Meet Argyle freshman Grady Emerson, who could be D-FW’s next great shortstop prospect

ARGYLE — Prodigious athletes don’t become prodigious athletes without a bit of help. If it takes a village to raise a child, it might take that — and then some — to turn a baseball-crazed kid into a phenom.

There are a few to thank in the case of Argyle freshman Grady Emerson. Former Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler is the childhood role model. Rangers Hall of Famer Rusty Greer is the teacher. And Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. is the key influence.

Hang tight, we’ll get to them. Another icon deserves praise first.

Buzz Lightyear.

Naturally.

“My mom and dad bought him this Buzz Lightyear foam bat and foam ball,” said Grady’s father, Brandon Emerson, adding that his son’s love for baseball sparked as a toddler when the Rangers made the World Series in 2010.

“I know it sounds crazy, but the moment he got that, it was the only toy that mattered.”

It might not be Toy Story, but it’s a pretty good baseball story. Where does Grady’s stand now?

“He’s the best player in the country,” said Flower Mound Marcus coach Jeff Sherman, who coached Emerson on Team USA’s U-15 team last fall. “Not even close.”

Grady, in his first season of varsity baseball, is hitting .380 for state-ranked Argyle (22-6-2) with 35 hits (15 of which were for extra bases) in 29 games, 28 RBIs, 30 runs scored and seven stolen bases. He bats leadoff for the area’s top-ranked 5A/Others team, and for a program that’s twice been named national champion and won three state titles under head coach Ricky Griffin.

The 15-year-old middle infielder might become the foundational piece of another Argyle dynasty.

And then some.

Grady is committed to play college baseball for TCU, though if things break right, his pledge could be more of a formality. He’ll be eligible for the MLB draft in 2026 as a senior, but the 6-1 phenom could be on track to be drafted directly out of high school.

Grady, No. 6 in Perfect Game’s national Class of 2026 player rankings, could join the illustrious list of Dallas-Fort Worth high school shortstop prospects, including Colleyville Heritage alum Witt, the second pick in the 2019 MLB draft.

Witt was the nation’s top prospect and left Heritage as one of the greatest players D-FW had produced. Grady, then in elementary school, attended Witt’s games and saw himself in the eventual major leaguer.

“I always wanted to be the Bobby Witt of Argyle,” Grady said. “I wanted to be Bobby Witt.”

‘Incredible skills for a freshman’

And for some background, Sherman wants people to know something about Grady.

“He still has my first baseman’s glove,” Sherman said. “So I need that back.”

Confronted by these allegations, Grady tossed his head back and cackled like the teenager he is.

“Yeah, I use it all the time,” he said, motioning to Sherman’s glove laid against the railing. “That’s what I’ve been using this season; it’s getting me through.”

The backstory: When Grady played for Team USA, the coaching staff wanted his bat in the lineup but had holes to fill defensively. So he played all over the field, including at first base. Grady had never played the position before, but he borrowed Sherman’s glove and started at first in Team USA’s championship game win over Cuba.

The result?

“He was the best player on the field defensively,” Sherman said.

Grady notched six hits in eight games with Team USA. Among them was a two-run home run vs. Cuba, which finished runner-up to the United States. Against Puerto Rico in the tournament’s opening round, Grady stole home with the bases loaded and landed on ESPN SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays list.

He finished the tournament with six RBIs and three runs scored.

As a 14-year-old on a U-15 team.

“I don’t know if many high school kids in the country can do what he did when he hit that home run,” Sherman said. “He’s 135 pounds soaking wet and he’s hitting balls 430 feet in the upper deck.”

Grady, who grew up in Trophy Club but moved to Argyle before high school, began his freshman year with a gold medal and a whole heap of expectations for him. Griffin figured Grady would play some kind of role on varsity, either as a starter or a role player, given the skills he showcased in Argyle’s middle school system.

“Early on, him taking batting practice, you could just see that wherever you put the ball, he was comfortably hitting it,” Griffin said. “You don’t see that a lot in high school.”

Grady began the season hitting seventh in Argyle’s lineup. By the season’s midway point — and after he went 12 for 16 over the course of a three-day nondistrict tournament at Fort Worth Boswell in March — Griffin moved Grady to the leadoff position. He’s done so at first base, because Griffin didn’t want to displace senior shortstop JC Davis or junior second baseman Colton Roquemore.

