The end of March had some excellent stars to watch, but a special outing between what seems to be one of the best teams in California in Santa Margarita Catholic taking on Servite was the highlight of the third edition of Socal Stars.
Luke Lavin, C, 2023, SMCHS
Lavin has a very long and still lean frame for a backstop, but that doesn’t affect his ability to present a low target for his pitchers, he moves well for his size and shows solid tools, with room to improve his receiving behind the dish. The tool that stands out is the bat, he presents himself as a confident hitter in the box and his size allows him to get leverage in his swing. The hands start low with a step and hand load but has excellent bat speed that can produce hard contact, and he sprayed a few line drives around the yard.
One impressive thing that also helped him stand out at the plate was the willingness to stick with his approach, he was aggressive in the zone, hunting his pitch and not missing it, but willing to take if it wasn’t what he wanted. His biggest areas of growth will be receiving, where he has soft hands but has issues sticking pitches, especially pitches on his arm side and pitches low. He did show off a strong throwing arm as well, hosing down a runner in game 1 that had a solid jump but was out by several feet, the arm is strong and accurate with some carry to the bag. Lavin is unranked in the current Prospects Live top 400, but the Stanford commit is someone to keep an eye on as he could develop nicely after reaching campus
Blake Balsz, C/1B, 2023, SMCHS
It’s great to see a talent behind the plate in high school, but to have depth like this is a blessing for SMCHS. Blake Balsz is a different type of player than his teammate Luke, Blake was at 1B in game 1, but it’s worth noting he’s committed to UCLA as a Catcher, and is playing 1B moreso to make sure Lavin can play as well. Balsz has some versatility and is a more compact frame, with a bit more present strength in a smaller frame. He keeps his hip closed during his stride which allows him to rotate well and use a lot of his lower half strength in his swing to generate his power. While there is some pre-pitch movement, he gets his hands in a good spot and it’s a level swing, and a contact-heavy profile, there isn’t a lot of room to grow on the frame but his gap-to-gap approach of hitting can play with plenty of line drive XBHs.
Defensively it was a bit of a whirlwind, missing a pickoff from his pitcher early on in game 1 but made up for it with several nice plays in the field later. He has solid reflexes defensively and good hands, which translate both at 1B and catcher.