Makaio
Swensen

West Coast Games

Offense 

A PBR Future Game alum and now a two-time West Coast Game alum as well. Last year I took Swensen to both events as a pitcher only, as I wasn’t in tune with how well he plays the OF, his athleticism and how he swings the bat. A two sport athlete, who plays WR on the gridiron, Swensen is solid as a rock physically at a lean, tight toned 6-1 190 with broad developed shoulders and a defined muscled lower ½. Looks the part in uniform, and runs on his toes and gallops on his gate to run the bases. The bat plays, as Swensen led the Warriors and was in the top 5 in Region 10 in hitting at .440 with 3 HR’s, 23 RBI, 6 2B’s and 3 3B’s to go along with an OB% of .547. A RF with a RF arm, Swensen also has very good vision, as he scored a team leading 82.29 on the Vizual Edge test. A spread out square stance to hit with his hands over his back shoulder and the bat laid flat. Swensen then takes the outward turn of his front heel to start a soft foot lift and sets it back down softly to fire his strong lower half into the baseball. The bat speed is fringe to avg, yet he times pitchers up with minimal moving parts to get the barrel to the ball and drive balls consistently to the opposite RCF gap the majority of the time. An instinctive defender that can on occasion take a bad route, but makes up with his reads off the bat and his athleticism to re-route and track balls down. Will be asked to patrol CF next spring and has enough arm strength to land online one hop throws to all bases. 

Pitching 

A simple square address to the hitter with a simple side rock step to start a flexible high compact kick to delivery. Repeats his delivery with a slight hand pat to the glove at the apex of his delivery. Drops into his legs and rides the slope with a semi long stride, and gets solid ext out front thru a LTQ arm slot, that produced sinking FB’s up to 89, with a range of 84-88 in a shutdown 2 inns of work vs Oregon. The CB still takes on SL type action with a lack of depth at 74, and may need to go the SL and speed the arm up to create the velo effect of the pitch. The CH 75-78 is his best secondary pitch and shows abv avg feel with fading sink life, and kills the spin and shows deception and misses bats and barrels. A K thrower that is efficient and works quick with athleticism and arm speed, along with an ease to his operation, to add FB velo and fill a sinker/SL type profile. 

A Future Games and West Coast Games alum, Swensen has come on in a big way from an offensive standpoint over this past spring and into this summer. But it was his spring ‘23 season that’s getting the attention. A recent 4A 1st ™ All-State honoree, Swensen took off at the plate, as he shows a spread out even prop stance and rocks back with a slight heel lift from a setup with the hands over his back shoulder in a flattened manner. At foot strike, he fires his back hip forward and creates leverage to drive the baseball hard to the other way and to straightaway CF from a tight, short to the ball and shows good ext out front, whipped into a deep two hand full finish to his swing. The athletic two way Swensen, also runs anywhere from a 7.04-7.09 60 yard dash on grass and shows a solid avg to slightly abv avg arm from RF, with online one hop carry. With a return trip to the West Coast Games coming this March, Swensen looks to grab attention from recruiters and needs to market himself better. But the team that grabs this kid is gonna be very happy. Gut feel type w/solid to + athleticism. 

2022 PBR Future Games

2022 West Coast Games

The Future Games alum was a big surprise as far as his bat was concerned. Having scouted him as a pitcher and that being his role as a sophomore for state power Snow Canyon this past spring, Swensen went both ways at the All-State Games, and took a very good BP. What stood out from a data standpoint, is his Blast scores of 25.2 hand speed and 77.8 bat speed were elite, to go along with a Trackman EV of 93.1. He features an athletic, even proportioned square stance at the plate with his bat held in the cocked position and fired the knob inside and through the baseball, with some natural lifted plane of attack to back spin the ball. On the mound, the sinker baller, pumped in K’s at 82-85 with the FB and reached a high 87.3 for a low ¾ slot at the Future Games in July at LakePoint. There is definite growth and maturation to come, as his Dad is 6’6 and Makaio has long legs for a 6 footer, so he may not be done growing? Big upside for any school on this kid from a two way perspective. Solid athlete and running gate!

Swensen made the most of his 3 inning start at the PBR Future Games, as he left the game in a 2-1 deficit, but pitched well, showing a lively sinking ground ball type FB 83-87, sitting 86. With a flexible med to high kick to delivery, Swensen has a longer take away in back w/a slight palm up towards 2B. The delivery and LTQ arm action are a spittin’ image of former BYU great and current big league Cubs pitcher, Michael Rucker. With the arm slot and movement pattern of the arm stroke, Makaio gets inside the baseball, which creates a spin pattern of late life w/run and sink. The CB takes on SL type shape at 73-77 with horizontal action and sweep. As he gets older and his body matures with added strength, it’s easy to see a power sinker type arm in the low 90’s as he induces GB’s that hitters will swing over the top of, while chasing the SL away. Makaio will be at the PBR West Coast Games in Las Vegas as well on August 12-14!