2015 WWBA World Championship Pool Preview

JUPITER, Fla. – With the first games at the 17th annual Perfect Game WWBA World Championship just days away from being played at the Roger Dean Stadium Complex – the Grapefruit League spring training home of the Cardinals and Marlins – it seemed an appropriate time to turn back the clock.

In late October 2010, exactly five years ago this week, in fact, I was given the opportunity to attend my first PG WWBA World Championship. What I witnessed over those days was an exhibition of elite athleticism and skill sets mixed with an equal part of raw emotion that at the time left me at once overdosed on adrenaline and completely overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all.

At its conclusion, I penned a short essay describing the entire overall experience that included the following brief observation:

“The games are, of course, entertaining and competitive because the players are entertaining and competitive. More than a few of them represent the next generation of major-leaguers.”

While writing that line, I had no idea the prescience I possessed. In the last three years, 17 prospects that were at Roger Dean during those late October days  in 2010 have already made their debuts in Major League Baseball only five short years after performing in Jupiter; 14 of those 17 debuted this summer.

Class of 2011 high school grad Jose Fernandez was already with the Marlins' big club in 2013 and fellow class of 2011 prospects Javier Baez and Daniel Norris debuted with the Cubs and Blue Jays, respectively, in 2014. Eleven of the 17 were selected in the 2011 MLB First-Year Player Draft, three went in the 2012 MLB Draft and three others signed when selected in 2014 after three years of college; 10 were either first-round or first-round compensation picks.

Perhaps most remarkably, quite a few of these alumni from the 2010 PG WWBA World not only achieved their goals of reaching the major leagues but have already become impact players for their respective teams.

Corey Seager (Dodgers), Lance McCullers (Astros) and Baez (Cubs) helped their big-league clubs make deep playoff runs this month – Baez is playing on as this is written – just five years after performing for the Dirtbags, Midland Redskins/Royals Scout Team and FTB Mizuno/Cardinals Scout Team, respectively. (Seager returned to Jupiter with the Dirtbags in 2011; the Astros’ rookie standout Carlos Correa was also in Jupiter in 2011, playing for Puerto Rico Baseball Academy High School.)

IT WAS WITH GREAT INTEREST I STUDIED THE LIST OF 17, and it was impossible not to notice that four of them played for Jered Goodwin and the FTB Mizuno/Cardinals Scout Team: The Indians’ Francisco Lindor – who is certain to take some votes away from Correa in this year’s American League Rookie of the Year balloting – and the Red Sox’s Henry Owens joined Fernandez and Baez on that electric roster. Five years after the fact, Goodwin stills comes across as being somewhat in awe of that particular FTB roster.

“It’s crazy when you think about it, but those are the type of guys that not only want to go and play in Jupiter, they’re the type of guys that do go and play in Jupiter,” he told me during an enjoyable telephone conversation late last week. “There are going to be guys who go to college and have really good college careers and then there are guys who are going to play one more year as an amateur and then get up (to the big leagues) really fast.”

That FTB/Cardinals roster was not only filled with talent but it was filled with fantastic storylines, as well; a feature I pursued was one on the team’s power-hitting first baseman Daniel Vogelbach from North Fort Myers, Fla.

He’s a kid with a personality as big and loud as the bat he swings, who became a second-round pick of the Cubs in the 2011 draft – Baez was their first-rounder – and has worked his way through the Cubs’ farm system to Class Double-A. It’s not all that far-fetched of a notion to believe Vogelbach might also be in the big leagues if a fellow named Anthony Rizzo – an alumnus of the 2005 and 2006 WWBA World while playing with the ABD Bulldogs – didn’t have a lock on the Cubs’ first base job.

Aaron Nola (Marucci Elite), Carlos Rodon (Royals Baseball Club) and Trea Turner (Palm Beach PAL) are the three 2010 alumni that headed off for three-year college careers before becoming first-round draft picks of the Phillies, White Sox and Padres, respectively, in 2014. In retrospect, that three-year college experience certainly proved to be worthwhile when viewed in terms of their development as ballplayers and the thickness of their wallets.

The other players from 2010 that were drafted in 2011 and made their major league debuts this summer include Joey Gallo (Ohio Warhawks, Rangers); Adrian Houser (Dallas Yankees, Brewers); Jorge Lopez (Team Mizuno Puerto Rico, Brewers); Greg Bird (Ohio Warhawks, Yankees); Michael Reed (Texas Sun Devils, Brewers); and Matt Wisler (Marucci Elite, Braves).

THE DIRTBAGS FROM SEDALIA, N.C., AND CHET LEMON’S JUICE out of Mount Dora, Fla., shared the PG WWBA World Championship title in 2010 after Chet’s – which was involved in a play-in game and played nine games in four days – ran out pitching during the extra-inning championship game; both teams agreed to be named co-champs.

Andy Partin is the affable and successful founder, owner and head coach of the Dirtbags and he has told me more than once that he was more than happy to defer to former big-league great Chet Lemon’s request to stop the game; he still speaks of Lemon in almost reverential terms (“I mean, it's Chet Lemon!”).

Francisco Lindor at the 2010 WWBA World Championship