FORT MYERS, Fla. – The 17th annual Perfect Game National Showcase at jetBlue Park reached its conclusion early Monday afternoon, and left many lasting impressions. Like this one, for example:
“Kumar Rocker was electric to start the game, working 95-98 mph. He showed four pitches which included a curveball, slider and changeup. Rocker mixed his pitches well and the fastball showed occasional riding life to it.” – PG National scout blog.
Yes, indeed. The No. 1-ranked right-handed Rocker (Watkinsville, Ga.; Vanderbilt) was the headliner at a PG National that showed off more than 130 “electric” arms during the first five days of its six-day run, with a surprising number of them belonging to young men who came down here from Georgia, the Peach State.
And it was many of these hard-throwing Georgia guys – kids that will begin their senior years at their respective high schools in the fall – that proved to be the cream of the crop.
Seven Georgia prep pitchers came into the event ranked in the top 68 overall nationally, including Rocker. Right-hander Ethan Hankins (No. 5, Cumming, Vanderbilt); left-hander Luke Bartnicki (No. 12, Marietta, Georgia Tech) and righty Cole Wilcox (No. 17. Chickamauga, Georgia) were here.
Right-hander Carter Raffield (No. 32, Cochran, uncommitted); lefty Justin Wrobleski (No 64, Canton, Clemson) and righty Makenzie Stills (No. 68, Fayetteville, Vanderbilt) were also on hand. It’s a group that would make any Georgia mom and dad proud, to be sure, and one that each of these players was proud to be a part of.
“Those are all the home-grown boys,” Rocker said. “After living in different states and finally moving to Georgia, all I heard was that it was the (high school) baseball capitol and all that stuff. Finally getting in here and seeing it, it’s the truth. We recognize each other out there, and it’s fun. There can be some velo competition between us sometimes, too.”
“Ethan Hankins has a very easy effort level and delivery on the mound. Hankins has a very quick, clean arm and worked 92-95 mph while topping out at 96. He repeats his delivery well and showed a feel for three pitches.” – PG National scout blog.
“Luke Bartnicki was electric to open the morning and sat 92-94 throughout his time on the mound. He has a long arm action through the back and showed excellent command of the fastball to both sides. The slider was a deadly pitch as it showed late bite, especially to same-handed hitters.” – PG National scout blog.
“Cole Wilcox showed off his power fastball during his outing. Wilcox has a fastball that explodes out of the hand at 92-94 mph while topping out at 95 mph. He used the pitch to attack hitters and he would mix in a short slider, as well.” – PG National scout blog.
“I don’t know how it happens, but we put out some flame-throwers,” Hankins told PG. “Me and Kumar (Rocker) actually (faced) each other this year in high school ball … and it was really cool, but I don’t know where it comes from. Georgia just has a really loaded class for pitching this year.”
Perfect Game National Crosschecker Jheremy Brown was among the hundreds of scouts keeping track of these Georgia prep pitchers – and the other 270-plus prospects at the event – and concedes they are the beneficiary of outstanding training, instruction and ample opportunity.
Much of it comes through their elite high school programs and much more of it through their associations with highly regarded, respected and reputable Georgia travel ball organizations.
The proximity of the Perfect Game Park South and the eight-field LakePoint complex in Emerson, Ga., gives these pitching prospects an opportunity to play at national championship-caliber tournaments on all-turf fields for at least nine months out of the year, and can help them get their baseball careers started at an earlier age.
“(PG is) doing a lot more 14u stuff now on the national level, and with them starting earlier they’re developing earlier, they’re getting stronger earlier, they’re going through the right training earlier, and I think that’s what we’re seeing with these kids,” Brown said.
He recalled PG holding its first WWBA Freshman World Championship four years ago at PG Park South-Lake Point, and enjoyed watching Hankins work on one of the two quads and deliver his fastballs at 80-82 mph as a rising freshman. Bartnicki, also a rising freshman, was throwing over at the other quad and he, too, was sitting 80-82 mph.
It occurred to Brown that he was watching two young arms from Georgia that were already touching 82 mph as 14-year-olds, which made him think about just how good they were going to be by the time they were seniors. Well, here they are.
And it’s not just the Georgia boys. According to Brown’s meticulous research – and thanks to perfectgame.org – 134 pitchers threw from the jetBlue Park mound over the first five days of the six-day PG National, and 62 of them – just less than half – had their fastballs gunned at 92 mph or better; of those 62, 22 reached 94 mph or better.
“In my five years of doing this, I look at that as a staggering number when you think about it and look at it; it speaks well to the 2018 class as a whole,” Brown said. “A few years ago, it was the 88 to 91 (mph) pitchers that were considered really good, and that’s become the 91-92 pitchers now; 90-93 is the average fastball today.
“You’re talking about 17-year-old kids … who are (throwing that hard) but they’re also pitching; it’s not max effort,” he continued. “You just scratch your head and almost wonder, ‘What’s the limit? How much further can it go? It’s definitely a baseball-first mentality with these guys now, and the results are showing that.”
“Justin Wrobleski worked a fastball that sat 89-92 mph and showed occasional life to the arm side. Wrobleski throws from a very comfortable and easy delivery with a mostly clean arm action. The Clemson commit flashed a slider with two-plane action.” – PG National scout blog.
“Makenzie Stills showed a very good arm speed on the mound and worked 902-92 with his fastball. The pitch showed occasional run to the arm side and the slider flashed high upside at 83 mph with occasional two-plane movement.” – PG National scout blog.
“Carter Raffield is the top remaining uncommitted arm in the 2018 class and worked 90-94 with his fastball. The arm action is long through the back and he generated good extension and plane on the fastball. He showed a feel for three pitches which includes a hard changeup at 85 mph.” – PG National scout blog.
With so much talent working off the high school mounds that are sprinkled so liberally across the entire state of Georgia, Bartnicki told PG that each pitcher tries to feed off the others and use that energy to his own competitive advantage.
“We always want to be number-one, so we’re always competitive,” he said. “We’re all friends and we all joke around telling each other that we’re better than (the other guy) but overall it’s just a real big, competitive circle in Georgia; we just all want to be number-one.”
What stood out the most for Brown at the PG National was not only the quality but the depth of the pitching in the class of 2018. There are right-handers and left-handers, kids that are already physically mature and others that are still in that “projectable” stage of their development.
“Players are going to develop,” Brown said. “No matter how many times you’ve seen them before – you could have seen them a week ago – players are going to get better. We’re talking about 17-, 18-year-old kids and no matter how many times you think you’ve seen them, how much you think you know them, they’re going to get better.”
Identifying just how much better a high school-aged prospect is going to get as he matures into a full-grown man is the most challenging aspect of a scout’s or crosschecker’s job. They’re certainly going to have to do a lot of analytical work with the class of 2018 pitchers, especially those that come from the Peach State.
In the meantime, these young pitchers will continue to go out and do what they do while trying all the while to pick up the little things that will make them a better pitcher and maybe, just maybe, lead to a comfortable life in the big leagues one day.
“Just watching all these guys throughout the spring and the summer with high school ball and (travel ball) and seeing the stuff that they do, you can learn a lot,” Hankins said. “Just competing with all of them, it pushes you to work harder.”