SoCal Stars: No.3 Santa Margarita Catholic vs Servite

The end of March had some excellent stars to watch, but a special outing between what seems to be one of the best teams in California in Santa Margarita Catholic taking on Servite was the highlight of the third edition of Socal Stars. 

Luke Lavin, C, 2023, SMCHS

Lavin has a very long and still lean frame for a backstop, but that doesn’t affect his ability to present a low target for his pitchers, he moves well for his size and shows solid tools, with room to improve his receiving behind the dish. The tool that stands out is the bat, he presents himself as a confident hitter in the box and his size allows him to get leverage in his swing. The hands start low with a step and hand load but has excellent bat speed that can produce hard contact, and he sprayed a few line drives around the yard.

‘23 Catcher Luke Lavin (@StanfordBSB commit) with a hard line drive into RCF. Bjg frame with strong hands and a compact swing, gets good extension on follow through as well pic.twitter.com/d8Oz5PFpmk

— Cameron Emamian (@CameronEmamian) March 25, 2023

One impressive thing that also helped him stand out at the plate was the willingness to stick with his approach, he was aggressive in the zone, hunting his pitch and not missing it, but willing to take if it wasn’t what he wanted. His biggest areas of growth will be receiving, where he has soft hands but has issues sticking pitches, especially pitches on his arm side and pitches low. He did show off a strong throwing arm as well, hosing down a runner in game 1 that had a solid jump but was out by several feet, the arm is strong and accurate with some carry to the bag. Lavin is unranked in the current Prospects Live top 400, but the Stanford commit is someone to keep an eye on as he could develop nicely after reaching campus

Blake Balsz, C/1B, 2023, SMCHS

It’s great to see a talent behind the plate in high school, but to have depth like this is a blessing for SMCHS. Blake Balsz is a different type of player than his teammate Luke, Blake was at 1B in game 1, but it’s worth noting he’s committed to UCLA as a Catcher, and is playing 1B moreso to make sure Lavin can play as well. Balsz has some versatility and is a more compact frame, with a bit more present strength in a smaller frame. He keeps his hip closed during his stride which allows him to rotate well and use a lot of his lower half strength in his swing to generate his power. While there is some pre-pitch movement, he gets his hands in a good spot and it’s a level swing, and a contact-heavy profile, there isn’t a lot of room to grow on the frame but his gap-to-gap approach of hitting can play with plenty of line drive XBHs.

‘23 Blake Balsz C/1B (@UCLABaseball commit) out of Santa Margarita high school with a line drive single to RCF. Also showed off some leather at 1B taking a hit away from Roman Martin pic.twitter.com/L9K0zxkjRm

— Cameron Emamian (@CameronEmamian) March 24, 2023

Defensively it was a bit of a whirlwind, missing a pickoff from his pitcher early on in game 1 but made up for it with several nice plays in the field later. He has solid reflexes defensively and good hands, which translate both at 1B and catcher. 

Live looks #1: Wake Forest at Clemson 3/30/23

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Wake Forest looked for their red-hot bats to stay hot as they took on Clemson at Doug Kingsmore Stadium and stay hot they did from the first inning onward. 

1B Nick Kurtz, Wake Forest , 2024 

The sophomore first baseman kicked things off in the first inning by hitting an 0-2 fastball way out of the stadium to right field, scoring Castillo. What was most impressive about the swing was how fast Kurtz got hands through the zone.

In the following at-bat, Kurtz worked his way up 3-0 and quickly fell down in the count 3-2. He managed to foul two away before Austin Gordon eventually put him away swinging. Kurtz Walked once and struck out again before grounding out to short to end his day in the 9th.

Kurtz is also an excellent fielder, and on multiple occasions, he bailed out his fellow infielders. At one point, he made a miraculous pick to end the inning. After seeing Kurtz play, all the tools are there that make him a potential top-ten pick in the 2024 MLB Draft.

NICKY NUKES 😳

📺 ACC Network@nickkurtz23 🕸 pic.twitter.com/0Sle3b8NWq

— Wake Forest Baseball (@WakeBaseball) March 30, 2023

I mean.... they call him Spidey for a reason 🕸

Let's go, @nickkurtz23!

