Prep Baseball Report

MLK Weekend Notebook


Les Lukach
State Scouting Director

Martin Luther King Jr. weekend annually serves as the unofficial kickoff to the high school baseball season in Southern California. Many of the top teams in the region participate in a number of events ranging from college team camps to three-way games to the biggest preseason event, the JSerra MLK Weekend event. I call it an event because it's not a tournament, it's a round robin series of games that attracts roughly 42 teams.

In other words, it's a pretty darn big deal that was almost for not given the rain that hit the Los Angeles and Orange County areas last week.

I usually split the weekend up by hitting two of the college team camps - USD, SDSU - in San Diego on Friday and Saturday before finishing the weekend off in Orange County. The weather wrecked havoc with USD's field forcing them to cancel their team camp. This left with one day at SDSU before heading to JSerra on Sunday and Monday for what amounted to 13 games in three days.

Obviously with that many games comes the opportunity to see many teams and players as we head into the 2019 season. Below are some notes on players that stood out in my viewings last weekend.

Joshua Hahn 1B / LHP / Huntington Beach, CA / 2019

Josh Hahn is No. 5 in the state Class of 2019 rankings and certainly did nothing on Saturday to convince us otherwise. The southpaw is showing more consistent velocity in the 88-90 range with the fastball that is flashing more arm side life as it enters the hitting zone. His changeup continues to develop as it flashed some unseen sinking action along with fade while his curveball flashed downer biting action. But the thing that stands out with Hahn is his physical development. He’s made a commitment to getting stronger and it’s showing. He’s thicker in the lower half and through the shoulders which can only bode well for him this season when he’s unlikely to come off the field.

UPCOMING EVENTS

SHOWCASE STATE DATE LOCATION
Northern California Preseason All-State (Invite-Only) CA 01/27 San Joaquin Delta College
Super 60 Pro Showcase NATIONAL 02/03 The Max
Solano-Sac Junior Future Games Trials CA 02/24 Vacaville Christian HS
SoCal Junior Future Games Trials CA 03/09 O'Malley Field - Harvard Westlake
East Bay Junior Future Games Trials CA 03/24 Athenian School
North Bay Junior Future Games Trials CA 04/28 Clyde P. Smith Field - Cardinal Newman HS
Northern California Future Games Trials CA 05/26 Islanders Field
Orange County Futures Games Trials CA 06/08 Hart Park - Orange CA

Premium Content Area

This article is only available to PBRPlus Subscribers. If you wish to continue reading this article:

Login to the Subscriptions Website.
To purchase a NEW SUBSCRIPTION, please click here to go to our subscription products page.