4.74 ERA last season in the Atlantic, make such a significant jump as a weekend starter for an SEC contender? 

“I’ve definitely put on size since my last year at Dayton. The [velocity] jump has definitely helped me a lot, especially with my strikeout numbers,” Fennell said. “I’ve worked on a lot of different things within my mechanics and my windup.”

He didn’t just make physical changes, though. Fennell looked inward. 

“On the mental side, I’ve developed a lot,” Fennell said. “In the fall, I kind of lost myself a little bit because I wasn’t used to getting hit around so much; I had to re-find myself in the preseason. I thought I did that.” 

He also played around with his pitch selection, relying more on his offspeed pitches than he did last season. More than anything, though, Fennell loves the competition of the SEC.

“In the SEC, when it comes to playing ranked opponents every weekend,” Fennell said. “I kind of like that. The bigger the team, the more on the line. I just like playing in a bigger game, [on a] bigger stage. I’m that kind of pitcher. I always have been.”

Fennell has another trick up his sleeve outside of a sharp mental game and pinpoint accuracy — he works quickly in between pitches. 

“Apparently I’ve always worked really fast. I didn’t really notice it. King was really big on my pace because [it] is so fast,” Fennell said. “I never really noticed it because that’s just naturally kind of how I pitched. I just get the ball and get back on the mound, but I never really noticed until I got to college.”

That quickness helps throw batters off since they’re used to having much more time to prepare.

“It makes people uncomfortable. It gives them less time to think when they’re up,” Fennell said. “It makes them think about — instead of what pitch is coming [next] — how to slow me down or just get more comfortable in the box. It just adds another thing to hitting, which is already one of the hardest things to do in sports.” 

Fennell isn’t worried about whether he’s starting or coming out of the bullpen; he just wants to help Vanderbilt win however he can. 

“I try to go out there and do my job the best I can every time. The more innings I can get as a starter, the less we’ll have to use the bullpen,” Fennell said. “But it doesn’t matter if I’m coming out of the bullpen or as a starter. I know there’s going to be great guys coming in behind me.”

His emergence as the team’s third starter, right in time for SEC play, has helped the Commodores keep arms like Sawyer Hawks, Alex Kranzler and Brennan Seiber fresh. With a weekend staff of Thompson, Bowker and Fennell, the Commodores have one of the most formidable pitching trios in the nation. 

The VandyBoys have had their ups and downs this season — there’s no shying away from it. They swept Georgia and Texas A&M but were also swept by Arkansas (at home) and, most recently, lost 2 of 3 to Ole Miss. Still, Fennell isn’t worried. He knows that they have the talent and the mentality to make some noise this summer. 

“I think we’re playing with some edge. We want to show people that we’re still the Vanderbilt that everyone thinks of when they think of Vanderbilt Baseball,” Fennell said. “We have the talent to do a lot of cool things this year. [We] just have to take it one game at a time.”

Fennell and the Commodores will look to show their edge and talent when they welcome Indiana State to Hawkins Field at 6 p.m. CDT on April 29.