FORT MYERS, Fla. – Memorable first impressions are par for the course at the Perfect Game WWBA Underclass World Championship. Some are just more memorable – or more dynamic – than others.
Chad Raley, the national team director and head coach for Baton Rouge, La.-based Marucci Elite, has been bringing teams to the WWBA Underclass World Championship for seven years and still recalls his introduction to the tournament.
“I remember the first time I came to this event, in ’08, I saw Francisco Lindor at age 14, playing for the Apopka Black Sox down here,” Raley said Thursday. “It was the first time I ever saw him and he was just unbelievable.”
Perfect Game vice president of player personnel David Rawnsley has been to the previous 12 PG WWBA Underclass World Championships and his thoughts also went back to a particular October day in 2008.
“From a scouting standpoint, the great fun of this event is you know you’re going to see players that you’ve never seen before, that have never been on this stage before who may have been to a Perfect Game event but not a national-level event; that happens more and more frequently,” Rawnsley said Thursday.
“I remember one year it was Francisco Lindor who was playing off on a side field and all of a sudden we got word back that there was a 14-year-old switch-hitting shortstop who just hit a bomb. He was scheduled to play at Terry Park in the next time slot and everybody had heard about it; that next game became the game to watch.
“There is definitely that element that every year you’re going to see some players you have no background on whatsoever who are going to go on to become big-leaguers or first-round draft picks.”
Lindor was a 5-foot-10, 155-pound 14-year-old when he made his PG debut at the Underclass World in 2008 who went on to play in the 2010 PG All-American Classic. Today he is a 5-foot-11, 175-pound top prospect in the Cleveland Indians’ organization after being a first-round pick (eighth overall) in the 2011 MLB amateur draft.
It remains to be seen if Lindor’s memorable first impression is replicated over the next several days as the 13th annual PG WWBA World Underclass Championship unfolds on fields in Lee and Charlotte counties. With 216 teams and nearly 3,600 high school juniors, sophomores and freshmen in attendance, anything is possible.
“For me, this is the (most fun) event of the year,” Raley said before one of his two Marucci Elite teams in attendance played its first pool-play game Thursday at venerable Terry Park. “I feel like these kids, they’re still searching for college scholarships and some of the guys haven’t completely started reading their names in the blogs so much and they still play hard.
“I know Jupiter (the PG WWBA World Championship) is more prestigious, maybe, but for me this is the one I have the most fun at, and I like the most and look forward to the most.”
As far as college recruiting is concerned, the WWBA Underclass World Championship may have taken a step past the PG WWBA World Championship, which is played in Jupiter, Fla., and this year will run Oct. 23-27. Jupiter, as the event is commonly referred to, showcases the top high school seniors, most of whom have already made college commitments and are performing for the pleasure of the Major League Baseball scouting community; all 30 MLB teams send a plethora of scouts to Jupiter and there will be hundreds of college coaches and recruiters, as well.
PG’s Rawnsley noted that the growth of the PG WWBA Underclass World Championship is largely a reflection of how college recruiting has changed in the last decade.
In years past, prospects would arrive at the PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter as uncommitted high school seniors even with the signing deadline just weeks away. Nowadays, those prospects have been scouted earlier at events like the Underclass World Championship and the 16u PG WWBA National Championship, 16u PG BCS Finals and the rapidly growing PG/EvoShield Underclass National Championship which is held in September and offers similar opportunities to young prospects from the western part of the country.
“This was an event that had might have had 48 teams at it or 64 teams at it, and it wasn’t nearly as heavily recruited by the college coaches,” Rawnsley said, reflecting back on the PG WWBA Underclass World’s history.
“That whole dynamic, along with the whole dynamic of travel ball has changed in the last eight to 10 years to where colleges are recruiting so much earlier in the process,” he said. “You’re seeing sophomores commit and most juniors are committing, and this becomes such an important event to them.”
It’s easy to understand why Raley enjoys the tournament so much. There was a noticeable sense of excitement in the air at Terry Park Thursday afternoon where 24 teams took to the four fields in three time slots to get their tournament started. A half hour before the first four games got under way, a long line of college coaches and recruiters were lining up to receive their scouting packets.
The travel ball coaches, like Raley, also fully understand the importance of this event in terms of their kids getting recruited by colleges. More and more of these coaches are going to the event page on Perfect Game’s website and posting their pitching rotations, a tremendous service to the college recruiters – not to mention the Perfect Game scouts – in attendance who might be interested in specific pitching prospects.
And it’s not just the Division-I programs that benefit from this event. The bigger travel ball organizations are entering multiple teams to give even more of their prospects exposure to smaller schools looking to grow their programs with players that might not quite fit at one of the country’s powerhouse programs.
The PG WWBA Underclass World Championship can also be a valuable experience in terms of a player’s development. Raley finds them to be especially coachable at this point in their still blossoming careers and eager to do what it takes to get better while performing on a national stage.
“The kids are younger and they still listen a little bit better,” he said. “They’re still kids and they don’t have that sense of entitlement yet that you sometimes have with the older guys. These kids are playing hard – they get after it – they have something to play for and it’s just an awesome event.
“Anytime you can play baseball and get better and have the chance to get reps, it makes them better,” he continued. “It’s fun to watch them from year to year; we’ve got some guys on our (younger) team that are freshman and this is the first time they’ve been to a PG event and the first time they’ve seen college scouts. It’s all a building process and it’s all part of the development and maturing as players.”
“For some of these guys it’s the first time they’ve played together so they’re trying to impress each other as well as the scouts.”
Having personally witnessed plenty of memorable first impressions while scouting the PG WWBA Underclass World Championship the past 12 years, Rawnsley has a special appreciation for the level of play at the event.
“This is that whole concept of playing against the best you can possibly play against,” he said. “When you can play against the best players you can play against, it’s going to make you a better player. …You find out where you have to improve or you find out where you’re doing pretty well. … So this is important to their development, especially if it’s one of the first times that they have been to this level at a national event.”
If the next Francisco Lindor is in the house, it’s a certainty he won’t be overlooked. And his memorable first impression will be a lasting one.