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Showcase  | Story  | 3/4/2020

Rogers revs it up at PG Indoor

Jeff Dahn     
Photo: Will Rogers (Perfect Game)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – The ball rocketed off his bat, only to be stopped early in its ascent by the netting draped from the ceiling at the Perfect Game National Headquarters’ indoor facility. It was plainly obvious to everyone in attendance that Will Rogers had absolutely crushed it. Well, almost everyone.

“Warning track,” one of Rogers’ Navy teammates at Saturday’s PG Pitcher/Catcher Indoor Showcase wisecracked, unable to suppress a grin. Warning track, indeed.

Will Rogers, a 6-foot-1, 210-pound 2021 catcher/third baseman/right-hander from Shoreview, Minn., made his PG showcase debut over the weekend and what an impressive debut it was. He turned in the event’s top catcher Pop time at 1.92-seconds and recorded the second best catcher velo at 80 mph.

At the plate instead of behind it, his 98 mph exit velo off the bat was 9 mph faster than the event’s second best effort. And just for good measure, he pitched an inning in Navy’s simulated game and produced an 89 mph fastball.

“There’s really good lighting in here and I just felt really confident going into it; I know I put in a lot of work this offseason,” Rogers told PG just before his day came to an end. “The only tough part was this is the first time seeing live pitching for a while but after the first at-bat it was pretty easy to come back and adjust and go after it.”

Rogers, who has committed to Arizona State, went into the event as the No. 282-ranked overall prospect in the class of 2021 (No. 24 catcher) and the No. 2 overall prospect in the state of Minnesota. Coincidentally, the No. 1-ranked Minnesota 2021 is also a catcher in Vanderbilt commit Sam Hunt (No. 151 overall); Hunt is still a Minnesota resident but has transferred to IMG Academy in Florida.

“My biggest thing is to just try to get better every year,” Rogers said before adding that he does look at PG’s prospect rankings from time to time. “It’s not huge, but there is some extra motivation of wanting to get ranked higher. It’s kind of there in the back of your head.”

The large contingent of PG scouts on hand for the event certainly took notice of Rogers’ performance, blogging that he “showed impressive bat speed with strength while at the plate” and that he “generated good jump off the barrel” and “consistently produced hard contact with easy carry to all fields.”

But this showcase wasn’t only about facing live pitching while standing at the plate. It was also about handling live pitching while crouching down behind it, something Rogers said could only help with his development. During this Minnesota winter, most of his catching has involved machine work or having coaches throw to him lightly.

But he has managed to keep himself extremely busy this offseason. He works on his hitting six days a week, and on Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays he does catching drills. There is also weight-lifting on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and speed work on Thursdays and Saturdays.

There is a reason he is able to spend so much time on baseball during the winter months. His dad, Travis Rogers, co-owns a facility at the Great Lakes Baseball Academy, which is only about a block from the Rogers’ home.

Travis Rogers played collegiate baseball at New Mexico State and is a certified personal trainer. He also has a master’s degree in Sport & Exercise Science and owns and operates “MindRite Training-MindSet Training For Sport.”

“He’s really helped me a lot with the mental part of the game,” Rogers said of his dad. “The biggest thing is growth, mindset and controlling what you can control; that pretty much goes with everything.”

While this was Rogers’ first showcase event, it was not his first PG event. He was named all-tournament at the two PG WWBA tournaments he attended last summer: the WWBA 16u National Championship in Atlanta with the Florida Pokers Underclass Carolina and the WWBA 17u Midwest Invitational in Marion, Iowa with the Great Lakes Baseball 16u

He was all-tourney again at the 2020 WWBA Underclass West MLK Championship in Phoenix playing with the Tri-State Arsenal 2021 Scout Team; he plans on playing with the Arsenal full-time this summer.

“The competition that you play is really good at those things, and that’s always super fun to see,” Rogers said. “I love traveling and getting down south because in Minnesota we’ve got the cold weather. It’s really fun to get down to the warm weather and compete against those big teams.”

There are, of course, inherent differences between performing in a tournament setting and doing so in a showcase setting, but Rogers was able to adjust. Tournament games shine the spotlight on teamwork while showcases shine it on the individual and top players like Rogers are able to excel in both environments. All-tournament teams and top prospect lists are acknowledgements of a job well done.

“I know a lot of the greatest players come to these things and I wanted to check it out for myself,” Rogers said. “I had a lot of fun today, and that was kind of the goal – have some fun, meet some new guys and get after it a little bit.”

When Rogers was in elementary and middle school, he wrestled and played football in addition to his baseball duties; he stopped wrestling as a high school freshman because he didn’t want to cut weight and left football behind after his sophomore year.

Rogers was now all-in with baseball and the early commitment to Arizona State is certainly a big feather in his cap. He was recruited by Sun Devils’ associate head coach/recruiting coordinator Ben Greenspan, and once he paid a visit to the ASU campus in Tempe he knew that was the place he wanted to be.

But he still has two more seasons of ball to play at Mounds View High School back home in Minnesota before he can start dreaming about the desert, and he’s looking forward to those seasons. The PG Pitcher/Catcher Indoor Showcase served as a nice springboard into his junior campaign while also helping to raise his national profile.

“This was my first Perfect Game showcase, so it was good; I got to meet quite a few people,” he said. “It was really good to get some live at-bats in and do some live catching.”
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