No problem for the young natural.

“He has incredible skills for a freshman,” Griffin said. “If he was a senior, he’d be a really good senior. His natural baseball talent is incredible.”

‘I want to be one of them one day’

Brandon Emerson tightened up a bit at the prospect of the future. The future in which his son — who’s already listed on national rankings, already talked about as a name to follow and already drawn the ire of opposing teams and fans — continues to develop into an even bigger star in an even bigger spotlight.

“Terrifying,” he said bluntly.

“It’s hard, as a parent, to put your kid in some of the situations he’s been in,” Emerson continued. “There’s never a shortage of haters. He’s played in games where, it doesn’t matter what the score is, it just feels like the other team is trying to get him.”

“For some reason,” Brandon continued, “he’s able to handle it.”

Take April 18′s 3-1 loss to Grapevine. The whispers started when Grady stepped to the plate.

“Is that the freshman?” one Grapevine fan said to another.

Grady grounded out to second base in his first at-bat. He went 1 for 4 with an error at first base. The whispers turned to yells.

“Go back to junior varsity,” a Grapevine fan chirped, possibly unaware that Grady had rocketed right past that level of high school baseball.

One day later, inside Argyle’s dugout, Grady is all smiles.

“[Bobby Witt Jr.] said, ‘It’s just a game, you’re out there to have fun,’” Grady said, calling the former Heritage star his idol. “‘You’re not out there to win every single game. The game is something you should love, and as soon as you don’t love it, you should hang up the cleats.’

“I take that to heart every time I step on the field.”

Grady worked out with the eventual Royal alongside Greer, who spent eight years with the Rangers and runs Rusty Greer Baseball School out of Colleyville. Emerson estimated that Grady fielded about 1,000 ground balls behind Witt last fall.

Greer first trained Grady when he was 10 years old and worked with him for three years. Grady’s baseball IQ, laser focus and maturity stood out.

“I saw his actions. Even at 10 years old, he had clean actions,” Greer said. “I turned around, and there was [Brandon] in the stands, and I said, ‘Is that your kid at short?’ And he said ‘Yeah,’ and I said, ‘He can play.’”

Yes, Greer said, there are some similarities between Grady and Witt. Still, he pumped the brakes a bit: Witt was a generational five-tool prospect, and it’d be wholly unfair to make a one-to-one comparison between the two, especially at Grady’s age.

But, Greer continued, Grady doesn’t lack potential.

“We don’t want to box Grady into any kind of ceiling,” Greer said. “He might wind up being better, he might end up being a five-tool player, but you can’t box him. He is focused, he does have the desire on a baseball field to be the best. Those are the similarities I see between him and Bobby: The desire to be the best on the field, and the overall love of the game.

“He’s still a freshman in high school with a lot of room to grow physically and mentally. But he’s already got that foundation of baseball. So when all that other stuff hits, as we know it’s going to, now you’ve got a true leader on the field that has a ton of potential.”

There’s precedent for Grady’s potential draft stock, too. Rockwall-Heath shortstop Jett Williams was a first-round draft choice of the New York Mets in 2021, Jesuit shortstop Jordan Lawlar was drafted sixth overall by the Arizona Diamondbacks the year prior, and in 2019 the Royals picked Witt second overall. Southlake Carroll shortstop Hudson Potts went 26th to the San Diego Padres in 2016.

Sherman likened Grady to Irving shortstop Trevor Story, a two-time Silver Slugger drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the supplemental first round in 2011.

Since Story was drafted, only California (nine), Georgia (seven) and Florida (eight) have produced more first-round high school shortstops than Dallas-Fort Worth’s five. Three of those five have been drafted since 2019.

In turn, the D-FW area became one of the country’s leaders in middle infield production.

“I don’t know why,” Griffin said. “If I did, I’d make sure we were doing that at Argyle.”

With Grady, the school might be on track to have its own.

“I want to be part of those people,” Grady said. “I want to be part of that D-FW group that’s made it to the highest level. I think that’s a lot of my motivation, to follow those guys and their footsteps. I want to be one of them one day.”

Shortstop surplus

Since 2011, five Dallas-area high school shortstops have been drafted in either the first round or the supplemental first round of the MLB draft. Grady isn’t eligible until the 2026 draft, but he could one day join this list.

On Twitter: @McFarland_Shawn

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