The U-18 players who could one day be stars

The U-18 World Cup is often the first peek at the stars who will soon dominate the professional game. Stars like Shohei Ohtani, Yu Darvish, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Tyler O’Neill, Josh Naylor and Francisco Lindor all made their mark at the tournament. Most recently, Team USA – led by potential first overall pick Grady Emerson – defeated Japan for the gold medal in Okinawa. While I was in Salt Lake City for the HRDX Finals (where Emerson again starred), I ran into the great Tyler Maun, who was one of the broadcasters at the World Cup. I spoke with Maun about his impressions from the tournament and which names we should be on the lookout for in the future.
Tyler Maun: It was incredible. The baseball energy that you could feel in Naha especially, was very tangible. People were walking around in their Shogaku High School Championship T- shirts, commemorative newspapers were everywhere, and there were leftover signs you saw on the side of the road or in people’s front windows. It was the perfect time to have the U-18 tournament anywhere in Japan, but especially in Okinawa, since they had just won, and there were some Shogaku High School guys on that roster for Japan. It really could not have been more perfectly placed as an event.
TM: There’s always the big four in these events. There’s the U.S., Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei. Over the years, we’ve seen some other teams make runs. Canada was really good at Thunder Bay a few years ago, Cuba had a U-15 team back in 2021 in Hermosillo, Mexico, that made it to the world championship final against the U.S. There were some guys on the Cuba team this year who were on that U-15 team, much like Grady Emerson with the US. But it did feel as though Japan and the U.S. were going to be the teams on a collision course. It honestly felt more like you had to write the U.S. in pencil, rather than Japan, because two years ago, the U.S. didn’t medal. They had their worst finish in I don’t even remember how long at a U-18, and they just looked like they weren’t built for that moment two years ago.
It became very clear, very early that this was a U.S. team that had it. They knew that they were the best team on any given day. Even though they took a loss to Japan in a game, they very much had the aura about them of a team that knew that they were going to be playing for a championship and — more likely than not — winning a championship.
TM: It’s funny, because my thought was like, ‘Ah, Grady Emerson is your three-hole guy, four-hole guy, you know, a third baseman who hits for some pop.’ He told me, ‘Nah, I’m really more of a singles guy,’ because the U.S. led him off for every game in the World Cup. I didn’t expect that going in. He’s a really dangerous bat at the top of the order. To throw him out there as the first guy that an opposing pitching staff has to see sends a message of how deep that lineup is going to be, one through nine.
He’s really impressive. I think he’s very much the baseball leader that so many teams want, because he’s the cliche of not getting too high or too low. He leads by example in a lot of ways, and he’s just steady and he’s a super nice kid.
Gio Rojas, I think, is probably the guy who most leads the way. He struck out 13 in 11 innings, walked three, didn’t give up a run, and just overpowered everybody that he saw. He’s a big-bodied guy, upper-90s stuff, and the presence of a future frontline sort of dude. He’s committed to Miami, but another one that wouldn’t surprise anybody if he’s a very high first-rounder and ends up making a quick track through the Minors.
Coleman Borthwick was really impressive. He was the MVP, so he pitched twice, gave up three hits, struck out 12 in 10 innings. And then the days when he wasn’t pitching, he was playing first or he was hitting. He’s a Hulk, he’s built like an NFL player. He’s another guy where the moment never felt too big for him.
One of my favorite stories was CJ Sampson, who is not the most highly touted prospect, but he was cut by USA Baseball teams three times at U-12, U-15 and U-18, and he finally made it in his last shot. He puts up an OPS over .700, he pitched a little bit, just a guy who you could not help but cheer for.
Hyume Okabe, who was their captain, hit .400 with an OPS of .999. The best thing about him was he reached in every conceivable way. He was hit by a pitch, he walked eight times, he had 10 hits in nine games. He was such a pest in a complimentary way, you couldn’t keep off the bases.
I think pitching-wise Japan might have been even more impressive than they were offensively. Shota Morishita was like the guy going in, but between him and Shintaro Sakamoto and then Ryosuke Sueyoshi – who was the one who pitched on the Shogaku team. The amount of guys that you just look at and think like, ‘That could have been the ace, or that could have been the ace, or that could have been the ace.’
TM: He struggled. He finished 2-for-20. But you can definitely see some similarities between him and his father. He played center field for the majority of the time that he was out there defensively. He covers a lot of ground. He’s athletic. He’s rangy. The coolest thing was reading about how he and his dad got to play together in the National Series [Cuba’s home league] this year, which is really cool. I don’t know if he’s got the ceiling of his father, obviously few people do, but it was really neat to see him out there.
The interesting thing to keep an eye on for baseball and international baseball, especially, is the World Baseball Classic roster, because now we’re getting down to the point where players who are coming to the end of Minor League seasons or Major League seasons, are going to be making their decision. It used to be like, ‘Am I going to do this World Baseball Classic thing?’ And now it’s like, ‘How can I be part of this World Baseball Classic thing?’ And that’s really cool.