Cal Baseball: Andrew Vaughn Named to U.S. Team Hoping to Qualify for Tokyo Olympics

The U.S. team will compete at events in Mexico and Japan this fall in its first opportunity to earn a spot in the 2020 Games

Former Cal star Andrew Vaughn, fresh off his first season as a professional, was named to to the 28-player USA Baseball roster for the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier12, a critical qualifying event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Vaughn, a veteran of USA Baseball, completed his final season at Cal last spring before being drafted No. 3 overall by the Chicago White Sox.

College baseball’s national player of the year as a sophomore in 2018, Vaughn is rated as the No. 21 minor league prospect by MLB Pipeline, one of seven top-100 prospects on the U.S. roster.

Vaughn began his 2019 summer with the White Sox's Arizona rookie team, then was prompted to the franchise's low-A and high-A level teams.

The U.S. will begin the WBSC Premier12 in Guadalajara, Mexico, from November 2-4 as a member of Group A with the Dominican Republic, Mexico and the Netherlands. The top two nations from Group A will advance to the Super Round in Tokyo from November 11-16.

The tournament is the first opportunity for Team USA to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The top finisher from both the Americas territory and Asia/Oceania territory (excluding Japan) will join host-country Japan and WBSC Baseball Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifier champion Israel in the six-team Olympic tournament.

The final two Olympic berths will be decided in March 2020.

Four-time World Series Champion Joe Girardi was named the manager of the Premier12 roster in August.

The team will train in Surprise, Arizona, from October 21-28 at the Kansas City Royals Spring Training facility before traveling to Mexico for the opening round of the Premier12.