CARTERSVILLE, Ga. – Anytime a discussion regarding the right arm of 16-year-old Fayetteville, Ga., top prospect Makenzie Stills takes place, it inevitably changes course and becomes a conversation about other parts of his athletic anatomy: his legs.
Perhaps that’s to be expected when a young man listed (generously, it would seem) at 5-foot, 11-inches and 175-pounds is delivering fastballs that consistently sit at 89-91 mph and just last week topped out at 94 while pitching for the Home Plate Citadels at Perfect Game Park South at LakePoint as part of the Perfect Game High School Spring Swing.
Stills was back with the Citadels at PG Park South Friday, this time competing in the 3rd annual Perfect High School Showdown-Academies, which is running in conjunction with the 4th annual Perfect Game High School Showdown.
He wasn’t all that sharp in a two inning outing Friday morning – he allowed one unearned run on one hit while walking three without a strikeout (14 of his 25 pitches went for strikes) – but the velocity was still there. Twenty-four of this 25 pitches were fastballs and they mostly sat 88-90 mph while topping out at 91. Not quite 94 but impressive by any standards.
“It’s taken off pretty quickly in just the last couple of years, I just try to work on it every day,” Stills said of his velocity. “I try to get all my power from my legs, but I guess I was just born with natural God-given (abilities) with the quick arm and everything else. It’s just my legs and a quick, whipping arm.”
The Home Plate Citadels didn’t present much of a threat in two pool-play losses at the PG HS Showdown-Academies, getting outscored by a combined 17-1. But the team has indisputable bloodlines.
The Citadels are part of the Home Plate Baseball and Softball organization Lloyd Thomson operates out of a facility in Peachtree City, Ga.; it’s the same organization that fields all of Thompson’s ultra-competitive Home Plate Chili Dogs teams that play in PG WWBA and BCS tournaments throughout the summer and fall. The Citadels team that is here this weekend is being coached by Thompson’s longtime 15u and 16u head coach, Esteban Maldonado.
This is a spring team that welcomes in players who for any variety of reasons aren’t playing for their high school teams. It could be that their high school does not have a baseball team or, in several cases, the player is being home-schooled, or there could be other issues. Home Plate offers the Citadels as an opportunity for these young guys to play during the spring and often on much bigger stages, like the one the PG HS Showdown-Academies offers, than they might be on with their high school teams.
“One of the biggest challenges that we have is when we get them they’re from different (schools) and different communities and different backgrounds, so we’re trying to get them all. Together and try to get them to play as a team. That’s our goal.”
There is a lot of teaching involved and in select cases, depending on the circumstances under which the young player joined Citadels, Maldonado and the other coaches will have to get a kid’s head right. Following Thompson’s guidelines for all his Home Plate teams, the first order of business is teaching each individual how to play the game the right way.
“When we come into an event like this our expectation is to win, but our goal is just to get better every time we play both as a team and as individual players,” Maldonado said. “Our goal is to push them (to become) as good as they can get.”
By bringing his team to LakePoint on consecutive weekends, Maldonado is giving the young players an opportunity to see other teams and players from outside of Georgia and expose them to way those out-of-state teams and players behave and go about their business. That can be especially valuable for a young prospect like Stills, who Maldonado has had an opportunity to work with since the youngster was 6 years old. It’s been a long and fruitful relationship.
Stills has played in 17 PG WWBA or PG Super25 tournaments with various Home Plate teams since he debuted with the Home Plate Chilidogs 14u at the 2013 14u/15u Perfect Game-East Cobb Invitational in June of that year. The 5-foot-4, 135-pound 13-year-old fired a 79 mph fastball at that event.
At the same event a year later, playing for Home Plate Dyal, Stills was named to the all-tournament team after raising that fastball velocity to 87 mph. Another all-tournament team selection came in early June 2015 when upped to that 89 while pitching for a team simply called Home Plate.
He recorded a 90 mph fastball for the first time at PG event later that month while earning all-tournament honors at the PG WWBA Elite Round Robin pitching for Home Plate Maldonado. Ninety-ones, 92s, 93s and 94s followed rapidly in over the next several months.
Maldonado agreed that most of Stills’ velocity is generated in his legs, and that leg strength – and arm strength – is evident on other fields of play. A sophomore at Fayette County (Ga.) High School, Stills played in three games at quarterback on the FCHS varsity football team last fall and completed 21 passes for 370 yards, two touchdowns and five interceptions, according to MaxPreps.com.
“Makenzie is a very electric player,” Maldonado said. “His arm is amazing – far beyond his years – and he can also play the field and he can hit; he’s got a really quick bat. But, of course, his arm is what raising eyebrows everywhere and being a 2018 and hitting 94, that’s pretty good for his class and especially with his size. He’s not a big guy but he packs a lot of power.”
Stills called his association with Home Plate a “really good fit” and said he wouldn’t trade it for any other baseball experience. He also said he especially enjoys coming to PG Park South because of the artificial turf playing fields – the Home Plate practice fields in Peachtree City also have artificial turf. Maldonado said the Home Plate/Makenzie Stills relationship has been mutually beneficial.
“It’s really good for us to have him at Home Plate as far as (Stills’) potential,” he said. “But as good as he is on the field, he’s even better off the field. His character and the way he goes about the game and the way he leads, that’s one of his biggest attributes.”
In addition to using his right arm to throw 90 mph fastballs and 50-yard football passes, Stills also uses it to whip the ball across the infield from the shortstop position. His quick feet come in handy there, as well, and when asked if he sees himself as a possible two-way player at the college level, he predictably answered, flashing a grin: “It doesn’t matter. I just want to be out on the field.”
As long as he stays with Maldonado, he’ll stay on the field as much as anyone on the team. Maldonado can’t help but repeat himself when speaks of his star pupil, who has risen to No. 23 in the PG’s class of 2018 national prospect rankings:
“He’s a very fast-twitch, electric kid, so everything he does is very explosive,” Maldonado said. “He’s a high school football player and he plays baseball so he’s always doing explosive things, which helps him out on the (baseball) field.”