Indiana Preps | Numbers Talk / Recruit Indiana
Most high school baseball players dream about playing in front of a college coach. Trey Deckman spent his senior season at Columbia City playing in front of professional scouts from nearly the entire sport. Twenty-four of the thirty Major League Baseball organizations sent someone to watch him play this spring. tucson.com
That’s not a typo. That’s the kind of attention reserved for the most coveted prospects in the country, arriving at a high school in Northeast Indiana, for a shortstop and pitcher who has been rewriting the region’s expectations for what’s possible since his sophomore year.
The moment that captures it best came on an ordinary school day, ahead of a matchup against Fort Wayne Carroll.
“I was sitting in class, and I got a text from my advisor, and he told me the Rangers are gonna be there today,” Deckman said. “That’s all I was thinking about all day. I remember thinking I had to get a couple of hits. We ended up playing Carroll, and I had an alright game. That first game was very nerve-racking. Every at-bat thinking I had to do so much. A lot was going through my mind. By the end of the year, preparing became easier to play in front of them.”
The results backed up the attention. Deckman finished his senior season with a .337 batting average, 17 RBI, five home runs, and 17 stolen bases — and went 2-1 on the mound with a 1.99 ERA and 39 strikeouts. That two-way production earned him the Dick Crumback Award as the top baseball player in Northeast Indiana — the regional honor that confirms what scouts from two dozen MLB organizations already suspected.
His breakout arrived earlier than most. As a sophomore, Deckman hit .444 with 40 hits across 25 games — the kind of number that gets a young player’s name circulated in scouting circles well before his junior or senior seasons arrive. Prep Baseball Report describes him as a wiry, athletic 6-foot-1, 165-pound shortstop with exit velocities peaking at 97 mph, above-average barrel feel, and a loose, athletic throwing arm that works at 87 across the diamond — a genuinely projectable athlete whose tools have real room to grow as his body matures.
Coming into his senior year, Deckman went to work with Chicago White Sox Scouting Director Mike Shirley — a relationship that he credits directly for taking his game to another level.
“This is the best I’ve felt and I’ve seen the ball in my entire career,” Deckman said.
For most of his high school career, the plan looked settled. Deckman was committed to Ball State — his father’s alma mater, with deep family ties to the program. That changed three weeks before his commitment to Michigan, when he made the decision to reopen his recruitment entirely.
What followed was one of the more remarkable stretches a high school prospect can experience.
“I reopened my recruitment, then three days later I went down to Butler for a workout with the Tampa Bay Rays, then drove up to Wisconsin the next day for a workout with the Miami Marlins, then drove to Chicago for a college one, came home, then the next day went up to Comerica Park and did a workout for the Detroit Tigers — which will be one of the coolest experiences I’ll ever have in my entire life, being able to take BP there. Then went over to Ann Arbor for a visit with the University of Michigan,” Deckman said.
Five workouts. Five different cities. Five days. That schedule alone tells you everything about how seriously professional organizations are evaluating him heading into the draft.
Being one of the top prospects in high school baseball means living with both possibilities at once — the MLB Draft and a college commitment serving as parallel paths rather than a fallback plan. Deckman’s decision reflects the kind of preparation that separates the players who get drafted from the players who simply hope to be. After visiting Ann Arbor, the choice became clear.
Deckman officially flipped his commitment from Ball State to Michigan, giving him a Power Four landing spot regardless of how the draft unfolds this summer. Whether his name gets called in the coming weeks or he arrives in Ann Arbor this fall, Trey Deckman has built one of the most compelling recruiting stories to come out of Northeast Indiana in years — a Columbia City product who turned scouts from two dozen MLB organizations and two Power Four programs into believers. ESPN
The region keeps producing. This time, the whole country was watching.
Indiana Preps covers high school athletics, recruiting, and athlete development across the state of Indiana.
