The World Wood Bat Championships took place over the past few days, with the opening games taking place on Thursday (10/18) and the tournament culminating on Monday (10/22) with a Championship game.

PBR Florida was on the ground covering the state’s top prospects. The event has traditionally brought the top talent from around the country all to one location. This grants scouts the opportunity to see prospects competing at the highest levels possible. 

This year the event saw 13 Florida-based programs participate along with countless other prospects from the state of Florida that represented organizations outside of the state. In the end, it was the Florida Burn who went a perfect 8-0-0, in route to being crowned the 2018 World Wood Bat Champions, defeating Canes National 2-0.

Over the course of the next few days, we will break down the standout Florida prospects from the 2018 World Wood Bat Championships. Today, we start with the champs Florida Burn, in addition to Coastal Prospects Upperclass and the East Coast Baseball ST.
 

FLORIDA BURN

Josh Rivera, SS/3B, IMG Academy, 2019
2018 WWBA World Championship co-MVP. Florida commit. 6-2. 205-pounds, athletic frame physical lower half. Was an offensive catalyst, top of the order bat for the Burn. Consistently took quality at-bats throughout the weekend, putting the ball in play with hard contact. Showed feel and the ability to make adjustments mid at-bat. Takes a gap-to-gap approach, had awareness to take shorter approaches when the situation dictated. Defensively, moved well at shortstop, plenty of arm strength to stick on the left-side, soft hands, body control on run throughs, made a number of highlight throws. Went 7-for-16 with ne home run, six RBI, and five walks.