GLENDALE, Ariz. – First, a brief clarification. The team from Las Vegas that is among one of the favorites at this weekend’s 24-team Perfect Game/EvoShield Freshman National Championship tournament being contested in the west Phoenix suburbs, is the Las Vegas Recruits, not the Las Vegas Rebels.
The team generally just goes by “LVR” so the confusion is understandable, since the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV) uses the Rebels – or, in the case of its men’s basketball team, the Runnin’ Rebels – as its mascot.
But this collection of young prospects that opened play at the PG/Evo Freshman tournament Friday morning at the Camelback Ranch MLB spring training complex is the Recruits, because it is certain that most, if not all, of them will one day be college recruits.
Since 11 of the 12 roster spots are filled by players in the class of 2020 with the other one in the class of 2021, that recruitment process is just getting started. And that’s what an event like this is designed to do: jump-start that process by providing these young prospects with an early experience on a nationally recognized stage.
“Playing in this tournament is a great opportunity,” Jaden Agassi, one of LVR’s brightest young stars from the 2020 class, told PG Friday morning. “This is a great team and it’s fun to hang out with (the other players). … I’m really looking to have a lot of fun and getting better just by watching all these other (players).”
The Recruits opened pool-play with a six-inning, 8-0 victory over the Rocklin, Calif.-based Schutt Sacramento Speed Elite; LVR led Schutt only 1-0 heading into the bottom of the sixth but pushed across seven runs in the frame to win by the run rule.
Carson Wells hit an inside-the-park home run in the first inning and that one run held until the sixth. 2020 right-hander/middle-infielder/outfielder Zach Hose pitched five innings of one-hit, shutout ball, with four strikeouts and one walk, and also doubled, drove in a pair of runs and scored one.
2021 right-hander Tyler Whitaker pitched a 1-2-3 sixth inning, striking out two, and was 2-for-3 with a double, an RBI and a run scored. Emilio Morales, Bradley Stone and Josiah Cromwick each singled twice and scored a run; Morales also drove in a run in the victory.
Perfect Game released its first national class of 2020 prospect rankings last week and four LVR players were cited on what was actually a very short list. Agassi, a 6-foot-1, 165-pound third baseman from Las Vegas, led the way at No. 13 and Wells, a 6-foot, 165-pound outfielder/first baseman from Henderson, Nev., came in at No. 59; Stone and Morales were listed as “high follows.”
Many of the players on this roster were also part of the LVR 14u team that won the championship at the West Memorial Day Classic played here in late May. Agassi was named the event’s Most Valuable Player and was joined on the all-tournament team by Stone, Morales, Hose and Logan Bleazard. Additionally, Agassi, Stone, Wells and Hose were part of a BPA Rawlings team that played at last summer’s 14u PG World Series in Cartersville, Ga.
This team is co-coached by Brad Maloff, a former UNLV player, and Evan Greusol, who played at the University of Oklahoma and spent eight seasons in minor and independent leagues. Maloff has had several of these players under his tutelage since they were 8 years old, and Greusol has had several others under his since they were 8 or 9 years old. They all came together three years ago to form what is unquestionably a pretty formidable group.
The amount of time the team puts in practicing and working together in an effort to improve is what sets it apart, according to Maloff. There are four coaches in program and players and coaches get after it three or four days a week. During the summer and into the early fall, the month of August is about the only time they take a break.
“The player-to-coach ratio for us is a lot lower than a lot of programs, so we get a lot of work in that way,” Maloff said. “These guys have been under good coaches for a while, and the thing about Las Vegas is, it’s a fairly big city but in the grand scheme of things it’s really not that big.
“That way, we literally have the best players on our team in our age-group. … They’ve kind of gravitated to our program and we’ve worked together well, and I take them to the best tournaments I can possibly find all the time.”
Two of Major League Baseball’s brightest young stars – the Cubs’ Kris Bryant and the National’s Bryce Harper – are from Las Vegas and have followed Hall-of-Famer Greg Maddux in putting the city directly in the baseball spotlight. While playing at UNLV, Maloff saw the growth of the game at the youth level first-hand.
“For a long time, club ball didn’t really catch-up to Las Vegas; we were a little bit behind the times,” he said. “California was doing (year-around) baseball for years and we finally caught up. We started organizing, working, getting our players all together, and then we just started developing them.
“In the years prior, a lot of guys weren’t developing because the coaching just was not there; it was that ‘little big-city’ mentality there,” he continued. “Now that we have some decent coaching and we’re kind of up with the times and working harder … we’re developing those players.”
Getting to an event like the PG/EvoShield Freshman National Championship is essential for the young prospects from Las Vegas because it provides a level of competition and exposure they can’t always get at home, unless they play up an age-group or two.
“If you look at the colleges that are looking at our guys – it’s Virginia, ASU, Cal State Fullerton – they’re all watching these guys on a consistent basis at these events,” Maloff said. “It’s such a benefit for us to get them in front of those (college) guys, and in the end that’s the goal, right? Let’s get them to the best colleges that we possibly can.”
The 14-year-old Agassi, the son of retired tennis greats Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, is already being recognized as a special talent. Before heading to the desert for this tournament, he was one of 40 top high school freshmen players invited to take part in the inaugural Perfect Game Select Baseball Festival. It was a two-day event held in Southwest Florida that was capped-off by an East-West all-star game played at the Boston Red Sox’s jetBlue Park – Fenway South – in Fort Myers.
There were a lot of activities crammed into the two days, including a visit by the players and their parents to the Golisano Children’s Hospital in Fort Myers, the beneficiary of a remarkable fund-raising effort by the young players and their families.
“It was a great experience, having a roommate and playing baseball,” Jaden Agassi said Friday. “And going to the hospital was also a great experience.”
The rest of this weekend promises to be a great experience, as well, even if the team falls short of a championship. At this point in their career, the Recruits are most looking to be recruited, and this is the perfect stage.
“I want them to be seen by as many people as they possibly can,” Maloff said. “Outside of events like this, we’ll take trips to colleges and play on their campuses so they can get a feel for them … and the kids themselves can say, I like this about this (school) or I don’t like this about that school and they can gauge the interest and see if it’s something that might work.”