FORT MYERS, Fla. – The chilly breeze that whipped through historic Terry Park last Sunday morning – the final day of the 19th annual Perfect Game World Showcase – caught everyone a little off-guard.
High temperatures in the days leading up to PG’s longest running national showcase event had reached the upper-80s and a morning when the temperature was about 30-degrees cooler had the prospects from the PG World Showcase, PG World Uncommitted Showcase and PG National Underclass East Showcase - the three were running simultaneously - wrapped in sweatshirts and jackets.
I was looking for one World Showcase prospect in particular – 2016 Conyers, Ga., left-handed swinging outfielder Akil Baddoo – but he was next to impossible to find since very few of the players were exhibiting their uniform numbers. I approached PG National Tournament Director Matt Bliven and told him who I was looking for.
“Akil Baddoo?” Bliv asked incredulously. “He’s still doing our stuff? Man, it seems like he’s been around here forever.”
The 17-year-old Baddoo hasn’t literally been involved with PG “forever,” of course, but he’s made appearances at nearly 25 PG events the last three years, most of them PG WWBA and PG BCS tournaments in 2014 and 2015 while playing with the Buford, Ga.-based Gwinnett Baseball & Softball Academy (GBSA) organization.
It wasn’t until the conclusion of Baddoo’s game Sunday morning that I was finally able to corral him and chat with him for a few minutes. Akil is a solid, 6-foot-1, 195-pound athlete who set PG personal bests during Saturday morning’s workout session with a 6.69-second 60-yard dash (10th-best effort at the event) and an 86 mph throw from the outfield (top-30 at the event).
He also hit, fielded and ran very well during game action, prompting a PG scout to write: “Akil Baddoo has outstanding left-handed bat speed and big power potential, in part due to how much back spin he imparts on the ball … (He) has great bat speed with pop on his bat and great speed on the bases.”
After Baddoo had gathered his belongings, I asked him what the last two days had been like. This was only the second PG showcase he had attended, with the other being the 2014 PG National Underclass Showcase-Main Event, held annually during the week of December, a week before the World Showcase. He was named to the Top Prospect List at that event and received more TPL love at the World.
“This was a great experience,” he said with a smile. “I love Perfect Game; it’s given me a lot of exposure. I really enjoy coming down and playing here.”
He listened politely to another of my questions and then continued: “I like the showcase (environment) because you’re out here displaying your skills to the scouts,” he said. “It lets them know what tools you have and what tools you need to (develop). I still enjoy getting out in front of the scouts and I can out there and play the game I’ve been playing since I was a kid.”
Baddoo, who was born in Silver Springs, Md., but raised in Georgia, told me he began playing baseball when he was about 4 years old and also played basketball, football and soccer as a youngster. He started focusing more seriously on baseball when he was 12 or 13 and he made his PG tournament debut at the age of 14 while playing for an outfit called Georgia Select Navy at the 2013 15u PG WWBA National Championship.
Early in the summer of 2014, Baddoo began his association with GBSA and was promptly named to the all-tournament team at the 16u Perfect Game/East Cobb Invitational playing with the GBSA White Sox. He really hit his stride in 2015 by being named to the all-tournament team in four straight PG events: the 18u Memorial Day Classic at LakePoint; the 17u PG/EC Invitational; the 17u PG WWBA Qualifier; and the 18u PG WWBA National Championship, all with the GBSA Rays.
He picked it back up late in the season, with all-tournament selections at the PG WWBA Southeast Qualifier #1 and PG WWBA National Qualifier with the Rays American, and at the PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., with the Braves Scout Team/Ohio Warhawks. Simply put, the guy is money when the most is on the line.
“I still have a lot of stuff to work on but I was proud of my summer and my fall, so I’m going on the right path,” Baddoo told me.
Thanks to his standout performances and tireless efforts on the PG tournament circuit, Baddoo has risen to No. 117 in PG’s class of 2016 national prospect rankings (No. 14 national outfield prospect) and to Nos. 14 and 3 in Georgia.
He is a senior at Salem High School in Conyers, and to be considered the No. 3 outfield prospect in the Peach State is noteworthy simply because of the number of slots in the first two rounds of the MLB June Amateur Draft have been filled by Georgia high school outfielders over the last several years.
Just since the 2011 draft, Dwight Smith (McIntosh), Larry Greene (Nashville), Byron Buxton (Baxley), Austin Meadows (Loganville), Clint Frazier (Loganville), Michael Gettys (Gainesville) and Daz Cameron (McDonough) have been selected in first-round or supplement first-round right out of their respective high schools; Jahmai Jones (Norcross) was a second-round pick.
“The high school baseball in Georgia is really good,” Baddoo said last weekend. “Seeing so much talent in Georgia (during the spring high school season) really prepares you for anyplace you go. And out here, I’ve become good friends with a lot of these guys and that’s what really makes it a lot of fun.”
After considering colleges like Kennesaw State University near his Conyers home and the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Baddoo signed with the University of Kentucky, a stalwart in the powerful Southeastern Conference.
He was drawn to Lexington by the “love” – his word – he was shown from head coach Gary Henderson and also by the presence of hitting coach Rick Eckstein, the brother of former big-league infielder David Eckstein. Coach Eckstein spent five years (2009-13) as the hitting coach for the Washington Nationals working with guys like Bryce Harper, Ian Desmond and Ryan Zimmerman. It’s easy to understand why being taught by a man with that resume might appeal to a young up-and-coming hitter like Baddoo.
The World Showcase holds a special place on Perfect Game’s calendar of events. It was first staged at Terry Park in 1997 and has been held annually for 19 straight years; no other PG national showcase or tournament can match its longevity. Four prospects that attended in 1997 eventually made it to the big leagues, including Cody Ross who was still active with the Oakland A’s in 2015.
It was at the 2000 and 2001 PG World Showcases where new Arizona Diamondbacks superstar right-hander Zack Greinke first convinced scouts he was more of a pitcher than a position player.
It was at the 2011 and 2012 PG World Showcases where a very young Carlos Correa from Puerto Rico first showed scouts on the mainland the power, speed and grace he could exhibit on a baseball field. Correa, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 MLB draft, was the American League Rookie of the Year last season playing with the Houston Astros.
Akil Baddoo did not make that kind of impression at last weekend’s PG World Showcase, but he did enough to find his name included among the top-five 2016s on the PG scouts’ Top Prospect List.
I looked over all his impressive performances in 2015 and what he had done at the World, and couldn’t help but think his draft stock should continue to rise if this momentum carries into the spring. As our conversation was wrapping up on chilly George Brett Field at Terry Park, I asked the alumnus of two PG showcases what kind of advice he would give to a young player contemplating taking the plunge into showcase baseball. He thought for a second or two before responding:
“You need to work hard, have fun and just go out and play the game,” he said. “You have to work hard but you also have to make sure you love the game and enjoy it. That’s the biggest thing there is. If you’re not having fun, you shouldn’t even be playing.”