By Nathan Rode
National Supervisor

LONG BEACH, CA—For the second year, the Area Code Games are hosting an underclass portion, splitting some of the country’s best 2017 and 2018 prospects based on their region. There are four teams—Brewers (West Coast), Rangers (Texas), White Sox (Midwest) and Yankees (East Coast). The Underclass Games got started Sunday at nearby Cerritos College as the regular event wrapped up at Blair Field. I caught the first game, between the Brewers and Rangers, and three innings of the second game—Brewers vs. Yankees—before heading over to Blair Field. There I caught the last regular game and then the final underclass game between the Rangers and White Sox.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Brewers team is loaded. Many of the players I’ve seen the last couple years at things like Team USA’s 15U trials as well as the National High School Invitational, so it was fun to see how they have progressed since then. MIF Brice Turang (Santiago HS, CA), a 2018, was one of my favorites with Team USA last summer. He plays hard, has tools and just wreaks havoc on pitchers. He showed a loose swing Sunday, going 1-for-2 with a hard single up the middle. Sunday was my first look at OF Calvin Mitchell (Rancho Bernardo HS, CA), who has a strong frame at 6 feet, 190 pounds. Already committed to San Diego, he put a good short swing on two balls, squaring up a single to right-center field and flying out to center.