JUPITER, Fla. – Maybe it’s because almost all of them come from cold weather states in the Northeast – several of the original 13 colonies, in fact – but the players and coaches from the New Jersey-based Tri-State Arsenal sure seem to have a keen appreciation for the PG WWBA World Championship.
Palm trees dot the grounds at the Roger Dean Stadium Complex. The sun shines more often than not. Top prospects wearing brightly colored uniforms meander from the batting cages to any one of the 13 fields, dodging the hundreds of golf carts carrying hundreds of scouts that are also making their way to the fields. It really is quite a scene.
“The atmosphere is incredible,” standout Arsenal third baseman Willie Burger said on Saturday. “You come down here, you have the 85 best teams in the country here, and then you walk through the gates and you see all the recruiters and all the scouts and you feel that buzz around the complex, and it’s an atmosphere that’s unmatched anywhere else.”
Tri-State Arsenal Baseball founder and head coach Bob Barth took a deep breath and smiled broadly before expressing his feelings.
“This is like the baseball gods’ dream right here, and once again it’s lived up to its billing,” he said while taking in the scene. “It’s been fun so far, there’s a ton of good players; it’s great for the kids. I still think this is the best team amateur event in the world, and it’s lived up to that so far.”
As the 16th annual PG WWBA World Championship rolled into its fourth day on a sun-drenched Sunday morning, things were certainly sunny in the Arsenal’s world, thanks, perhaps, to those accommodating baseball gods. After three days of pool-play, the guys from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and other points north had put themselves in position to advance to Sunday afternoon’s playoffs.
“For us coming down here, this event is more for the exposure,” Barth said. “We don’t have any expectations of grandeur; we don’t expect to come down here and compete with some of the people that are down here. We hope to come down and be competitive and make a good showing and have our kids get seen by all these people in all these (golf) carts.”
That said, Tri-State always seems to put itself in the mix here, as it did again this year. The Arsenal won their first three pool-play games – albeit by a combined score of 13-9 – and played favorite Marucci Elite for the pool championship Sunday afternoon (Cangelosi Baseball was also in contention for the title).
“We’ve been very fortunate to do very well here,” Barth said. “I think that some of it comes down to that we’ve been together as a baseball ‘team’ a little bit longer than some people. We might not be as talented as some people but we’ll compete from a baseball standpoint. So we do wins and losses fairly well here but there is a limit to how many pitchers we have compared to some of the other teams.”
The core group of players on this Arsenal team have been playing together since they were 10 or 11 years old and Barth calls it the “longest standing” group he has ever brought down here. Burger – a solid, 6-foot, 180-pound Perfect Game All-American from Maytown, Pa., and a recent Penn State commit who is ranked 72nd nationally – is the team’s kingpin and he’s at this tournament for the second straight year.
“Last year, there was definitely a sense of awe,” he said. “When I walked in here I had never seen anything like it so I was a little shocked when I walked in here for the first time. There might have been a little bit more nerves last year. This year I knew what to expect and it’s more down to business and down to winning baseball games.”
2015 outfielder/left-hander Ryan Shinn (ranked No. 265, and Florida Gulf Coast recruit) was also here with the Arsenal last year. 2015 right-hander John Murphy (No. 171, Maryland) didn’t make the trip with Tri-State a year ago but made his presence known right of the gate on Friday when he threw a complete game three-hitter with six strikeouts in Tri-State’s 2-1 win over Cangelosi Baseball.
The Arsenal lost Perfect Game All-American shortstop John Aiello to an injury and replaced him with PG All-American Nick Shumpert, a standout shortstop from Colorado.
“I know John’s bummin’; he keeps texting me to see how we’re doing and he’s itchin’ to be down here,” Burger said of his good friend Aiello. “But this group we have here, we’ve definitely come together and all the guys get along, and just being able to come down here and compete with a bunch of kids from the Northeast, it’s pretty special.”
In addition to adding Shumpert, Barth stocked the roster with seven top prospects from the class of 2016, including big left-hander Jason Groome, a 6-foot-6, 180-pound uncommitted fire-baller from Barnegat, N.J., who is ranked No. 9 nationally in his class. Groome was scheduled to start against Marucci Elite Sunday afternoon.
“We had a couple of our (older) pitchers that had some back issues and some college coaches have shut them down, so we brought some of the young guys with us,” Barth said. “So far, it’s been a good environment in the dugout and I think everything is good.”
Shumpert, a Kentucky commit from Lone Tree, Colo., ranked 13th nationally, was looking for a team to play with down here and just happened to land with the Arsenal.
“It’s been really good so far,” he said. “It was really easy to get jelled with them and become a team; they’re really good guys and they’re a fun group to be around. We’ve gotten (three) wins so far and we’re going to try to get some more.”
This is the third year Shumpert has been at this tournament and, like Burger, he simply enjoys the atmosphere of that surrounds the event.
“I love being around baseball, I love going around and seeing all the scouts sitting in the golf carts,” he said. “Most of all, I just love playing baseball; I like being out on the field. Back in Colorado there’s nothing going on right now and it’s starting to get a little bit cold, so I just like to come out and perform.”
For four days now, Shumpert has been performing for an organization that embraces this tournament like no other while also being realistic about the benefits its players can derive from the event.
Barth looks at his roster and sees several prospects that are likely to be drafted in June’s MLB First-Year Player Draft, and he brings them here to perform in front of the scouting community and perhaps improve their draft standing.
He looks again and sees other players that have earned a PG national ranking but have not made a college commitment – 12 have made NCAA Division I commitments already, to schools as diverse as Delaware, Duke, Wake Forest, Alabama and Hofstra, to name a few – and knows this tournament can provide them with opportunities.
Barth thought back to 2008, the second year he brought Mike Trout to the PG WWBA World Championship, and remembered it was after that appearance that people really started to think, “Wow, this kid is special.” The same thing has happened to other Arsenal players after breakout performances at the PG WWBA World.
“We’ve had some real good success with our kids getting drafted and a lot of that has had to do with this event; it kind of solidifies those guys as prospects,” he said. “Like I said, this thing is definitely multi-layered for programs like mine.”
There have been some terrific players that have come through the Tri-State Arsenal program through the years, and each one of those players seems genuinely appreciative of the opportunities Barth has provided.
“It’s been amazing because, like I always say, we’re just as much a family as we are a baseball team,” Burger said. “Just having that kind of atmosphere takes a little bit of pressure off and we’re just out there having fun and trying to win for the guy next to us as much as we are for ourselves.
“My time with the Arsenal has been great and I’m just eternally grateful for everything they’ve done for me and all of us, really.”
Bob Barth really did refer to the Jupiter experience as “the baseball gods’ dream” and was sincere when he said it. When the sun is shining down on neatly manicured fields out of a cloudless sky and a light breeze is ruffling through the palm trees, it’s really pretty easy to appreciate his words.
But Barth also knows there is more to the Jupiter experience than the scenery. The event also provides a perfect setting for evaluation while plotting a course for next year and beyond.
“A big thing for us is getting out of our area and coming down and playing against the best players in the world,” Barth said. “When you play against those guys, every year when we leave here – this is kind of our grand finale – we wonder what we have to do to become that type of player or that type of team and it really sets the tone for our winter work.
“I hope they leave with a little bit more passion towards what’s ahead of them this winter and the work they have to do to reach the goals that they have,” he concluded. “It’s easy to have goals but it’s hard to figure out to reach those goals, and I think this is a crystal clear picture every year of what they’re up against.”