Uncommitted Spotlight: '26 1B/LHP Justin Gaisford
September 10, 2025
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VENTURA, CALIF. - The Uncommitted Spotlight Series continues after a jam packed summer of Prep Baseball California events, summer travel baseball, and other opportunities to evaluate players we will be recognizing some of the top remaining uncommitted players around the state. We will be looking at players from the 2026 class and 2027 classes across the upcoming weeks/months.
We invite you to get to know them through the eyes of our Prep Baseball California staff of scouts both through our in person looks at players and/or the data-backed numbers collected at our events with our partnered companies. TrackMan, Blast Motion, and VALD Performance provide comparable data to project and evaluate players. All of these systems come together to give a clear picture at what colleges will get when a players steps onto their campus.
Today, we put the spotlight on an impressive 2026 player who is featured inside the Top 200 of our 2026 California rankings. We are looking at SoCal '26 1B/LHP Justin Gaisford from Valencia High School in Valencia, Calif.. Gaisford has been a consistent high level performer for two years now on the high school level, but also on the Prep Baseball California event platform. He shined with his showings in 2024 at the Future Games Tryout: Ventura County and the Ventura County Uncommitted Games. Then opened up 2025 with a strong showing at the Central California Preseason All State and this summer posted a strong showing at the 2025 California State Games.
Gaisford has shined for me over multiple live looks on the High School/Travel baseball circuit here in Southern California both for his offensive ability and his feel to pitch. In 2025 for a Valencia squad which made it to the CIF-Southern Section playoffs Gaisford provided important numbers in both categories. At the dish he took 102 trips to the plate with 80 official at bats posting a slash line of .362/.485/.438 while drawing 19 BBs on the spring. His 29 total hits were tops on the team while adding 29 runs scored to front the offense and had three doubles with one home run plus drove in 10 runs. A strong defender at 1B Gaisford had 100+ chances on the year with a .991 fielding percentage. His pitching numbers took a small step back from a very solid Soph. season in 2024, but the southpaw made 10 appearances with two wins, tossed 46 innings while striking out 35 hitters.
Gaisford has steadily trended up as an offensive profile piece whose natural feel to hit was always on display, but has begun to show intriguing upwards trending metrics. The LH hitter Gaisford starts with a taller posture in the box from a relaxed set up then uses a hover load onto his back side before making a controlled forward move. He stays taller in the turn portion of his swing allowing his loose quick hands to deliver the barrel consistently showing a compact leverage based stroke. His turn has a impressive ability to generate torque with a peak rotational acceleration of 23.1 Gs while using his fast hands with a 24.1 MPH peak hand speed and strong present bat speed at 71.1 MPH in his swing operation. The consistent and quality swing for Gaisford blends with his impressive feel for a present approach and rhythm/timing with his high level barrel feel during batting practice to produce max exit velocites up to 92.8 MPH while averaging 88.9 MPH on his exit velocity with a max distance of 342' at the Central California Preseason All State. The deeper metrics provided by Trackman during batting practice sessions have showed a solid feel for driving the ball in the air including up to a 80% fly ball/line drive rate while using the middle to pull side of the field and the ability to use the opposite field for solid contact.
The two-way product is a pitch ability lefthander who throws his FB/CB/SLD/CHG mixture within the strike zone at a high rate. His FB/CHG play very well off of each other with the CHG flashing impact potential to produce soft contact/whiff from RH and LH hitter. Gaisford presently works up to 81.1 MPH on the FB while throwing the CHG at 73-76 MPH separating both vertically and with fade to his arm side on the offering. The CB will flash bite at times especially when down with vertical break off the FB shape and some two-plane shape to it and then he drops in a sweepy style SLD that has upwards of 16-17" of horizontal break to the glove side making it a difficult pitch for LH hitters to stay on. Mixes his pitches well and keeps hitters off balance, but can add a tick more power as he matures to his offerings to take the next step, but his LH pitching profile is a solid one at present.
Justin is solidly built at present with emerging strength in the lower half of a 5'11 186.5 lbs. frame that still has room to solidfy and add strength to his game in the future. His athleticism has slowly ticked up now running his 60 at 7.03 seconds during the 2025 California State Games including burst with his 1.57 10 yard split and a solid 3.87 30 yard split with a 19.2 MPH max run speed. His glove, footwork and feel for playing 1B gives him an impact profile at the spot and with the emerging athletic ability could give him a chance to handle the OF at the next level if necessary.
With a strong history of high school stats, upward trending offensive metrics, improved athleticism, strong pitchability profile from the lefthand side and room to continue polishing his overall game the Santa Clarita based product Gaisford is a name college programs would be well served to keeping eyes on for their 2026 class.
