JUPITER, Fla. – Over a two-week stretch in the middle of September there was no more dominant travel ball organization in the country than Garicaparra Baseball Group (GBG), which has its base of operations in Los Angeles.
Two teams with almost completely different rosters but sharing the name GBG Marucci Navy won the championship at the Perfect Game/EvoShield Underclass National Championship the second weekend in September, took a couple of days off, and then won the title at the PG/EvoShield Upperclass National Championship the third weekend of the month, with both tournaments played in the Phoenix area.
It was quite a feat, and one that gave the organization a total of four PG/EvoShield national championships in the last three years. And it is with that accomplishment tucked tightly in its back pocket that GBG Marucci walked out onto an even bigger stage this weekend with its participation in the prestigious 85-team PG WWBA World Championship.
GBG Marucci is one of three California-based teams in the field – California Baseball Academy (CBA) Marucci and San Gabriel Valley (SGV) Arsenal are the others – and all three could conceivably advance deep into the playoffs (GBG and CBA have already earned berths).
GBG founder, general manager and head coach Mike Garciaparra would love to be coaching the Cali team that makes that deep run. And he would do so feeling perfectly comfortable knowing that his organization – or any other from California – has nothing to prove out here on the East Coast.
“It’s not really showing people what we’re capable of, it’s showing these guys that they can play with anybody,” Garciaparra said on Saturday shortly before his team improved to 3-0 in pool-play. “The teams and the talent out here, it’s huge and it’s immense and there are so many good teams, and sometimes it’s hard for the California teams to make it out here.
“It’s like I tell the guys at the 17u (PG) World Series, ‘Hey, we can compete with anybody. If you guys play the game right and do the fundamental things right, you can win a ballgame; anybody can,’” he continued. “They’ve been executing and they’ve been throwing strikes, and it’s not about proving that we’re not better than anybody, we just want to say that we’re going to play baseball the best we can.”
Garciaparra firmly believes that the way his guys play the game – for each other and not for themselves – is the reason they’ve been so successful in the West Coast tournaments.
Almost all of the prospects on this roster were on the rosters of one of the GMG Marucci Navy teams that won PG/EvoShield National Championships – 2016s Spencer Steer and Will Proctor were on both – and with the exception of two players from North Carolina, all come from western states, primarily California.
The most highly ranked players on the roster are 2015s Cody Deason (No. 106, an Oregon commit); Brendon Davis (No. 120, Cal State Fullerton) and newcomer Brendan Illies (No. 154, North Carolina). Right-hander Kevin Gowdy is the top 2016 (No. 22, UCLA), followed by Steer (No. 39, Oregon).
GBG Marucci won a pair of pool-play games Saturday to clinch its pool championship and secure a spot in the playoffs, including an important 2-1 win over previously unbeaten and star-studded Chandler Baseball World.
Deason, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound right-hander from Ojai, Calif., came on to throw four one-hit, six-strikeout, shutout innings in relief to pick up the win, an outing viewed my more than 100 scouts.
“I think our mindset was to look at them as just another team,” Deason said. “I just feel like we didn’t have nerves coming in and I felt like we were confident that we were going to win the game. We’re the top team out (West) and I think we look at every team just as another opponent. I don’t think we look at them as anything different than that.”
Matt Lautz, a 6-foot, 180-pound 2015 “high-follow" outfielder from Agoura Hills, Calif. who has recently committed to UC Santa Barbara, may seem like an unlikely hero based on his lack of a national ranking, but he always seems to play his best on the biggest stages.
He was named the Most Valuable Player at the PG/EvoShield Upper after hitting .478 (11-for-23) with a couple of doubles and 10 runs scored and is 6-for-12 (.500) with three RBI and three runs scored – all team highs – after three games here. Steer is 4-for-9 (.444) with a double, two RBI and three runs.
“With the team we have here, we’re all just a bunch of guys out there playing baseball and we’re all good friends,” Lautz said. “Some of these other teams bring out a bunch of dudes and try to win; we bring out a whole bunch of great guys and we all bond together as a team.
“Last year we did well in Jupiter and this year we’re just coming out to prove ourselves even more and show that West Coast baseball is some of the best in the country.”
The organization first brought a team called Yak Baseball West-GBG to the PG WWBA World Championship in 2012 and advanced to the first round of the playoffs. Last year, GBG Marucci arrived for the first time and made some noise by advancing to the round-of-16.
This visit, Garciaparra lost three important members of his roster before they were even able to climb on a plane and make their way to South Florida. Perfect Game All-Americans Kyle Dean (No. 36, San Diego) and Lucas Wakamatsu (No. 73, Rice) were unable to attend, Dean due to a conflict and Wakamatsu because he decided to be with his father at the MLB World Series. Don Wakamatsu is manager Ned Yost’s bench coach with the Kansas City Royals.
Also missing is standout 2015 second baseman Jagger Rusconi, a Southern Cal recruit ranked No. 149, who suffered an injury just days before the event. Those that are here didn’t miss a beat through the first three pool-play games, winning all three by a combined score of 15-5.
“They’re executing during certain parts of the game, played fundamental ball, good defense, and our pitchers are coming out and throwing strikes and giving us a chance, and that’s what it’s about in these events,” Garciaparra said. “There are a ton of big bats – Chandler is one of the best teams and they have some of the best players in the whole country and that was a big win for us.
“These guys have played together, which is great,” he continued. “A lot of them know each other and we have some other guys that we had to pick up to help us out. They care about each other and they work hard for each other, and I think it shows.”
Deason, the hard-throwing Oregon recruit, has a unique way of describing this team’s character and style of play. It is not often the word “lazy” is used in a complimentary context, but that is exactly how Deason used it.
“I feel like we feed off each other’s energy during the course of the game,” Deason said. “It’s a game of momentum so we definitely feed off of each other’s energy and that’s what gets us to where we want to go. At the same time, we just try to keep things loose and lazy – baseball is a game of laziness and whoever is the laziest and most relaxed is who is going to win.”
If it continues to play with the right mix of energized intensity and relaxed laziness, GBG Marucci should be able to position itself for that deep run into the playoffs. And if it does, all of the momentum will come from the top.
“It starts with Mike (Garciaparra). He’s a great guy and a great coach,” Lautz said. “He really pumps us up and tells us what to do, and it’s great. We all just feed off him and we’re all just out here playing the game. We just go out there as gritty ballplayers.
“We don’t have all these big guys that are going to hit the ball out of the ballpark; we have to manufacture runs and do it as a team. … We just try to scrap a couple of runs across and our pitching will do the work.”