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Showcase  | Story  | 1/30/2020

Casserilla Trending Up

Blake Dowson     
Photo: Xavier Casserilla (Perfect Game)

Players can look at the offseason in a couple different ways.

The winter months can mean some time off. It’s baked right into the name, after all. Or the offseason can mean it’s time to get to work, shaping yourself for what you will look like when the offseason gets turned off.

Xavier Casserilla, a 2021 prospect from Haslet, Texas, dedicated himself this winter to the batting cages and the weight room. After attending the 2019 PGBA 16u North Texas Championship last June listed at 5-foot-11 and 193 pounds, he weighed in at 207 pounds (and had grown an inch) during weigh-ins at the 2020 National Underclass East Showcase last weekend in Sanford, Fla.

Okay, there aren’t actual weigh-ins at those events, but Casserilla would have been bumped up a weight class if there were.

“I’m at the cages after school every day,” Casserilla said. “I hit for an hour or so and then get in the weight room…Then I go outside and take some ground balls off the grass and take some fly balls.”

The offseason work he put in made it possible to feel as good as he did heading into the new year.

Casserilla suited up for North East Baseball National at the 2020 PG West MLK Underclass Championship from Jan. 17-20 in Phoenix, and looked like he was in midseason form.

Two doubles and two home runs, along with four walks, added up to a .444 batting average over nine at-bats, leading to a spot on the All-Tournament Team.

He was supposed to pitch for North East Baseball National at the tournament, but the team got bounced from the event earlier than it wanted, and Casserilla didn’t have a chance to show off his new body on the mound.

He did, however, get a chance to show scouts his arm at the National Underclass Showcase, where he touched 91 mph with his fastball.



He added a pair of doubles in game action during the showcase to show off his two-way ability, as well.



It’s January, and not a ton of guys are able to hit the ground running like Casserilla has done at the two Perfect Game events he has attended in the early part of 2020.

“I felt great physically going into the [National Underclass East Showcase],” Casserilla said. “I’ve been doing this program at this place called Cooperstown Cages, we do a strength program with some weight lifting, agility movements. Just getting faster and stronger. And a week earlier I played in the Perfect Game MLK tournament in Arizona and had some success there, so I felt like I was ready to go.”

Casserilla had never attended a Perfect Game showcase before.

He wants to play Division I baseball. He is currently uncommitted with a few offers in hand, but knows he has untapped potential still within him. He also knows other guys who are headed there, and has seen their performances at different showcase events.

He had in mind what he wanted from himself at the National Underclass East.

“I’ve been looking at different Perfect Game profiles a lot and seeing all those different numbers,” he said. “And I wanted to go out there and see if I could put up some of the better numbers in my class and get some looks from some different colleges. That was my motivation. I wanted to showcase my abilities.”

The power in his swing was apparent with the eye test, and it was backed up by the Diamond Kinetics numbers taken at the showcase. Casserilla’s max barrel speed and impact momentum were both in the 95th percentile at the event, and his hardest exit velocity (91 mph) was in the 97th percentile.

On top of that, his 91 mph fastball was the hardest-thrown pitch at the entire event.

Casserilla doesn’t know if colleges will want him to be a two-way player. He said he doesn’t care. He simply wants an opportunity to play Division I baseball, whether that’s with a bat in his hands, or toeing the rubber, or doing some of both.

He also said after attending the PG showcase, a number of college coaches have been in touch saying they want to come watch him play high school ball this spring.

V.R. Eaton High School, just north of Fort Worth in Haslet, is where Casserilla goes to school. It competes in a 6A conference against teams in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It’s high-level baseball.

And it’s a chance to prove to those college coaches that Casserilla can do this, that, or the other for them if he gets on campus.

“I’ll do whatever they want me to,” he said. “Whatever it takes to get to the College World Series and hopefully win one of those, because that’s one of my goals, to get to that big stage. If it takes me being a two-way guy, or just hitting, or just pitching, I’ll just do what’s best for the team.”
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