PEORIA, Ariz. – It’s been two weeks since the players who are with the California-based Baseball Performance Academy (BPA) organization’s 17u team left the north Atlanta suburbs and returned to their homes for a little bit of a break.
On Friday morning they were back at it again, this time at the Peoria Sports Complex as one of 35 teams taking part in this year’s 17u Perfect Game World Series. Two weeks off had provided more than enough time for this talented roster of highly regarded prospects and NCAA Division I recruits to regroup, refocus and re-energize.
“I look forward to every single tournament we play in, especially if it’s run by Perfect Game,” top BPA 2019 shortstop prospect Brooks Lee told PG Friday morning. “I really enjoy being out here, with all these nice facilities and the great teams; it’s very special to me.”
When last seen in action, the BPA 17u were kicking some proverbial tail at the PG 17u WWBA National Championship over in Georgia earlier this month, but that’s “kicking tail” with a bit of a caveat.
As pool-play progressed at the event, BPA began asserting itself as a championship contender. It rolled to victories in all seven of its pool games, outscored those opponents by a combined 44-6 and earned the playoffs’ No. 4 seed; that allowed it to receive a bye directly into the second round.
Once there, the BPA 17u battled Stix Baseball 2019 Black to a 1-1 tie through six innings before Stix scored a run in the top of the seventh to escape with a 2-1 victory. Six BPA players had performed well enough to be named to the mega-event’s all-tournament team – 2019s Cooper Benson, Cutter Clawson, Tony Jacob, Ricky Teel and Derek True, and 2020 Blake Pivaroff – but the BPA 17u were headed for home.
“There are a lot of really good teams out there that don’t even win their pool (at the 17u WWBA),” BPA director of team operations and head coach Jared Sandler told PG Friday. “Baseball is a crazy game, right, and if drop a game here or tie a game here or something, it changes everything. When you get in those long tournaments … there’s some luck that takes place but I thought we had a good week.”
So now BPA is here in the Valley of the Sun, looking to have another good week, this time with more of an extended playoff run.
“We’re just going to our best and try to get something going and go out and win,” Clawson, a 2019 left-hander told PG Friday. “This is an awesome group to be a part of. We’ve been buddies, we’ve known each other for a long time and it’s just great to be out here with my buddies.”
A “typical” BPA team over the past several years usually pitches pretty well and that is certainly the case with this group. 2019 left-handers Cooper Benson (No. 93-ranked, Arizona St. commit) and Clawson (No. 145, BYU), and 2019 right-hander Evan Fitterer (No. 347) are among the BPA players that earned roster spots for the Area Code Games during the two-week break from tournament play.
“Those are three draft-potential arms,” Sandler said. “Cooper has kind of always been our best guy but Cutter and Evan have made big jumps this year; they both threw the ball well in Georgia and they’ve just had really good summers.”
Sandler is of the firm belief that that he has on this BPA roster one of the most underrated players in the country with Lee, his 2019 switch-hitting shortstop. Lee’s father, Larry Lee, is the head coach at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, and Brooks is his dad’s prize 2019 commitment.
“Brooks is a little bit of a late-bloomer so he’s not as much as a house-hold name, but he’s as good as any guy that I ever had play shortstop for me,” Sandler said. “He’s just a really good baseball player.”
There appears to be quite a few “really good” baseball players on this BPA roster, and one to certainly keep an eye on is 2021 catcher Harrison Owen, the No. 161-ranked overall national prospect in his class. Sandler told PG that Owen – an Auburn commit – caught games all three weeks at the 17u, 16u and 15u PG WWBAs in Georgia.
When looking at the PG national prospect rankings there are several other players on this BPA roster worth mentioning in addition to those already cited. 2019 Hunter Cranton (No. 235, Arizona) and Colton McIntosh (No. 257, Arizona) are prominent, as are top-500s Jacob (Vanderbilt), Alex Smith and Niko Santamaria. No. 3-ranked 2020 right-hander/third baseman Jared Jones is on the roster but wasn’t in attendance Friday.
The BPA 17u beat the Kyle, Texas-based Prospects National Team 17u, 5-2, on Friday morning, the first of four pool games they will play over the next two days. Clawson was superb, allowing no earned runs on two hits while striking out 15 and walking two over six innings. He recorded seven strikeouts in the first two innings after one of his victims reached first on a dropped third strike.
Lee went 1-for-3 and drove in a pair of runs with a double and a sac fly; Santamaria singled twice and drove in two.
“We want to beat every team we face,” Lee said. “I always have a chip on my shoulder and so do my teammates every time we play because it gives you a will to win. … It’s really fun playing with these guys because everyone’s a great teammate and no one gets down on themselves.”
Sandler spent three straight weeks in Georgia coaching BPA’s 16u and 15u teams after the 17u WWBA; he arrived in Phoenix just after midnight Friday morning. BPA has a history of success at the 16u WWBA, winning the championship in 2014 and finishing as runner-up last year.
Benson earned Most Valuable Pitcher honors at last year’s PG 16u WWBA and was joined on the all-tournament team by Clawson, Pivaroff, Santamaria and Garrett Broussard.
The West Coast-based BPA program loves taking its teams east to the WWBA tournaments in Georgia, and Sandler called the 17u WWBA “an awesome event” because the energy created by hundreds of teams in attendance builds excitement with each passing day.
But, in truth, he prefers the 17u PGWS because there are fewer teams and every one of them received an invitation because of their histories of success. There is not a weak link in any of the seven pools and it is certain the opposing team is going to put a quality starter out on the mound, even during pool-play action.
“Everybody likes this event,” Sandler said of his team’s players. “Everyone’s excited – we know we’re going to see some good teams – and some of these guys have hopes of being high draft picks and there are a lot of pro scouts here to see them.”
A week spent playing Georgia has given way to a weekend playing in Arizona, and the BPA 17us are digging in, eyeing a little deeper run into the playoffs under the hot desert sky.