USA Baseball Announces 2021 Prospect Development Pipeline Premier Events

USA Baseball announced that it will facilitate six Prospect Development Pipeline (PDP) Premier Events in 2021 in conjunction with Major League Baseball (MLB). All of the events will be conducted on an invite-only basis and will feature the top amateur baseball players in selected regions of the country.

The six events are currently scheduled to take place throughout the U.S. between May 1–June 6 at Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia, Pa.), the Compton MLB Youth Academy (Compton, Calif.), Dell Diamond (Round Rock, Texas), the Jackie Robinson Training Complex (Vero Beach, Fla.), T-Mobile Park (Seattle, Wash.), and the USA Baseball National Training Complex (Cary, N.C.).

The full schedule of PDP Premier events is as follows: 

• May 1-2: PDP Premier Mid-Atlantic (USA Baseball National Training Complex)
• May 8-9: PDP Premier Northeast (Citizens Bank Park)
• May 15-16: PDP Premier Florida & Puerto Rico (Jackie Robinson Training Complex)
• May 22-23: PDP Premier Northwest (T-Mobile Park)
• May 22-23: PDP Premier Texas (Dell Diamond)
• June 5-6: PDP Premier SoCal (Compton MLB Youth Academy)

Other events on the calendar:

• Futures Series – Irvine: May 14-16
• National Team Championships Arizona: June 14-July 7
• National Team Championships North Carolina: June 16-July 12
• 10U Futures Invitational: June 17-20
• MLB Draft Combine: June 20-28
• 11U Futures Invitational: June 24-27

“We are thrilled to have these six PDP Premier Events on the calendar in 2021,” said Russell Hartford, USA Baseball Senior Director of Technology. “These events will place a heavy emphasis on data collection and use of advanced assessment technologies, making them not only a unique opportunity for young players to receive invaluable resources and actionable data that will help them create sustained development, but also a chance for the scouting community to see some of the best draft-eligible prospects in action this spring.”

At the heart of the PDP Premier events is the PDP Performance Assessment, which is a series of comprehensive evaluations that utilize state-of-the-art technology to measure cognitive skills, speed of processing, athletic performance, and on-field talent. As part of the PDP Performance Assessment, participating athletes will take part in Hawkeye and RightEye assessments, and have their height, weight, and grip measurements collected on the first day of each event. 

Subsequently, the second day will utilize technologies such as Rapsodo and Diamond Kinetics to assess each participant’s on-field abilities. Weather permitting, the workouts and evaluations will include both on-field and in-cage batting practice, an infield/outfield workout, bullpen sessions, and a simulation game with live at-bats.

Following each PDP Performance Assessment, athletes will receive a fully-customized player report, inclusive of personal results and data from their evaluation, development information with guidelines for improvements, and other relevant resources to aid players and families in navigating the amateur baseball experience.

The Prospect Development Pipeline (PDP) is a collaborative effort between Major League Baseball and USA Baseball to establish a player development pipeline leading to the MLB Draft for amateur baseball players in the United States. In addition to the PDP Premier Events, the PDP also includes the recently announced MLB Draft Combine, which will take place from June 20-28, and the PDP League, which serves as the primary identification event for the USA Baseball 18U National Team and is scheduled to take place from July 22-August 1. Both events will be hosted at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina.

For more information on the Prospect Development Pipeline (PDP), the PDP Premier Events or additional initiatives within the PDP program, please visit the Prospect Development Pipeline website or follow @BaseballPDP on Twitter and Instagram.