CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – This city’s own Brayden Frazier started his 2016 Perfect Game showcase season right here in his backyard. He was at Perfect Game Field-Veterans Memorial Stadium in late April for the PG Spring Top Prospect Showcase and less than a month later he was back for the PG National Pre-Draft Showcase; he earned Top Prospect Team recognition at both and Top Prospect List notice at the latter.
And then it was time for the top 2018 shortstop prospect and his family to hit the road for appearances at two of PG’s biggest underclass showcase events. The first stop was the Junior National in Fort Myers, Fla., in early June, followed by the Underclass All-American Games in San Diego (he was also at the non-PG Area Code Underclass Games in Long Beach, Calif., in early August). It was a coast-to-coast odyssey that helped establish Frazier as one of the top overall prospects in the national high school class of 2018.
As with almost everything in life, the 2016 journey has come full-circle. On Saturday, Brayden Frazier was back at PG Field for this year’s summer-ending PG Midwest Top Prospect Showcase which is running simultaneously with the PG Midwest Underclass Showcase. A total of 180 young players from the classes of 2017 through 2020 are taking part in the two events.
Brayden and his dad, Leo Frazier, are just happy to be playing at home: “To be able to sleep in your own bed is great; it’s heaven,” Leo said Saturday morning after coaching the PG Black team in its Midwest Top opener at PG Field-Veterans Memorial Stadium.
“I just like hanging out with the guys, that’s the main thing; you meet so many people here,” Brayden Frazier added. “I’ve made so many new friends through all of (my PG experiences) – the fall, the spring, the showcases – and that’s what I like the most about it.”
Ask any of the young prospects that have chosen to be involved with PG showcases what it is they enjoy the most about the experience, the popular response is “the competition.” Playing the best in an effort to become the best, that sort of thing.
Brayden Frazier, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound uncommitted shortstop prospect who is beginning his junior season at Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School ranked as the No. 249 class of 2018 prospect nationally (No. 3 in Iowa), certainly got to experience the highest level of age-group competition available at both the Jr. National and the Underclass All-American Games.
The experiences were both fun and eye-opening as he gauged how he stacked-up against the other top middle-infielders in his class while also testing himself against the top pitchers in the country. “There are definitely some different personalities, some different ways of playing the game from the West Coast to the East Coast,” he said. “I’ve noticed that for sure.”
His dad agreed: “You want to play with the best players you can play with and he wants to be out here competing against those guys,” Leo Frazier said. “He loves being around and he loves playing with better players; that’s why we do it. He just loves the game and he love being around the guys that are better than him and are also trying to get as good as they can get.”
Brayden received a 9.5 PG Grade at the Jr. National, just a click short of the perfect 10. His scouting report from the event noted his “athletic frame with broad shoulders and present strength proportioned throughout his frame” and while playing the middle-infield he showed “athletic actions with developing footwork, full arm action (and) solid arm strength (that) plays well on the left side of the infield.” At the plate, he “shows balance to his swing with a nice weight shift through the lower half (and a) direct swing path to the ball with lift out front.” Very good stuff, indeed.
At a regional showcase like the Midwest Top, Frazier finds it easier to relax and just do his own thing in his own backyard. He was named to the Top Prospect List at both the 2015 PG Spring Top and PG Midwest Underclass, and especially enjoys using these smaller, more intimate events to soak in as much knowledge as he can from the coaches PG brings in to guide each one of the showcase teams.
“There really aren’t any expectations,” he said in regard to the approach he took coming into this event. “Everybody’s loose out there and nobody’s really nervous; everybody’s excited for each other.”
Frazier has also shown very well in PG tournament play, earning all-tournament team accolades at the 2015 PG WWBA Labor Day Classic at LakePoint in Cartersville, Ga., and the 2015 PG WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship at PG Field in Cedar Rapids, both while playing with Iowa Select Navy. He has also been a two-year competitor in the Iowa Spring and Fall Wood Bat Leagues.
Being an Iowa kid, Frazier just wrapped up his 2016 high school season – his sophomore year – in late July (Iowa high schools play only a summer season). Jefferson is a 60-year-old high school on Cedar Rapids’ west side – it sits high on a hill about five or six blocks from PG Field-Veterans Memorial Stadium – and while the school has a long and storied athletic history, its baseball program has lagged in recent years.
That changed this summer. Led by outfielder/left-hander Spencer Van Scoyoc – a 19th-round draft pick of the Toronto Blue Jays in June who didn’t sign professionally and is now at Arizona State – the J-Hawks advanced to the Iowa Class 4A (big school) state tournament at the Iowa Cubs’ Principal Park in Des Moines for the first time in 18 years.
They finished 28-12 after a quarterfinal-round loss to Mississippi Valley Conference rival Iowa City West – fellow MVC member Cedar Rapids Prairie won the 4A state championship – to cap off a very memorable season. Brayden Frazier was the J-Hawks’ starting shortstop as a sophomore (he was also on the varsity as a freshman) and slashed .271/.381/.402 with two home runs, a triple, six doubles, 18 runs batted in, 2220 runs scored and eight stolen bases in nine attempts.
“That was so much fun getting to go to state … because it hadn’t been done in a while,” he said. “We were just really excited to have that go our way here on the west side (of Cedar Rapids). Jefferson is great – all of our coaches are amazing – and I love playing baseball there.”
The Iowa High School Athletic Association is often criticized for not offering a spring season for its member schools, but Leo Frazier looks at it differently. He enjoys watching Brayden play with his neighborhood friends and classmates during the hot summer months, especially with Iowa’s weather being predictably cool (cold?) and wet in April and May.
“I’m happy that we have baseball in the summer here in Iowa for that perspective, because I don’t think spring baseball would be the same (experience),” he said. “We, as parents, look forward to it – four nights a week we’re going to a game somewhere.”
Leo Frazier attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City and Brayden’s mother, Cindy attended the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Both Leo and Cindy played sports at their respective high schools and both went on to play competitive amateur softball as adults.
Brayden Frazier, who carries a 4.05 grade-point average at Jefferson, has not yet committed to a college and isn’t going to rush into anything. When it comes to the whole recruiting process, he said: “I really enjoy it because you get to come out to all of these (showcases) You get to come out here and meet all the guys, and that’s really what I play for.”
The late writer and lecturer Dale Carnegie once published a book titled “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and while top 2018 shortstop Brayden Frazier doesn’t seem interested in influencing anyone at this point in his still blossoming baseball career, he’s all about winning new friends.
He is certain to continue his travels with PG through the summer and fall of 2017 and into the spring of 2018, when he is equally as certain to make even more new friends. Leo and Cindy Frazier are more than happy to tag along for the ride.
“We treat it as our vacations, basically,” Leo said Saturday. “… The relationships you develop are just phenomenal and that’s why we love it. Brayden has so many friends from different parts of the state – and even the country now – that it’s just heaven; it’s expanding his horizons.
“Really, for (Brayden), it’s just being around the guys and being competitive,” he concluded. “The friendships he’s made dealing with these guys – he’ll talk to these guys all winter long. … It’s just trying to get better, basically; that’s really what it is.”