FORT MYERS, Fla. – Every time Alex Speas looks around him at JetBlue Park over the next three days his mind’s eye will see one giant classroom filled with hundreds of teachers. The catch is, every one of those teachers is also a student, just like Speas himself.
To Speas’ way of thinking, there is something to be learned from each of the more than 300 top 2016 prospects in attendance at the event. They all possess subtle differences in the way they play and approach the game, and Speas wants information on every last one of those variations. The more he's able to learn by taking what is useful, disregarding the rest and then applying only what is beneficial will make him a better ball player in the long run.
Speas is a 6-foot-4, 180-pound hard-throwing right-hander from Powder Springs, Ga., and a senior-to-be at McEachern High School, who is a sponge when it comes to absorbing baseball knowledge. He is in a position to learn from the best right-handed pitchers from the high school class of 2016 in the country if he stays here for the National’s entire six-day run.
Elite righties like Riley Pint from Lenexa, Kan. (ranked No. 1, and an LSU commit), Anthony Molina from Pembroke Pines, Fla. (No. 11, uncommitted), Charles King from Coppell, Texas (No. 13, TCU), Reggie Lawson from Adelento, Calif. (No. 16, Arizona St.), Todd Peterson from Lake Mary, Fla., (No. 19, LSU) and Kevin Gowdy from Santa Barbara, Calif. (No. 20, UCLA) are all expected to throw this week.
Sevierville, Tenn., righty Zach Linginfelter (No. 28, Tennessee) threw right before Speas on Wednesday and touched 96 mph with his fastball.
“I’m looking forward to all this great competition and meeting different players from all over the country,” Speas said Wednesday. “I like to meet new people, hear their goals, see what they’re accomplishing and make new friends. I want to be able to talk to them in the long run and see where they end up and where I end up.”
The only style Speas currently knows is a can’t-miss one: he wants only to play hard. He insists hustling and giving 110 percent every time he steps on the mound. It’s an intensity he shares with every other player that runs out onto JetBlue Park’s beautifully manicured field over the next six days because if they didn’t share that intensity, they wouldn’t be here.
“This is something that he’s looked forward to since early on when he started playing baseball, being at the PG National Showcase,” Rodney Speas, Alex’s dad, said Wednesday. “This is a big stage for him and it’s a time for him to come out and shine. Hopefully he’ll go out today and have a good time and make a positive impression.”
Speas’ ascension up the Perfect Game national prospect rankings – he is at No. 37 overall and is ranked the country’s No. 14 top right-handed pitcher – has been remarkable. He was an outfielder throughout his youth baseball days and didn’t start pitching until his freshman season at McEachern.
Someone along the way realized he could throw the ball pretty hard and converted him to pitcher although, according to his dad, he didn’t have a clue how to best harness all that energy and power when he first delivered a ball from the mound.
“It’s been a lot of fun to watch,” Rodney Speas said. “He had the nickname ‘The Wild Thing’ initially, but of course he was wild – they were trying to corral a kid throwing from centerfield who is now throwing from 60 feet. He was going to be wild until we could figure it out.
“But just to see from where he started to where he’s come has been a great ride and I told him I’m living vicariously through him; I just want to be there for the ride.”
Speas has been working with former big-league pitcher Paul Byrd when he’s back home in Georgia. Byrd pitched 14 seasons in the majors and won 17 games with the Kansas City Royals in 2002. “I get in a lot of good work with him and he’s helped me with a lot of things,” he said. “He wasn’t the biggest guy when he was in the big leagues but had a great career.”
He has also enjoyed a long association with the Atlanta Blue Jays organization, playing in seven tournaments with the group since 2013. He was named to all-tournament teams at both the 2014 PG WWBA Underclass World Championship and the 2014 PG WWBA World Championship while pitching for the Blue Jays.
The relationship with the Blue Jays has been “great”, Speas said, and he has found it especially beneficial working with their pitching coach, Steve Loureiro. Most of the work he has done with Loureiro has dealt with his ability to handle the mental side of pitching, Speas said, and in the long term those can be the most beneficial lessons of all.
Between his associations with Byrd and Loureiro, Speas is getting a lot of quality instruction. He is also playing his high school baseball in the state of Georgia, which annually produces as many top high school prospects as just about any state in the nation.
Georgia preps Cornelius Randolph and Tyler Stephenson were selected with the 10th and 11th overall picks during the MLB Amateur Draft earlier this month.
“There are a definitely a lot of good players around Georgia,” Speas said. “When you go play a team, even if it’s not one of the best teams in the state, they’re always going to have a top guy on their team. Being able to face them or to hit against them or throw against them is going to make me a better players.”
During the offseason, he trains at Rapids Sports Performance in Woodstock, Ga., three times a week, and trains with his high school team four days a week. That means a lot of time spent in the gym, and the extra work has brought its rewards.
An increase in velocity has been Speas’ most noticeable improvement in the last two years. He topped out at 85 mph at the 2013 15u PG WWBA National Championship and just more than a year later he hit 93 mph at the PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter.
He always had a good arm throwing from the outfield but extra work strengthening his lower body has enabled him to throw even harder from the pitcher’s mound; he hit 97 mph during his two innings of work Wednesday.
Speas has verbally committed to Mississippi State. Rodney Speas said he and Alex’s mother, Terri Marsh, let Alex take the driver’s seat when it came to making his college decision and felt in the long run his son made an excellent decision. Rodney believes Starkville, Miss., will be an ideal place for his son to focus on being a student-athlete while also pursuing a career at the highest collegiate level.
It also quite likely the 2016 MLB First-Year Player Draft will keep Speas from ever stepping foot on MSU’s Starkville campus. His dad said the draft wasn’t something the family dwells upon, but they also aren’t oblivious to the talk that’s out there. “We’re just trying to keep him grounded and let him be a 17-year-old high school senior and next June or July we’ll deal with the situation as it might be,” Rodney Speas said.
For the next three days, the PG National Showcase will be the primary focus of Alex and Rodney Speas. It just fills Rodney with such a sense of satisfaction when he watches his son play the game with such boundless joy. As he’s told Alex many times, they’ll keep traveling this path as long as he keeps having fun and when the fun stops they’ll find something else to do.
“The idea is to come out and have a good time with some of his friends and some of his peers,” Rodney said. “It’s Important for him to experience that camaraderie that will probably exist as they hopefully go on through college and maybe the minor leagues and, hopefully, one day major league baseball.”
Class is in session at JetBlue Park. Inquiring minds want to know, and no one on the field is more inquisitive than Alex Speas.
“I just hope to meet a lot of great kids and great ballplayers and be able to learn a lot from a lot of different people,” Speas said. “I want to be able to leave with a lot of memories that I can look back on and say, ‘I went to PG National and I had a great time.’”