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PBR Future Games Team PA 2012: Where Are They Now?

January 13, 2016

By Jacob Gill
Pennsylvania Assistant Director of Scouting

The 2016 PBR Pennsylvania Preseason All-State Showcase kicks off one month from today. Once the dust settles on the event, initial invitations will be sent out to prospects in the 2018 and 2019 classes to compete for Team Pennsylvania at the PBR Future Games powered by Under Armour in August. Over the next three days, we will take a look at the team members from the summers of 2012-2014 to find out how their careers have progressed since they participated.

Team PA at the 2012 PBR Future Games
Name State School Class Pos Commitment
Cody Bain PA Blackhawk 2014 OF US Coast Guard Academy
Brandon Birkhead PA Central Bucks East 2014 RHP/1B Bloomsburg
Shane Connahan PA Midd-West 2014 OF Middle Tennessee State
Dominic Cuoci PA La Salle 2014 RHP/IF St. Joseph's
Collin Fantaskey PA Warren Area 2014 OF Mercyhurst
Aaron Fritz PA Minersville 2014 C Bucknell
Matt Gordon PA Grove City 2014 RHP Binghamton
Eric Ligda PA Avon Grove 2014 RHP Millersville
Brendan McKay PA Blackhawk 2014 LHP Louisville
Christian Porterfield PA West Middlesex 2014 C Slippery Rock
Deon Stafford Jr. PA Lower Dauphin 2014 C St. Joseph's
Jamie Switalski PA Pine-Richland 2014 3B/RHP UMBC
Ted Williams PA Meadville Area 2014 2B Millersville

The headliner of this group is McKay, who earned a spot on the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team after posting a pitching line of 9-3, 1.77 ERA, 53 hits, 34 walks, 117 strikeouts, .159 opponents' average in 96.2 innings and a batting line of .308 average, 14 doubles, 4 home runs, and a 1:1 walk plus hit-by-pitch to strikeout ratio. There isn't much more to be written about his spectacular freshman season, so let's simply take a look at a small sampling of the post-season honors he received: John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year; Freshman of the Year and First-team All-America by a multitude of outlets, including Baseball America and D1Baseball.com; Golden Spikes Award semifinalist.

Stafford had an impressive rookie campaign in his own right, posting a .341 batting average with 23 extra base hits, and a .423 on-base percentage, while also throwing out 34% of would-be base stealers. He earned Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American and 2nd-team all-Atlantic-10 honors for his efforts.

Joining Stafford on the Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American team was Switalski, who also received 1st-team all-America East recognition. He hit .307 with eleven extra base hits, and more walks (23) than strikeouts (22), while also pitching well in eight outings (16.1 IP, 14 H, 2 BB, 8 K).

A few others posted solid numbers while getting their feet wet in limited opportunities:
+ Fantasky hit .333 in 33 at-bats
+ Fritz hit .280 in 25 at-bats
+ Porterfield hit .320 in 25 at-bats, with four of his eight hits going for extra bases
+ Williams was plugged into the line-up late in the season due to injury and went 5-11 with three stolen bases in five NCAA Atlantic Regional games.

In an ideal world, every player would start and finish at the school to which he commits, but attrition at the collegiate level is an inevitable, if not regrettable, occurrence. Two members of this squad have already moved on from their initial landing spot: Gordon transferred from Binghamton to Slippery Rock, while Birkhead jumped from Bloomsburg to Rowan College at Gloucester County.

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