Perfect Game National Show case at Chase Field this week

This column is at least a day late. I apologize for that.

The Perfect Game National Showcase held first day of workouts and games today at Chase Field.

What is Perfect Game and what is a National Show case ?

Perfect game is an organization that bills itself as

THE WORLD’S LARGEST AND MOST COMPREHENSIVE SCOUTING ORGANIZATION | 1,289 MLB PLAYERS | 12,605 MLB DRAFT SELECTIONS

They put together tournaments and showcases, both regional and national to give high school players a chance to play and show what they can do. The National Showcase going on right now are for the cream of the crop throughout the nation. THESE are the High School kids who will be headlining the 2020 amateur draft. (Or some of them anyway)

The event page contains the following lead in:

The Perfect Game National Showcase (June 11-15 at Chase Field) has become the most prestigious showcase event in all of amateur baseball. Since the event’s inception in 2001, 352 former participants have played in the big leagues and 2,310 have been selected in the MLB Draft. In the 2018 draft, 37 of the 78 players taken on the first day (the top two rounds) had previously attended a National Showcase.

Aside from the level of talent, what really sets the National Showcase apart is that it is held at the beginning of the summer, not at the end, like other national-level showcases, which gives scouts and college coaches their first concentrated look at the best that class has to offer.

The National Showcase also serves as the last and most important step in the Perfect Game All-American Classic selection process, a game televised on MLB Network that includes the top rising high school seniors in the country.

Today Michael McDermott and I got to watch some of the top players in the country strut their stuff. We saw high school pitchers throwing mid to high 90’s fastballs and sharp breaking sliders. We saw 17 year old kids wear some of these pitches and take it like a pro. And we saw some hard hit balls, some really fast runners, and some excellent defensive plays.

We got to sit among professional scouts, see “luminaries” such as our own Diamondbacks Scouting director Derek Ladiner moving about, as well as national media such as former Rockies GM and MLB Network analyst Dan O’Dowd watching these young men do their thing.

There are games, batting practice, workout drills, 60 yard dash, etc etc. The action is broadcast on the video board live as well.

And the best news is you can go too. It’s open to anyone, and admission is free.

HERE IS THE DAILY SCHEDULE. (Note there are 2 games tomorrow, 9:00 AM and 12:30 PM. If you can make one or both of those games, more of the top ranked players are playing those two games)

HERE ARE THE ROSTERS

Below are rankings of top 30 players....although we were told by one scout that none of the scouts pay attention to the rankings. However history has shown that the PG rankings usually end up mirroring to a pretty good degree how national ranking services end up ranking the kids.

Special shout out and thanks to Daron Sutton, who works with PG and has kindly arranged for Michael to have access to a few of the players for one on one interviews. Michael will be posting an article in a few days with some player snapshots, views, and analysis.