TORONTO – Canada is a major destination for amateur talent evaluators this month with the under-18 Baseball World Cup in Thunder Bay, Ont., opening Friday and the Toronto Blue Jays hosting their Tournament 12 showcase soon after.
Six players picked in the 2017 draft – headlined by right-hander Landon Leach, a Minnesota Twins second-rounder – will suit for Canada as the national junior team, a silver medallist in 2012, looks to improve on a sixth-place from the last junior championship, hosted by Osaka, Japan in 2015.
Outfielder Clayton Keyes (15th round, Arizona), righty Cade Smith (16th round, Minnesota), shortstop Jason Willow (24th round, Baltimore), infielder Dondrae Bremner (31st round, Cincinnati) and second baseman Edouard Julien (37th round, Philadelphia) are also on the Canadian roster, as is catcher/third baseman Noah Naylor, a top 2018 draft prospect.
Thunder Bay is home to the event for the second time after hosting it in 2010, when a Canadian team featuring Dalton Pompey, Nick Pivetta and Jesen Therrien finished fourth, losing to a Cuban team that included Jorge Soler in the bronze-medal game. Francisco Lindor and Lance McCullers played for the United States that year.
“The tournament brings the best players in the world into Canada and Canadian kids get to compete against them on Canadian soil,” says Walt Burrows, a Twins scout who used to serve as the Canadian supervisor for the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau. “Everybody’s goal right now coast-to-coast is to be part of the national team program and Greg Hamilton (Baseball Canada’s director of national teams) doesn’t miss anybody. The program and experiences like the World Cup really prepares young players to play professional baseball.”
The fifth edition of the Tournament 12 event runs Sept. 14-17 at Rogers Centre and has become one of the best national evaluative events for amateur players aged 14-19. The Blue Jays Baseball Academy and the club’s scouting department help evaluate and select the 160 players who will take part in it as a way to showcase not only draft-eligible players, but those with the skills to play at the college level, too.
The exposure provided has helped to fill some of the gap created when the MLB Scouting Bureau downsized its operations around the continent, making the open tryout camps Burrows used to run across the country a thing of the past.
“Without question – it’s really the only showcase of its kind,” says Burrows. “The Blue Jays do a tremendous job identifying all the players, and we’re lucky they’re doing it for the good of baseball in the country. If they didn’t do it, it would be extremely difficult to scout up here because of the size of the country and how spread out everything is.
“I’m not sure a lot of teams would be so gracious. The Blue Jays are tremendous promoters of baseball in the country.”
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