College coaches and fans be sure to click on Gaisford's profile to see full video and information.
Scouting Report
From the very first look at Gaisford in December of 2023 to this live look the LH hitter from Santa Clarita has embodied my favorite statement of “hitters hit.” But, as impressive as that first look was, the way Justin has continued to improve his already strong foundation of baseball tools, physicality, and athleticism over the past 18 months speaks to his future as a college level baseball player. Gaisford has continued to improve his body and athleticism looking more athletic with a leaner, stronger frame now that he is maturing with age and hard work off the baseball field he is moving better as a runner, showing increased range to go with an already impressive 1B defensive profile that could even play an OF corner with the improvements in his athleticism and in the box where his operation is smoother, more athletic and the bat speed has ticked up to provide increased impact at contact. Gaisford uses a relaxed posture in his set up in the box and then takes a smooth controlled forward move to get to the launch position with consistent feel for arriving on time to make high level swing decisions against all types of pitching (faced five different arms in five at bats). The swing has been geared for middle of the field leverage, but is now moving quicker through the zone which has translated to increased impact with barrel feel (doubled to dead CF in first AB just missing an HR and launched another deep drive about 10 feet short of the wall in RCF while adding a pair of rocket 1Bs to RF) to a disciplined approach which is willing to take walks (18 on the season). Gaisford profiles as a top of the order bat profile who can hit, get on base, impact the baseball, drive runs in and score runs while playing high level defense at either 1B or potentially an OF corner. Add in a quality LH pitching profile with strong command of a three pitch mix there is so much to like about Gaisford’s present profile and with the developments he has made in the last 18 months there is plenty of reason to project him to only continue to get better going forward. College programs would be well served to put eyes on Gaisford for their 2026 recruiting classes at all levels of the game.
Justin Gaisford, Valencia High (CA), 2026
Positional Profile: LHP/1B Well rounded player who does things at a strong level across the board. Collection of tools makes him a very good player who shows polish with ability to continue getting better as he matures/adds continues physicality/athleticism.
Body: 5-11, 186-pounds. Solid present build that continues to improve with added strength/athleticism to build.
Delivery: High hand set which drops down to belly button then syncs with his front knee in the load portion of delivery. Front leg leads down the mound with small sit into back hip and taller posutre at foot strike. Lower effort operation with repeatability. Solid block on front leg with use of hips.
Arm Action: LH. Full clean arm circle out of the glove with depth down and stays behind the body well as he works up to a high 3/4 release point. Quickness to the arm speed with some recoil after release.
FB: T80, 78-79 mph. Straighter shape FB which can run to the arm side slightly while being able to attack contact with it and plays well down in the zone T2068, 1989 average rpm.
CB: 68-70 mph. SLV like shape with more horizontal action and slight 2 playe depth on it can tighten the offering or adding velocity T1882, 1841 average rpm.
CH: 75-76 mph. Decepting pitch with arm side fade and thrown with confidence T1778, 1683 average rpm.
ATH: 7.47 runner in the 60. Taller runner who maintains stride length and body control. Can improve first step.
Justin Gaisford, Valencia High (CA), 2026
Positional Profile: LHP/1B Well rounded player who does things at a strong level across the board. Collection of tools makes him a very good player who shows polish with ability to continue getting better as he matures/adds continues physicality/athleticism.
Body: 5-11, 186-pounds. Solid present build that continues to improve with added strength/athleticism to build.
Hit: LHH. Taller posture in set up with balanced base. Low back elbow with hands set just above rear shoulder slightly above the shoulder and more vertical bat angle with waggle. Controlled load with small forward move and slight sit into rear hip while loading his hands back. Uses hips well in the turn and stays taller in posture allowing his hands to work to deliver the barrel. Direct path into the zone with leverage through the zone and increasing bat speed. 64.7 mph bat speed with 14 G's of rotational acceleration.
Power: 93 max exit velocity, averaged 84.3 mph. 342' max distance. Swing is on the flatter side geared for middle of the field line drives with ability to lift the ball out front to pull side. Power contniues to tick up with impact/carry after contact. Doubles hitter with sneaky power potential.
Arm: LH. INF-75 mph. Short quick arm action with easy arm speed and accuracy to his throws.
Defense: Fluid defender who has body control. feet with rhythm, soft hands and the ability to move in all directions. Profiles as a strong to potential impact defender at 1B with potential to play LF.
ATH: 7.47 runner in the 60. Taller runner who maintains stride length and body control. Can improve first step.
