MLB’s No. 1 Draft prospect spent years around former big leaguers. Now it's his time

PHOENIX -- Little kids swing all kinds of baseball bats -- foam, plush, plastic. Grady Emerson’s featured Buzz Lightyear.

As a baseball-mad rugrat, MLB’s No. 1 Draft prospect marched around his living room taking imaginary hacks, emulating the Rangers players that he grew up watching. He couldn't have known then, but baseball has indeed taken him to infinity and beyond.

When he was around 9 years old, Emerson attended the baseball camp of a Rangers player that predated him but has had a considerable impact on his ascension to becoming one of the best amateur baseball players in the country.

Rusty Greer spent nine seasons patrolling the outfield for the Texas Rangers, amassing more than 1,100 hits and batting .305 while helping the club to three playoff appearances. After his playing days ended in the early 2000s, he stuck around the general Dallas/Fort Worth area and opened a baseball school in Euless, Texas, about 25 miles from Argyle, where Emerson called home.

Baseball is known to weave its way into the hearts of young ball players -- especially those in Texas. As a youngster, Emerson found success on the diamond. He had always been good, but it wasn’t until he was 13 that he started playing in top-tier travel tournaments against some of the best players from beyond just his town or region that he realized what he might have on his hands.

“‘Oh man, I’ve actually got a future in this,’” Emerson recalls thinking. “I can make this dream become a reality.”

From there, Emerson took off like a rocket.

After a decorated run for Argyle High School in Flower Mound, Texas, Emerson transferred to Fort Worth Christian High School for his senior year. The program’s head coach? None other than Greer, who took on the role in 2023.

“He’s a really great mentor of mine,” Emerson said. “Being able to play for him my senior year was something really cool – not necessarily that he was Rusty Greer the baseball player but he’s Rusty Greer my mentor. He taught me a lot of great life lessons, how to handle stuff on and off the field and really what it’s like to be a professional.”

After hitting .532 with 50 RBIs and 31 steals over 28 regular-season games, Emerson was named a semifinalist for the 2026 Golden Spikes Award, just the second high school player to receive the recognition, joining the fellow Texas native Bobby Witt Jr.. He also joined Witt in winning the Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year Award, which recognizes the top high school player in the country. Pirates rookie Konnor Griffin won the same honors just two years ago and the lineage includes names like Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.

Emerson is the lone 2026 Draft prospect to receive a 65-grade hit tool, an indicator of how advanced he already is, consistently compiling quality at-bats and routinely finding the barrel. Among the 900 players currently ranked on each MLB club’s Top 30 Prospects list, none of them has a grade that high on their hit tool.

Even with the pomp that surrounded being the top-ranked high school player in the country for the entire spring, Emerson embraced the expectations.

“It taught me a lot about how to really gameplan and how to build an approach,” said Emerson. “There were some guys that weren’t going to come at me, but surprisingly, a lot of guys did want to get me out. They wanted to be known for getting the top high school prospect out, so I thought that was really cool. It really taught me to stay within myself, don’t try to do too much, don’t try to prove I’m the top guy or anything.

“It was literally just, ‘Go out there and take advantage of every mistake they make.’”

• Subscribe to the MLB Pipeline Newsletter

It hasn’t only been from Greer and Witt that Emerson has been learning about what it’s like to be a big leaguer. The 18-year-old broke the mold a bit, participating in a bevy of events as an amateur, including Home Run Derby X in 2025.

During his time traversing the country during competitions, he got to break bread with a whole host of ex-MLB hitters: Hunter Pence, Nick Swisher, Kevin Mench, Josh Reddick and Adrián González (with whom he won the HR Derby X Finals), to name a few.

“Being able to sit there talking to all these big leaguers who have all done so many great things at the highest level, that really opened my eyes to what the professional life is like,” said Emerson. “It just made me want to get there even more.”

Replicating the Minor League stage and all that comes along with it -- the travel, the time away from home, the need to develop practical time management skills -- is often difficult. But Emerson got plenty of hands-on experience competing on a global stage as a four-time U.S. national team representative.

Originally a member of the 13U/14U Athlete Development Program, Emerson played for the U15 squad in both 2022 and ‘23. He moved on to the U18 team in ‘24 and ‘25, taking home a gold medal on three occasions.

“The best thing about USA Baseball was that I learned how to be an independent guy and to grow up," said Emerson. "I’m a 14-year-old in Hermosillo, Mexico, honestly, kind of on my own for a bit and that teaches you a lot of great life lessons. It really taught me what my life is gonna be like on the road by myself and they prepared [me] for what’s to come.

“I’m super grateful to all the coaches I had. It was the greatest honor I could have had getting to go and represent my country, I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Dating back to 2011, MLB Pipeline’s Draft rankings have featured a left-handed-hitting high school shortstop in the No. 1 spot on Draft day just twice (Ethan Holliday in 2025 and Marcelo Mayer in 2021). Emerson, at 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds, has looked to the not-too-distant past for where to model his game -- Corey Seager and Brandon Crawford, standout lefty-hitting members of the premium position in their own right.

Even at just 18 years old, he’s won enough awards to fill a trophy case, and then some. But in many ways, this next step is its own beginning. The accumulated experiences have molded Emerson, both the baseball player and person.

“People tend to think players like me -- or other highly rated prospects -- haven’t gone through struggles. I’m here to tell you -- and not just me, but all these guys -- we all work hard,” said Emerson. “There’s a lot of stuff behind the scenes that goes into this that people usually don’t see or they don’t want to admit. There have been hours spent in gyms, cages, on long drives, long plane rides to make all this happen.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, I want to give thanks to my family for this. They’ve sacrificed so many things in their life. My brother missed football games. My parents missed work meetings just so they can get me where I needed to be, and without them, I wouldn’t be where I’m at.”