USA Baseball’s Tournament of Stars is an annual event held in Cary, N.C., that serves as a tryout for the 18U national team trials roster. Six teams that include more than 100 players compete in a tournament-style showcase over six days, and USA Baseball selects 40 players for the trial roster who then compete for 20 spots on the team that will go to the World Baseball Softball Confederation 18U World Cup, set for Aug. 28-Sept. 6 in Japan.

For scouts, TOS represents the No. 2 stop on the high-school summer showcase circuit after PG National, and it’s a prime opportunity for evaluators to watch many of the nation’s best draft-eligible high-school players do battle against each other while hitting with a wood bat. Often, showcase performance factors heavily into a prep prospect’s evaluation and helps put relatively unknown players on the map. This was the case for Cardinals first-rounder Nick Plummer, whose outstanding play on the summer circuit carried more weight since he played in a Michigan high-school league that starts the count at 1-1, thus complicating the evaluation. Another recent example is Manny Machado, who emerged from relative obscurity and turned heads at the 2010 TOS and East Coast Pro showcases. He became a high-level follow for Florida area scouts entering the spring, and you know the rest.

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