Gaisford doesn't light up the metrics board with his tools, but he is strong across the board. It's what he can do with all of his sound toolset to perform in game that makes him an interesting college potential player. Yet, again Gaisford comes to a Prep Baseball California event and leaves as a top performer which goes in line with all of my live looks at him. The difference at the Preseason All State event was that usually we are raving about his pitching and while he put together yet another solid performance pounding the zone with his offerings (was undone a bit by 3 errors behind him on defense) it was what Gaisford did with the bat that bested his high quality LH pitching ability. Continuing to develop and improve all over Gaisford posted personal bests across all of his Trackman data including a 92.8 MPH max EV and 342' max distance during BP as he wore out the middle to opposite side of the field with hard contact. In addition he ran a personal best 60 time. Then during the gameplay portion Gaisford collected a pair of extra base hits, first rocketing a line drive to LCF that two hopped the wall for a standup triple and later laced a line drive to RF that went for a double.
Justin Gaisford, Valencia High (CA), 2026
Positional Profile: LHP/1B Well rounded ballplayer who has a collection of tools that elevate his game. Shows potential as 2-way player who can impact a team on all sides of game.
Body: 5-10, 175-pounds. Solid present build with some strength to it than can be polished/improved as he matures.
Delivery: Hands start high before working to the belly button to sync with front leg in the load portion. Hands separate early but no wasted motion. Works down the mound with lead leg into foot strike with clean easy operation. Lower half clears through delivery with ability to block on lead leg.
Arm Action: LH. Full length arm circle which reaches slightly behind his back at deepest point. Arm speed is solid with loose arm and has ability to repeat. There is some recoil after release.
FB: T81, 80-80 mph. Consistent spin with comfort throwing the pitch both up/down and will work both halves of the plate. T2181, 2157 average rpm.
CB: 67-69 mph. Softer spinning pitch which works better as cross count offering to keep a hitter off balance. Slurve like shape. T1952, 1854 average rpm.
SL: 70-77 mph. Shorter breaking offering that has more cutter like profile to get in on RH hitters hands. T2116, 1982 average rpm.
CH: 75-76 mph. Present best pitch with heavy arm side fade that he will throw in any count to any hitter. Feel for pitch is polished. T1702, 1648 average rpm.
ATH: 7.50 runner in the 60. 1.77 and 4.15 in the 10 and 30 yard splits. Runs taller with body control and can maintain his line. 27.40 max vertical.
Justin Gaisford, Valencia High (CA), 2026
Positional Profile: LHP/1B Well rounded ballplayer who has a collection of tools that elevate his game. Shows potential as 2-way player who can impact a team on all sides of game.
Body: 5-10, 175-pounds. Solid present build with some strength to it than can be polished/improved as he matures.
Hit: LHH. Slightly closed set up with feet and weight more on back leg and vertical posture. Low back elbow with hands set right at shoulder height slightly deeper. Small stride with front foot in the foward move with a small load into back hip while hands stay quiet. Stays taller in the swing while using his hips/rear shoulder more prominently in the drive of the swing. Hands working down to go up with an uphill path that looks to drive the ball in the air. 63.2 mph bat speed with 14 G's of rotational acceleration.
Power: 91 max exit velocity, averaged 82.1 mph. 341' max distance. Flashes the feel for elevating the baseball with solid present top end exit velocity and carry which profile pull side HR power.
Arm: LH. INF-74 mph. Smooth easy throwing motion with quick arm and accuracy. Can throw from different slots.
Defense: Easy mover who shows good feet, soft hands and comfort playing laterally/downhill impact potential 1B defender.
ATH: 7.50 runner in the 60. 1.77 and 4.15 in the 10 and 30 yard splits. Runs taller with body control and can maintain his line. 27.40 max vertical.
Justin Gaisford, Valencia High (CA), 2026
Positional Profile: LHP/1B
Body: 5-10, 175-pounds. Big frame with present strength.
Delivery: Closed off position. Leads with front hips. Athletic lower half.
Arm Action: LH. Short high three quarters release.
FB: Straight fastball. Works both sides of the plate.
CB: Sharp vertical break.
SL: Sharp horizontal break. Comfortable working it in any count.
CH: Traditional circle change-up.
ATH: Steady body control throughout.
Justin Gaisford, Valencia High (CA), 2026
Positional Profile: LHP/1B
Body: 5-10, 175-pounds. Big frame with present strength.
Hit: LHH. Even stance with hands away from his body. Angles bat vertically, gets deep into legs through swing. Higher launch angle that produces a lot of fly balls.
Power: Consistently pulls the ball in the air.
Arm: LH. INF-72 mph. Three quarters release across the infield.
Defense: Calm footwork through the play.
ATH: Steady body control throughout.