📺 ACC Network pic.twitter.com/PWNS2pK3HJ

— Wake Forest Baseball (@WakeBaseball) March 31, 2023

3B Brock Wilken, Wake Forest, 2023

Fortunately enough I got to the ballpark a few hours early and watched Wilken’s batting practice.Baseballs were jumping off of Wilken’s bat as he easily sprayed balls to both gaps; the raw power and gap power were being shown off to those who watched. In one of the culminating swings, Wilken put a ball about 3/4 of the way up the left-field bleachers.

One of the big questions for me coming into the day was how Wilken would do when he was down in the count. He didn't do a good job of fighting back when he was behind, making life more challenging than it needed to be for him. The day could have been better for him, but it certainly wasn't bad. He had a pair of strikeouts, one of which was pretty bad at bat for Wilken's standards. The second strikeout of the day came after multiple foul balls, and Austin Gordon just caught him off guard.

Now onto the good for Wilken; he had a pair of really nice swings, both of which he turned on well and resulted in singles, one coming in the 4th on an 0-0 count and the other coming in the 8th on a 1-1 count. All in all, Brock Wilken was as advertised and looks poised to have an excellent finish to the 2023 regular season.

LF Will Taylor, Clemson, 2024

Another question I had coming into this weekend was how Will Taylor would handle the surplus of elite arms that Wake Forest has. Taylor answered this question by going 3-for-4 and scoring two runs in the process. His first hit of the day came in the first inning as he put the 3-1 pitch up the middle for an excellent single.

The next hit came in the bottom of the 6th inning, where Taylor blooped one in shallow center field where no one could get to it. My favorite thing about this play was how hard Taylor ran out of the box; this showcased how much of a competitor he is and will continue to be. 

RHP Rhett Lowder, Wake Forest, 2023

 A pair of Wake Forest Pitchers stuck out today, the first being projected top-20 pick Rhett Lowder. He went seven innings giving up a run, and seven hits, many of which were not hit that hard, struck out 6. He has an awe-inspiring arsenal of weapons he'll throw at any given start.

Lowder’s 6’2 frame on the mound needs to be mentioned, and it's worth noting how athletic he looks on the mound. He looks like a natural and is invested in every pitch and result. He uses this athleticism nicely in the field did a decent job of fielding his position, highlighted by a nice put-out to first on a rollover.

The best pitch Lowder throws is his changeup, which sits around 84-87. His change has a noticeable amount of fade, making life very difficult on all hitters. He starts many at-bats against left-handed hitters off with his fading changeup. Lowder located his changeup well but could not get many swings and misses or strike calls. However, he also deploys a nice slider that dives very late in the zone. The slider forced a handful of swing and misses and looked to be his most impressive pitch on Thursday night. His fastball which sits around 91-94 leaves a lot to be desired and quite frankly doesn’t have much life to it causing him to rely on his other pitches. It’s worth noting that he also throws a cut fastball which was getting weak contact consistently for him.

Before the game, I had never gotten a chance to see Lowder throw live, but he looks like he has a great chance to become an even better pitcher with small improvements to the life and velocity of his fastball. Lowder is a projected top-20 pick in this year's draft, and there was no shortage of moments in this game to solidify that. 

Two punchies in a scoreless fifth from 4️⃣.

JJ due up. Deacs still lead 5-0!

📺 ACC Network pic.twitter.com/cFdQ0yce9Q

— Wake Forest Baseball (@WakeBaseball) March 31, 2023

RHP Michael Massey, Wake Forest, 2024

Finally, we reach the final pitcher of the night for Wake Forest, Michael Massey. After a decent year at Tulane, he hit the portal and committed to Wake. This decision looks to be paying off well, and Massey showed why he has a plethora of reasons to be in the weekend rotation next year.

I’d never seen Massey pitch before today, and he lived up to expectations. Massey's fastball sits 93-96 with good zip that's underscored by good extension from his 6-5 frame.

He was charged with the fireman role and did a tremendous job of getting out of the jam he inherited in the 8th. He followed that up with a 1-2-3 9th while striking out the first two guys he faced.In a relatively quick outing, Massey showed off his impressive fastball, and with improvement to his secondary pitchers, he will be one to watch for the 2024 draft as he looks to keep moving up boards.

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