Crack of the Bat
By Blaine Clemmens
PG Top 400 by State
For those of you that are subscribers of Prospects Plus, you are probably aware that Perfect Game compiles the rankings that appear in that database. I was recently looking over the Top 400 '06 grads and wanted to share some observations with you.
After sorting the Top 400 by state, it was no surprise that the most highly represented states on that list are Florida (74), California (71), and Texas (51). Also of little surprise was that Georgia (33) checked in at #4 in terms of players listed in the Top 400. In recent years Georgia has produced players at a rate that that belies the overall population in that state.
The Big 4 were the only states that produced more than 20 players listed in that Top 400, but six other states had ten or more players on the list. Can you guess them? Certainly recent history would have you to believe that Virginia would be in this group, and they are (12), but they are behind another Atlantic Coast state, North Carolina (13). Alabama (12), Louisiana (11), New York (11), and New Jersey (10) round out the states that had ten or more players represented in the Top 400.
To delve into those rankings a little further, let's look at the breakdown of Top 100 players, by state.
Again, it is no surprise that Florida (21), California (18), and Texas (14) lead the way in producing Top 100 players in our ranking. Those states actually account for 53% of the Top 100 players. Georgia (7), Alabama (5), Louisiana (3), North Carolina (3), and Virginia (3) also are represented on both lists. What is interesting is that a state that only had 9 players represented in the Top 400 had 4 in the Top 100. That state is Washington.
On the flip side, there are ten states that had zero players represented in the Top 400, and for the most part, none of them are any great shock; Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. I am somewhat surprised that both New Mexico and West Virginia were blanked.
As for Alaska, they do have at least one player that belonged in the Top 400, RHP Chad Nading from Anchorage. He is a Top 300 caliber player, but we missed him and I take responsibility for that. I know that I failed to include him in my Top 300 that I submitted, which is an egregious error on my part. I saw Nading in a fall tournament in Arizona and there is little doubt that he is a prospect. He is also considered one of the top quarterback prospects in the nation.
I was also surprised at the low representation in the Top 400 of some of the states that are among the biggest in the nation, in terms of population. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana each only had 4 players in the Top 400, and Illinois had only 5. Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Missouri had one each, the same as small states like Rhode Island, Connecticut, Hawaii, and even a non-state, the District of Columbia.
Obviously there are going to be some omissions from a Top 400 list as it is a subjective ranking, based largely on the players that our staff has seen. Are there players listed in the Top 400 that have not been seen by our scouting staff? I am not 100% certain, but I would say that yes, there are a more than few, it is inevitable.
With our extensive network, we don't miss out on knowing about too many players, but we do not see or know of them all. Are there players in America, Puerto Rico, and Canada (players from countries that are eligible for the amateur draft) that are good enough to be in the Top 400 that we have not seen or are not aware of? Certainly there must be.
It is impossible to know of all the players, but we do have an awareness of most of them and frankly that astounds me. Among the Top 50, it is almost a certainty that we have awareness of them all, and in most years, we have had each of them in our events and seen them with our own eyes. We can and will see more players in 2006, which should be a record year for us in terms of the number of players that participate in PG events.
The reason, other than having an extensive network and an excellent scouting staff, is pretty simple. Between Perfect Game National, the World Showcase, the WWBA tournaments, the regional Sunshine Showcases, the National Underclass Showcase, and the dozens of other showcases we provide for players, we DO see a very large majority of the players that are Top 400 caliber players. This spring and summer we are unveiling a new tournament series, the Baseball Championship Series (BCS), which will allow us to see even more of the nation's top prep players.
Check back for part two of this story when I will look at some more specific factors that contribute to the different states' representation in the Top 400. I will also analyze what the representation of players from different states among the Top 400 means in relation to the numbers of players in the Big Leagues from the different states.
This column represents the thoughts and opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of Perfect Game.