All information derived from The New Orleans Advocate article.
MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds gushed over the prospect's “big-league name” even before the former pro baseball star could get to his prowess on the diamond.
Brother Martin's John "Tre" Morgan '20 watched the video in April; it broke the news he’d been selected to compete alongside some of the best baseball talent in the country this summer with the chance to represent the nation on the international level.
The normally reserved budding baseball star couldn’t help but smile.
“It felt like he was talking right to me,” he said.
Soon he will be. Reynolds and other speakers like Derek Jeter, Barry Larkin and Chipper Jones will greet Morgan and 79 other top baseball players from around the country in the 2020 class for the start of the Prospect Development Pipeline League, held in Bradenton, Florida, at IMG Academy starting this week until early July.
Morgan will have dozens of opportunities to run drills and work out with MLB farm directors, scouts and general managers on hand, with games held periodically in the afternoons. After the league’s completion, USA Baseball, along with officials from MLB, will select the top 40 players to compete in a showcase game held in Cleveland during All-Star weekend. From there, the best 20 will travel to South Korea to represent Team USA in the U18 Baseball World Cup that runs from Aug. 30-Sept. 8.
Besides the work on the field and in the cages, Morgan and the other invitees will attend seminars on leadership, social media, nutrition and rest and will have some of the top technology in the game analyze their game.
Morgan’s talents have been known to those around the baseball community for quite some time — he verbally committed to LSU as a sophomore — but he said he’s excited for a premier chance to test his skills up against the best of the best and see just where he stands.
“The hardest part of this journey has been listening to all the people who told me I was good enough to be here," Morgan said. "When you’re young, you don’t really see opportunities for yourself when you get older, but to see these start to come up, it’s all really exciting. I’m really looking forward to the chance to compete against some of these big names and show that I really do fit in and really deserve to be here.
“But to be able to face some of these pitchers that hit these insane numbers like 96 or 98 (mph), I get the chance to show I can still have a competitive edge. No matter how much better they’re supposed to be than me, they still have to prove it.”
Morgan enters the PDP League coming off an impressive junior high school season where he hit .488 with three homers, 27 RBIs with a .756 slugging percentage and a .598 on-base percentage. He was one of the premier driving forces behind the Catholic League champs and their run to the Division I state semifinals.
Numbers and Morgan’s past performances at regional and national showcases in offseasons past helped land him this type of opportunity, but they’ll do nothing to assist him once he gets to IMG, where he will practice and play against players with just as — if not more — impressive résumés.
What he does have that doesn’t show up on paper, according to Brother Martin coach Jeff Lupo '92 and Morgan’s NOCA baseball coach Joey Cabeceiras, is a distinct drive to treat every game like the most important one and a hunger for practice and additional work on the side that can rival anyone they’ve seen. At an event where scouts will be watching his every move, the fact that those things come naturally could set Morgan ahead.
“Talent is one thing," Lupo said. "A lot of people have talent, but it’s those intangibles that not a lot of people see, and the fact he works the way he does, meticulously to hone his craft, that’s something a lot of people haven’t had the chance to see. In today’s game, a lot of kids don’t know how to handle the failures that go along with it, and he’s a kid who’s extremely grounded who plays the game with a lot of little kid in him, and he has fun doing it.”
“What I’ve had a chance to see is him get comfortable being uncomfortable,” Cabeceiras said. “Since he was 8 or 9 years old, he’s been playing up in travel ball. When he was 10, I told his dad he needed to be on a 12-year-old team, and that’s uncomfortable. You don’t know anyone in the dugout.
“But you see how it impacts him, and there’s no one who acclimates to that pressure faster than him.”
