Kenosha Preseason I.D.: Preview

This Saturday, Jan. 25, the PBR Wisconsin team will host its first showcase of the new year, the Kenosha Preseason I.D., at Fielder’s Choice Training Academy in Kenosha, Wis. For the past three years, this event has provided our staff with an opportunity to evaluate high school-aged prospects from Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, primarily. The Kenosha event has historically revealed to us some of the area’s top talent, which in turn has allowed us to share our findings with college evaluators and the rest of the scouting community.

This year will be no different. There are nearly 50 prospects currently slated to join us already for this weekend’s event, and there’s still time to register, too.

For registration information, click here.For a look at the most up-to-date roster, click here. 

Taking a look at last year’s roster, 18 of the prospects in attendance have since committed to play at the next level, including sophomore backstop and Louisville commit Will Vierling (Homestead). Vierling broke out at last year’s Kenosha showcase en route to a tremendous 2019 where he starred for his high school on varsity as a freshman, stayed on track with a productive summer and fall. There’s already a handful of 2023 prospects on this year’s event roster, so we’ll be looking forward to seeing if one of them can break out in the same style as Vierling from a year ago.

There are some interesting fellow 2022 names to know ahead of Saturday’s showcase as well, including SS/2B T.J. Williams (Racine Horlick) and RHP/INF Cristiano Ramirez (Muskego). We saw Williams a handful of times in 2019, including at this same event last year. He’s a live-wired 5-foot-4 athlete with an advanced inner clock on defense. Ramirez has shown well in the past on the mound and sat 80-81 mph at an event in October. It’ll be interesting to see how an offseason helped his game progress.

T.J. Williams (7/23/19)

From the 2021 class, we’re particularly excited to see LHP Dylan Lapic (La Crosse Central), an uncommitted southpaw ranked just inside the state’s top-100, but it sounds like he’s improved significantly since we saw him over the summer. This will also be the first time we’ve seen him in a showcase setting.

Lapic is far from the only interesting uncommitted junior in attendance. With ranked names like Anthony Vivian (Dodgeville), Anthony Gross (Catholic Memorial), and Leo Falletti (Wilmot), among many others, it should be a big day for programs with space inside their incoming 2021 recruiting classes.

Anthony Vivian (3/10/19)

And every year there’s a few prospects from Illinois who turn in successful days in Kenosha. In 2018 it was C Emmanuel Scott (St. Ignatius, 2021), who’s now committed to Xavier, and in 2019 there was LHP Jacob Bimbi (Crystal Lake South), who will be headed to JUCO powerhouse Wabash Valley JC in the fall. Sophomore Ethan Clark, from Illinois high school Lakes Community, is a lanky 6-foot-2 and has topped 80 mph in the past. He’s an Illinois prep product to know ahead of Saturday’s showcase, too.

What’s exciting about our preseason events is discovering what we don’t know. There’s a great number of prospects headed out to Saturday’s event who we have yet to see for ourselves, and bound to be more names added to our list of follows coming out of Kenosha.

ITINERARY

• Position Player check-in time: 9:30 to 9:45 a.m.

  • Offensive Evaluations (home-to-first times, exit velo, batting practice)

  • Defensive Evaluations (arm strength, mobility, positional reps)

• Pitcher-Only check-in time: 11:45 a.m. to noon

  • Bullpen Sessions (15-pitch session, mechanical analysis)

  • Catcher Evaluations (evaluating receiving/blocking)

• Catchers will stay for both sessions

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