It’s a warm, Southern California afternoon in August. Texas outfielder Jordan Wiley steps into the lefthanded batter’s box at historic Blair Field as he sizes up his opponent, righthander Nathan Walker. Here, at the Area Code Games, every player on the field knows who’s watching them.

Behind home plate sits almost the entire amateur scouting community; from college recruiting coordinators and travel coaches to area scouts and scouting directors, almost every decision-maker in the game is zeroed in on each pitch, each swing, and each player’s demeanor.

Wiley gets a belt-high fastball over the middle of the plate. He sees it, and drives the ball deep to Blair Field’s cavernous center field. Against most opponents, even major league opponents, Wiley’s drive would have landed and probably bounced out of play for a grounds-rule double. But the man in center field was not like most opponents. The man in center field was Mickey Moniak.

“Off the bat it had a good sound,” Moniak said. “I saw the ball had good flight off the bat. I put my head down and ran full speed to my spot. I looked up at the last second and watched the ball fall into my glove.”

Moniak made the catch, and he made it look like a routine play. This wasn’t the first time that Moniak made scouts’ jaws drop, and it certainly won’t be the last.

In 1958, Boston Red Sox scout Socko McCarey found something, an athletic outfielder with intriguing tools. That athlete was Bill Moniak. The Red Sox brought him to Fenway Park and worked him out, then signed him for a $25,000 bonus. Bill never reached the majors, but his experience set the table for his family. He had studied hitting under the tutelage of arguably the game’s greatest hitter—Ted Williams. Bill’s son, Matt Moniak, would go on to play at San Diego State, and Bill’s grandson, Mickey Moniak, enters this spring as a candidate to be selected in the first round of the 2016 draft.

Mickey talks with an air of confidence, confidence that has accumulated over generations in the Moniak family. Mickey knows who he is, and he believes that he’s going to win every time he digs his spikes into the dirt. He understands his strengths as well as his weaknesses. He’s developed his philosophy on baserunning, and he’s very in tune with the mechanics of his swing. He says that the upper half of his swing looks pretty similar to how it looked when he was just 10 years old. Moniak has fond memories of working on the fundamentals with youth coach Curtis Swanberg, and learning about hitting from John Peabody, now the head baseball coach at Santa Fe Christian High in Solana Beach, Calif.

“Peabody had me keep my back elbow in, to keep me from getting long,” Moniak said. “I’ve widened out my lower half more to give me more balance as I get taller.”

Starting with his feet wider apart, Moniak is able to maintain balance and keep his head still when he unleashes exceptional torque, both in his hips and his arms. This allows him to see the ball well and maintain bat control. He rarely swings and misses. In fact, during October’s Arizona Senior Fall Classic, Moniak swung and missed just once in 13 at-bats.

“When I go up to the plate, I have the mentality that the pitcher is not going to beat me,” Moniak said. “I go up there with a purpose. I’m going to get on base and score.”

But, while Moniak enters every plate appearance—every battle—believing he’s going to win, he also recognizes the distinction between confidence and cockiness. Moniak wasn’t always this good, and he knows that he’s far from being the player that he wants to become.

“Growing up, my parents instilled in me that the worst thing you can be is cocky,” Moniak said. “If you’re that good, you don’t need to talk about yourself.”

As Moniak has ascended through youth baseball and high school, his accolades have accumulated, but he continues to keep away from cockiness. As a freshman at La Costa Canyon High (Encinitas, Calif.), Mickey started to realize how much potential he had when head coach Justin Machado told him that he made the varsity team—a feat that just three other freshmen at La Costa Canyon had accomplished before him.

Since then, his mantle has been decorated with awards and honors, both for his individual achievements and team accomplishments. During Moniak’s sophomore season, La Costa Canyon reached the California Interscholastic Federation San Diego finals, knocking off a Rancho Bernardo team that had 2014 first-rounder Alex Jackson (Mariners) and 2015 third-rounder Drew Finley (Yankees). Moniak also has two gold medals—having played with the 15U and 18U national teams.

And then there’s the buzz in the scouting community. Moniak’s hit tool receives glowing reviews, and at least two Southern California scouts believe his bat projects as a 70 on the 20-80 scale. Others who are less optimistic project it as a 60. If there’s one high school prospect in this draft class who is going to mash in the majors, odds are it’ll be Moniak.

The draft is less than six months away. High school prospects often get nervous around this time of the year. Some prospects have a lot to gain; at this point last year, Reds first-rounder Tyler Stephenson was on the radar, but he wasn’t projected to go 11th overall. Other prospects have a lot to lose. A poor spring can certainly make a tremendous difference in the calculus of what teams are likely to offer a player. The spectrum of possibilities is daunting, especially for 17- and 18-year-old boys.

But Moniak is calm and collected. He’s more concerned with improving every day than he is with what happens in June. He’s spending time with his three younger siblings (Jake, Collin and Jordan), hitting the weight room (he’s added 16 pounds since the end of the summer), eating his dad’s home-cooked potatoes and steak and taking things day by day.

To arrange our interview, we had to find time between practice and school and meetings with teams. There’s a lot going on in Moniak’s life, but he isn’t feeling pressure.

“To be honest, I don’t feel pressure. It’s just baseball,” he said. “You’ve got to have fun playing it. Otherwise it wouldn’t be the sport for you. Having all the scouts out there is cool, but you have to just go out there and play the game you love.”

Confidence, composure, and passion for the game of baseball. Those are the traits that define Mickey Moniak’s baseball career. When scouts zeroed in on him at the Area Code Games—or any of the other major events Mickey attended—they saw that demeanor. Every batting practice session went according to plan, with line drives peppering the outfield from foul pole to foul pole.

Mickey Moniak has what scouts are looking for. It isn’t clear where he’ll be five months from now, but it is clear that he will be closer to reaching the major leagues.