FORT MYERS, Fla. – Let it be known from the outset that the Kansas City, Mo.-based Royals Scout Team – looking sharp and very professional in their K.C. Royals look-alike, robin-egg blue jerseys – won their Perfect Game WWBA Underclass World Championship pool-play opener early Friday afternoon at the Lee County Player Development Complex.
The Royals ST were tied at 2 with the ECNE Expos out of Beverly, Mass., after five innings of play, but behind a timely two-run single off the bat of Will Crain, they pushed across three runs in the top of the sixth and held on for a white-knuckle 5-4 win.
It was a great way for this team of top guns from the classes of 2019 and 2020 to formerly introduce themselves to one another and the rest of the field at the 210-team PG WWBA Under World, but winning ballgames – and ultimately a PG national championship – isn’t necessarily at the top of the must-do list for this squad.
“It’s not necessarily about the results, but I do expect our pitchers to compete, our hitters to compete and our fielders to make competitive plays,” Royals Scout Team head coach Eric Briggs said Friday. “At the end of the day, I think that’s what everybody will be judged on. It’s not going to be whether you win or lose, it’s going to be did you come out here and compete? …
“We want our kids to be themselves because we believe they’re talented enough, and we want them to learn how to compete against other good players.”
This team was put together out of the Royals’ new Urban Youth Academy in Kansas City, which fielded two teams this past summer. A lot of the local Missouri and Kansas prospects that played on those teams were unable to be here this weekend due to prior commitments, so the Royals Assistant to Amateur Scouting and Coordinator-Scouting Operations Jack Monahan put the big-league team’s entire department to work building a roster.
He reached out to the Royals’ area scouts across the country and had them submit the names of the top 2019 and 2020 prospects in their respective areas. These would-be players the scouts maybe wouldn’t mind getting to know a little bit better and the ones who they would like to see perform on a national stage with a lot of other eyes trained on them.
The result of those efforts is an impressive roster that features more than a half-dozen Kansas City-area players, along with prospects from New Jersey, Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana; six of them have already committed to NCAA Division-I schools.
“All of these players were invited based on a scout’s recommendation,” said Briggs, who himself is a part-time associate scout with the Royals.
The roster features six underclassmen who have made commitments to NCAA Division I schools; PG ranks six of the 2019s in the top-500 nationally, and two of the 2020s in top-162.
Those high school juniors are Tennessee infielder Chris McElvain (No. 102, Vanderbilt), Kansas outfielder Marcus Smith (No. 157, Michigan), Louisiana catcher/first baseman Hayden Travinski (No. 191, Louisiana State), Tennessee left-hander/first baseman Jacob Tate (top-500, Kentucky), Missouri righty/middle-infielder Carter Rustad (No. 297, San Diego) and Tennessee right-hander/first baseman Cameron Hansen (top-500, uncommitted). Missouri first baseman/right-hander Braxton Bragg is not ranked in the top-500 but has committed to Nebraska.
The top 2020s are Missouri infielder/outfielder Tavian Josenberger (No. 121) and Missouri infielder/right-hander Nathan Chester (No. 162), both uncommitted.
“I’ve been given a great opportunity to be with them down here,” the Vanderbilt recruit McElvain said Friday. “I came to this tournament last year so I knew I was going to like the tournament, but this was a good opportunity coming from the Royals just to get in front of people from their organization; let them see different players, especially me.”
The Royals’ Urban Youth Academy, which will be fully operational in November, is unique in that the Kansas City Royals employees oversee the entire operation. Royals General Manager Dayton Moore is passionate about the youth academy concept, according to Briggs, and wanted the organization to be very hands-on with what goes on there.
“It’s actually based on our player development model,” Briggs said. “Our kids here, we treat them a lot like our rookie-ball club.”
Briggs explained that the approach that he and the men running this Royals Scout Team squad takes is quite different from the approach taken by directors and coaching staffs at traditional travel ball organizations. Those programs often arrive with units that have sometimes played together for years and the players know each other inside and out; they are the essence of a “team.”
Playing for a scout team – one assembled by MLB scouting departments for a specific event – can provide its own unique benefit, however. The reasoning, Briggs said, is that it’s very likely most, if not all, of these young prospects will be on some college roster two or three years from now, and they’re going to have to learn how to be a part of an entirely new team in a very short amount of time. They’re going to be asked to assimilate quickly for the greater good.
They’ll also be asked to not only bring their considerable talents with them to their new home, but have plenty of positive energy and loads of high moral character packed in their bags, as well. Simply put, they’re going to be asked to be an exemplary teammate on day-one. And that’s exactly what they’re being asked to do this weekend as a members of the Royals Scout Team at the PG WWBA Underclass World Championship.
“I think that is why this experience is good,” Briggs said. “A lot of our kids don’t know each other – they met last night for the first time – and we’re going to see how they go out and play together. And in five days, see if they can build an actual team and say, ‘Hey, I’m pulling for you, you’re pulling for me and we trust each other.’ So, it’s a good experience for them to see if they’re able to do that quickly and get along.”
The Royals Scout Team coaching staff won’t do a lot of teaching during the team’s stay here this weekend but instead will put its emphasis on team-building. The guys they put on the field are already talented and the last thing the coaches want to do is take their athleticism away from them, but there might be adjustments made here and there.
“There could be a little bit of that but for the most part it’s all going to be about team-building and being competitive,” Briggs said. “Baseball is very difficult, and with some these kids, they didn’t fail a lot when they were in youth baseball. … Now, the mistakes aren’t being made on the other side so a lot of this week is going to be how we can help our kids manage failure and still have a positive view of themselves.”
The Royals ST won their opener behind a combined six-hitter from the 2019 righties Hansen and Bragg with some middle-inning relief help from 2020 lefty Stone Hewlett; the trip struck-out six ECNE Expos. Again, it was a nice start to a weekend of team-building.
A player like McElvain never expects to fail but is also smart enough to realize it’s part of the game. He mostly just likes being around hundreds of other top prospects if for no other reason than to see how they go about their business. He wants the team to win, of course, and he hopes that happens while he simultaneously works to improve his game.
“There’s a lot of good talent here and it’s fun to play against all the other good kids,” he said. “I don’t really try to measure myself against the other guys too much. I try to keep that aspect of it down so I can concentrate on my game and not other people’s games. But I like playing with these guys; it’s going to be a lot of fun.”