It’s signature events SZN, y’all.
The most anticipated time of year for the New Balance Baseball Future Stars Series is upon us, with an incredible calendar of some of the most highly-regarded events in all of amateur baseball over the next few weeks set to get started with the second annual Underclass Elite.
Set for September 16-18 in Frisco, Texas at Riders Field, home of the Texas Rangers Double-A affiliate, the Frisco RoughRiders, the event is set to feature some of the top talent in the country from primarily the 2024 graduating class, with a few 2025 and even 2026 talents who earned their way here through the summer’s events in Lake Charles, Louisiana having been mixed in.
Last year’s extremely successful debut in Orlando produced a number of players who will go on this year to participate in the prestigious Main Event at Fenway Park in Boston — set for September 23 and 24 this year — including Alex Kranzler, Tre Phelps, Hudson Hamilton, Eric Guevara, Ethan Sutton, Sam Ardoin among many others.
This year, two 22-man rosters — comprised of the White & Black and Navy & Red squads — will square off for a total of three games on Saturday and Sunday, but not before things kick off with workouts on Friday night for both teams, which will provide an opportunity to get acclimated to their new surroundings, as well as give the development staff more time to work with individual players.
On Saturday, however, the real fun begins; a doubleheader is scheduled, with first pitch of Game 1 set for 11:15 AM, while Game 2 will start 30 minutes following the conclusion of the opener. Both games will be nine innings.
Currently, the White & Black team pitchers for Game 1 are set to be Mason Middleton, Justyn Hart and Karson Trichel, while the second game will feature Cole Lanford, Nathan Carrillo and Wesley Johnston.
For Navy & Red, Game 1 will see Christopher Melvin, Wolfgang Braasch and Jack Edner followed by Christian Oliveira, Josiah Romeo and Trip Ancheta in the day’s finale.
Stephen Mackey, a dynamic motivational speaker who first became familiar to the Future Stars Series family with riveting work during International Week in 2017, will address both teams during the day as well, which should get everyone fired up for Sunday’s third and final contest.
The trio of Andrew Johnson, Kaleb Rogers and Daviel Fernandez are set to share the nine innings for the White & Black for the 11:15 AM start, while the only 2026 grad class player at the event, R.J. Cope, Vinny Hudson and Zachary Gingrich will likely split it up on the mound evenly for Navy & Red.
Both Cael Reish and Shea Braaten will likely see innings as well.
Former major-leaguer Danny Sheaffer will manage the Navy & Red team, joined by fellow coaches Chris McFarland, Jason Aspito, Rafael Santo Domingo, Jason Phillips and Matt Duncan. He’ll be opposed by another former major-leaguer, James Lofton, who will be the skipper for White & Black. Lofton will have Greg Jacobs, Anthony Granato, Stephen Randolph, Jamie Johnson and Jose Silva join him to round out the coaching staff.
This year’s Underclass Elite event will also feature a new twist, with a new agreement with DAZN — a live and on-demand streaming service that give sports fans around the world affordable access to sports anytime, anywhere — to provide an unmatched broadcast experience featuring a big-league crew on the call.
Set to be livestreamed on YouTube and then stored on DAZN, the broadcast team is set to be comprised of long-time big-league play-by-play man Victor Rojas, award-winning sports reporter Jill Painter-Lopez and Future Stars Series president and CEO Jeremy Booth, himself a TV veteran who has covered the Astros and their postseason runs along with the All-Star Game, MLB Draft, and Futures Game for KHOU-TV in Houston.
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