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Showcase  | Story  | 6/10/2013

PG National, Jr. National this week

Jeff Dahn     
Photo: Perfect Game
MINNEAPOLIS -- Twenty-five of the top prospects from the high school class of 2013 that heard their names called in the first or second round of the 2013 MLB First-Year Player Draft last Thursday were members of the same elite fraternity: all were alumni of the 2012 Perfect Game National Showcase.

The 2012 draft class was even more impressive, with 22 PG National Showcase alumni selected in either the first round or supplemental first round of the 2012 amateur draft, including the No. 1 overall selection, Carlos Correa from Puerto Rico.

The 13th annual Perfect Game National Showcase will be held Thursday through Monday (June 13-17) at the downtown Metrodome, and it's certain that dozens of first or second round selections in the 2014 MLB First-Year Player Draft will be showing their skills in front of hundreds of professional scouts, and college coaches and recruiting coordinators.

The 9th annual Perfect Game Jr. National Showcase for underclassmen will run Tuesday and Wednesday (June 11-12) just in front of the PG National.

Both events will be live-streamed in their entirety this year, including all workout sessions and all games. Jock Jive is producing the live streaming which will be hosted by iHigh and eCoach Sports and can be accessed at each of the following three locations:

www.perfectgame.org
www.ihigh.com/perfectgame
www.ecoachsports.com

Former Arizona Diamondbacks play-by-play man Daron Sutton will be the voice of the PG Jr. National Showcase while former Houston Astros play-by-play man Brett Dolan will be the voice of the PG National Showcase. PG scouts David Rawnsley, Todd Gold and Frankie Piliere will provide color commentary on a rotating basis.

This year's Perfect Game National Showcase will spotlight 313 of the top prospects from the high school class of 2014. All of Perfect Game's top 20-ranked prospects will be in attendance and 29 of the top 30.

The top 10-ranked 2014 prospects are: No. 1 Alex Jackson, catcher, Escondido, Calif.; No. 2 Nicholas Gordon, shortstop/right-handed pitcher, Windermere, Fla.; No. 3 Touki Toussant, right-hander, Coral Springs, Fla.; No. 4 Jacob Gatewood, shortstop/outfielder, Clovis, Calif.; No. 5 Kel Johnson, outfielder/first baseman, Palmetto, Ga.; No. 6 Garrett Morgan, outfielder, Toronto, Ont.; No. 7 Justus Sheffield, left-hander/outfielder, Tullahoma, Tenn.; No. 8 Bryce Montes de Oca, right-hander, Lawrence, Kan.; No. 9 Michael Kopech, right-hander, Mount Pleasant, Texas; and No. 10 Jack Flaherty, infielder, Burbank, Calif.

The 2013 PG Jr. National Showcase welcomes 151 of the top prospects in the high school class of 2015 and three from the class of 2016. The top 2015s include No. 5-ranked Michael Hickman, catcher, Katy, Texas; No. 8 Brendan Rodgers, middle-infielder, Longwood, Fla.; No. 11 Jacob Bukauskas, right-hander/third baseman, Asburn, Va.; No. 14 Nicholas Shumpert, shortstop, Lone Tree, Colo.; and No. 16 Brendan Illies, catcher/right-hander, Edgewood, Wash.

The 2016 attendees are right-hander/outfielder Reid Schaller, Lebanon, Ind.; outfielder/right-hander Seth Beer, Suwanee, Ga.; and right-hander/third baseman Dakota Donovan, Washington, Utah.

In its 12-year history, the Perfect Game National Showcase has produced 1,431 prospects that were selected in the first 10 rounds of the MLB amateur draft. Stanford pitcher Mark Appel, a 2008 alumnus of the PG National, was the No. 1 overall pick of the Houston Astros on Thursday; Justin Upton (2004 National) was the No. 1 overall selection of the Diamondbacks in 2005. Already 132 PG National alumni have made their Major League Baseball debuts.

PG Jr. National alumni include three prospects -- Bryce Harper, Dylan Bundy and Nolan Arenado -- that have already made their big-league debuts, and 175 that were drafted in the first 10 rounds since the 2008 draft.