Baseball Week Haarlem: A breeding ground for MLB talent

As an organization, we are often asked: How strong are the teams participating in Baseball Week?

Our starting point is and always will be: as strong a team as possible, drawn from multiple continents. This approach has worked well in past editions. To give an example, the goal is always to field a strong team representing the U.S.—the birthplace of baseball—in Haarlem. MLB teams are not an option; the league season is in full swing there. So the top-level pros aren’t coming. Thanks to a strong relationship with USA Baseball, another team full of potential future stars did come to the Netherlands in 2022. The team consisted of third- and fourth-year college players, almost all of whom were eligible for the MLB Draft scheduled a few weeks after the tournament.

College? Draft? A brief interlude: In the US, all amateur sports are played through high schools and universities; amateur associations like those in the Netherlands do not exist. The only way to turn pro is to be scouted by a professional organization. You can be drafted as early as high school, but if you decide to go to college, you usually play two or three years of college baseball before turning pro and making yourself available for the draft.

The MLB team with the worst win-loss record from the previous year gets the first pick each year. Then the second-worst team gets to choose, and so on. This is how all organizations select players, over dozens of rounds. When a player is selected by a club, signing money is negotiated. First-round picks receive the largest signing bonus, and the amounts gradually decrease. After that, you are under contract with the club for six years and, in addition to your signing bonus, receive a salary starting at $40,000 a year.

One of Team USA’s pitchers in Haarlem in 2022 was Paul Skenes (pictured). He was selected first overall last June by the Pittsburgh Pirates. He received a signing bonus of $9.2 million. The No. 2 pick in the first round, outfielder Dylan Crews (Washington Nationals, signing bonus $9 million), had also played in Haarlem a few weeks earlier.

The table below lists nine players on the 2022 Haarlem roster who were selected in the first round:

So these were the top prospects expected to play in the Majors in the near future. Meanwhile, in Haarlem, we’ve already seen a huge number of future superstars take the field in their younger years—from Mark Prior (2000) to Stephen Strasburg (2008) and from Trea Turner (2012) to Alex Bregman (2014). The list is long and only getting longer; it’s only a matter of time before we see the first players from HWH 2022 in the Majors. For some, it might even be as early as next season!

Another Team USA is coming to Haarlem in 2024, this time in the form of an NJCAA squad; a year younger than the men we’ve seen on the field in recent years, but certainly just as talented.

Visitors to Baseball Week 2024 are sure to enjoy top-level baseball once again, played by top talents and experienced pros, in a variety of styles: Asian, American, and European.