The Arkansas high school baseball season kicks off on Mar. 2, opening day for regular season action under AAA regulations. Leading up to opening day, we’ll be publishing our team previews ahead of the 2026 spring season, touching on programs spanning all state classifications, counting down to the official Prep Baseball Arkansas Preseason Power 25 Rankings.

Perennially, we’ve submitted a preseason questionnaire to high school head coaches across the entire state. Their responses have been flooding in and we’re using the detailed insight they’ve provided in our team-by-team preseason analysis.

Our 2026 preseason coverage continues today.

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2026 SEASON OUTLOOK

No. of Returning Position Players: 6
No. of Returning Pitchers: 6

Top Returners:

• Jacob Vandenburg (2026) - IF/P, 6'4 185, R/R
  • All-Conference, All-Region and State Championship Game MVP
• Cason Anders (2026) - C/P, 5'9 160, R/R
  • All-Conference
• Jasper Jones (2026) - OF/P, 5'9, 155, R/R
  • All-Conference, All-Region and All-State Tournament Team
• Tucker Smith (2027) - IF/P, 5'8 170, R/R
  • All-Conference and All-State
• Wade Barton (2027) - OF/P, 5'9, 130, R/R
  • All-Conference and All-State
• Cannon Fowler (2027) - IF/P, 5'9 135, L/R
  • Returning starter on Infield
• Max Montgomery (2028) - UTL, 5'7 150, R/R
  • Returning starter as DH
    

Top Newcomers:

• Carson Franks (2028) - IF/P, SO, 5'9 125, R/R
  • Athletic Infielder who can run and will help us on the mound
• Abram Andrews (2028) - UTL/P, 5'9 145, R/R
  • Could play multiple positions for us and help us on the mound
• Ryder Tate (2028) - OF/P, 6'0 135
  • Pitcher who uses multiple arm slots

Key Players Lost:

• Jessie Umphries 
• Kaleb Downs 
• Aiden Hosley 

Coach’s Insight: “One of our biggest strengths this year is the experience that we have coming back--we have a lot of guys in our lineup that have played a lot of high leverage innings. We have several guys who we feel can play anywhere on the field so that gives us some depth that you don't see much at small schools. A huge weakness of ours is that year after year, we graduate some great seniors like everybody else, so while we love having those guys in our program, they always leave huge holes for us to try and fill. We are blessed to have really coachable kids at Taylor so this helps us find quality guys who are ready to go each year.” – Brian Fowler, head coach

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Find more information on the 2026 Taylor program below:

+ Visit Prep Baseball Arkansas’ 2026 AAA Team Previews page to learn more.

+ If you are a high school coach and didn’t receive our questionnaire, please click HERE to fill out the form

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