On Sunday I went down to the East Coast Lumberjacks workout at 365 Athletics to get some video on their top players.
It was a great day to do so as they had virtually every member of their organization in attendance including some of the 2020 grads that are on break from college and getting their final preparation in for their freshmen collegiate season.
Before I get into the notes on them, the Lumberjacks are coming off a wild season in which they were able to navigate through the coronavirus pandemic and still travel all over to top Perfect Game tournaments.
Ryan Pembroke and Daniel Pembroke, the owners of the organization, stated that they played in Perfect Game tournaments in Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Ohio. They were constantly on the move, and surely that was tough to do with Governor Cuomo constantly adding new states to the travel restriction list.
“For me it wasn’t as difficult as we thought it would be,” said Pembroke. “I was always in contact with Perfect Game so if they were a full-go we were a full-go,” he added.
Besides the issues of tournaments being cancelled, they also had to get there. And that required a lot of sacrifices from the parents to get the kids to the games.
“A tremendous amount of credit to the parents,” he said. “They were so big in wanting to do this and going all-in. They were willing to sacrifice everything to showcase their kids’ talents. Obviously there was no college coaches but PG does such a great job with scouting and videoing. We also have our own video guy so every game was recorded. The biggest impact was just the lack of games. The teams down south played a high school season and 15-20 travel games before we were able to. We went down to South Carolina to train. A lot that helps is our winter training. We train them so well to be able to play against anyone. High intensity, high velocity. Between the coaches and the parents, I couldn’t be more proud of them. Hopefully 2021 is back to normal,” he added.
Pembroke’s team compiled a record of 39-16-2 against great competition. They won the PH Fall Northeast World Series, the 17/18u Blue Chip Diamond Nation, they were a finalist at the Ohio Valley Qualifier, in the Final 16 at the Northeast Qualifier in Staten Island. They also made the playoffs in the BCS Tournament in Florida. The highlight of the season was beating Team Elie Scout, the No. 1 ranked team in the nation, by the score of 7-0 behind ace Roman Kimball.
“The biggest thing for us is the competition we play. We try to get off Long Island and always play up. I usually request the tougher schedule. We want to play against the best teams. You don’t get better by playing lesser competitive. If we lose, we work on it so it doesn’t happen again.”
Notre Dame-commit Roman Kimball (P27 Academy 2021) up to 94. One of top prep RHP in the nation pic.twitter.com/5r8Ma7hOqR
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) January 3, 2021
As for the individual players, here’s what stood out:
- Roman Kimball (P27 Academy 2021) is a Notre Dame-commit and one of the top prep RHP in the country. He was throwing at 75 percent, according to him, and he was still sitting 90-91. Perfect Game lists his top velocity at 94. But what’s most impressive is he’s doing that at roughly 150 lbs. He’s what scouts look for, because he can easily see another increase in velocity as he continues to fill out. His slider is a true weapon, as it sits in the low 80s with sharp two-plane movement. He’s certainly a draft prospect. He’s from upstate, but transferred to P27 last spring, you may recall he announced the decision on our IG Live interview with him.
- Troy Wachter (P27 Academy 2021) is a Fordham-commit that stands an imposing 6’7 and weighs about 240 lbs. I first watched him in 2017 during a pitching lesson with Neal Heaton when he was a freshman at Shoreham-Wading River. Since that time, he transferred to Stony Brook School, committed to Fordham, turned into a beast and transferred to P27 Academy. He put on a laser show with a wood bat during BP. I haven’t seen him hit much in games but damn does he look the part.
- Brian Hart (Benjamin Cardozo 2021) is a Stony Brook-commit with a great arm. He told me he’s not sure if they’ll have a baseball season in the city, but he looks ready to go. If he can throw strikes consistently, I could see him being a bullpen arm as a freshman.
- Nic Benhardt (Rocky Point 2022) is uncommitted and I think he’s a Division-II arm now with an outside chance of being Division-I. I liked the arm action, he threw a change up and breaking ball for strikes. Rocky Point has a very strong pitching staff, so they should be good this year.
- Aidan Crowley (SWR 2020) is a freshman at Boston College. He was my pick to win the Paul Gibson Award last season. He looks to have altered his arm action as many pitchers have done recently (think Joe Kelly of the LA Dodgers). I’ll be following his progress this season.
- Ty Acker (Sachem East 2021) has a sweet lefty-swing. He will put up some big numbers this year atop the Arrows’ lineup. The GW-commit is a fun player to watch with a relentless work ethic.
