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VENTURA, CALIF. - The Uncommitted Spotlight Series continues after a jam-packed preseason of Prep Baseball California events, winter scrimmage high school 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 and 2027 classes across the upcoming weeks/months as the spring high school season begins to ramp up. 

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 of what colleges will get when a player steps onto their campus.

Today, we put the spotlight on a strong 2026 player who is coming off a solid junior high school season and shone on the Prep Baseball California event platform during the preseason. We are looking at SoCal '26 C/OF Nathaniel Nunez from Newbury Park High School in Newbury Park, Calif. A multiple-year varsity contributor at Newbury Park, Nunez has been a solid performer in their lineup ahead of a senior season where he should again be a prominent piece of any success for the Panthers. In late January, Nunez made his Prep Baseball California debut at the Inland Empire Preseason ID with a strong performance, backing up his solid history of in-game performance.

The 2025 spring season was Nunez's second full varsity season with the Panthers, and he took a solid step forward across the board. He played in all 28 games for the Panthers with 80 plate appearances and 62 official at-bats. For the year, he slashed a respectable .290/.405/.387, which was an upward trend in each category for Nunez over his sophomore season, boding well for the senior year ahead. Nunez had 18 total hits on the year, with four of them going for extra bases (two doubles and two triples), leading the team in triples. With 18 RBIs, he tied for the top spot in the Panthers lineup and scored four runs. Getting hit by seven pitches was good for second on the squad. He added two stolen bases while fielding .942 across appearances in the OF corners and behind the dish for the Panthers.

With solid numbers over two years of high school, Nunez's appearance at the Inland Empire Preseason ID was an opportunity to see how the tools match up to the in-game performance. Measuring in at 5'9 172 lbs. Nunez is athletically built with sound strength to his present frame and adds in quality athletic ability with a 7.22 60 and an impressive 1.65 10-yard split showing the twitch in his profile. His defensive workout was a testament to long term ability Nunez possesses behind the dish reaching 79 MPH consistently on his throws downs to 2B and popping a low of 1.95 and living in the 2.0 range over all his throws. 

A backstop who hits from the left side is a desirable trait, and the offensive profile of in-game performance for Nunez is soundly backed up by his swing metrics and batted ball data for a present quality profile with upside as he continues to mature. Starting with a deep hand set and barrel tip, Nunez employs a coil load in his upper body with a short toe tap stride to reach the launch position. Consistently on time to the launch position allowed Nunez to uncork a well-sequenced and compact bat path during his swing that produces 70.4 MPH of bat speed, 20.9 MPH of hand speed, with 19.3 Gs of rotational acceleration all of which are solid present metrics and at a consistent rate. With a sound feel for his timing/rhythm and a solid left-handed swing, he showed off impressive metrics during batting practice, including an impressive 100% hard hit rate. Behind that 100% hard hit rate are other strong markers of a next-level offensive profile, including a 97.9 MPH max EV, a 96.2 avg EV, and 306' max distance from a flatter swing path geared for hard contact on a low line drive angle, which suits his skill set. A direct swing path, strong feel for rhythm/timing, and strength at contact with a flatter stroke give Nunez the ability to fit in multiple spots of a lineup to add depth or impact with upside still to come as he continues to polish his game.

Multiple years of varsity-level performance with an upward trend, sound athleticism, a left-handed hitting profile, and long-term potential at catcher make Nunez a quality name to be tracked for college programs still looking for pieces in the 2026 class. Especially if I'm in a junior college program recruiting, I would be making a strong run at the Newbury Park Panthers product.

To see his full video and information on Nunez, dive into his profile here.

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