PHOENIX – The 2016 PG Coach Bob National Invitational (CBNI) tournament got underway Monday on local high school fields scattered all across the Valley of the Sun, and on the second day of its two-week run Tuesday, Major League Baseball scouts – and one intrepid PG scout – got face-to-face with one of the top pitching prospects that will make an appearance at the event.
All eyes early Tuesday afternoon were on ThunderRidge High School (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) senior Jake Eissler, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound hard-throwing right-hander and Texas Christian University signee Perfect Game ranks a top-350 national prospect in the class of 2016. Eissler took to the hill on the varsity field at warm and windy but extremely pleasant (75 degrees) Sandra Day O’Connor High School and led the Grizzlies to a 5-0 shutout victory over Knight High School (Palmdale, Calif.).
Eissler was drop-dead outstanding during his outing Tuesday, pitching a complete game, two-hit shutout with 15 strikeouts and no walks. In three starts during this young season, he has worked 15, five-hit innings without allowing an earned run, with 32 strikeouts and two bases on balls.
PG National Scouting Coordinator/Event Coordinator Brian Sakowski was among the more than a dozen members of the scouting community that settled in behind home plate to watch Eissler pitch, and was also among those who was not disappointed when he left the north Phoenix high school campus.
“Eissler was dominant today,” Sakowski said when asked to share to his impressions of the young Coloradoan. “He showed a few solid curveballs early and even threw a couple of changeups, but then realized he could dominate with his fastball. He was working 87-90 (mph) all day, spotting it to both sides of the plate as well as up and down in the zone. He got double-digit swings and misses on the fastball, threw consistent strikes, worked quickly and attacked the hitters.”
The victory left ThunderRidge – a Colorado High School Athletic Association (CHSAA) Division 5 school (D-5 includes the state’s largest enrollment schools) – 3-1 in its young season and 2-0 at the CBNI. The Grizzlies split a pair of games back home before arriving in the Arizona desert this week, and 20th-year head coach Joe White was eager to get his team back on the field.
“We’ve actually had pretty good weather back home, probably the best we’ve had in a while,” he said before his Grizzlies took the field against Knight. “We let (the players) come down with their parents so we let the spend a lot of time with their parents as kind of a vacation.
“But these games count toward our RPI back home, so we try to win them for our playoffs (seeding). We try to get everyone in though, too, so it’s kind of a mixed bag, to be honest with you, to try to balance everything out.”
White has a good mix of seniors and underclassmen on this team’s roster and has a pretty good feeling about his squad overall. But it all starts with Eissler, who White called “one of the best pitchers in the state” this year.
PG doesn’t disagree. It ranks the 18-year-old righty the fourth best pitching prospect in Colorado’s class of 2016, behind Regis Jesuit’s Bo Weiss, Cherry Creek’s Nathan Sweeney and Lewis-Palmer’s Paul Tillotson, all right-handers themselves. It’s a proven group: Weiss has signed with North Carolina, Sweeney with Arizona and Tillotson with Nebraska to match Eissler’s TCU signature.
Before the first-pitch of the ThunderRidge-Knight game, a voice in the crowd could be heard offering a greeting to another unseen face that said, “It’s another beautiful day! Baseball and sunshine! You can’t beat it, right?” That was the way Eissler felt before he made his scheduled start.
“We really like coming down here and playing every year,” he said. “Especially in this type of tournament where it’s more of a round-robin, we don’t have the pressure of trying to win every game just to get to the next round; we can just go out there and have fun.”
Eissler told PG he’s been pleased with his development to this point and has never felt more comfortable with his game than he did coming into his senior spring season at ThunderRidge. When he looks back at years past there was at times the pressure of making the team, earning a roster spot and adjusting to a new role, and this year he was able to come in knowing he was the staff ace; his only concern was making sure he maintained that lofty status.
“He’s an ultra-competitor, for one, and two, like I told him the other day, I’ve never seen a kid his age who can throw as hard as he can but can also spot-up,” White said. “I think that’s what kind of separates him for his age is that he can throw 90-92 and he can put the ball where he wants to. It’s kind of rare to have that kind of combination in a kid that age that can do that.
“He’s got a real feel for pitching on what he wants to throw and when he wants to throw it. He’s just kind of advanced in terms of pitching; he’s not just a thrower.”
A lot of Eissler’s development has come while participating in 15 PG events, including an all-tournament selection during his debut at the 2012 14u PG WWBA National Championship while playing with the Colorado Slammers Black. He’s earned four more all-tournament citations in the years since while playing with the Slammers, Marucci Elite and Mountain West, most recently at the 2015 17u PG World Series played right here in the Valley as a member of the Slammers Holzemer.
His biggest achievements came when he was named to the all-tournament team at the 2014 PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., playing with Mountain West, and his selection to the Top Prospect List at both the 2015 PG Rocky Mountain Showcase in Denver and the prestigious 2015 PG National Showcase in Fort Myers, Fla. The Jupiter and Fort Myers experiences stand out above any other.
“I had heard all about (the PG WWBA World) with the (scouts riding in) golf carts and everything and all the scouts that would be at every game, and at first it sounds kind of enticing,” Eissler said. “And then you get there and you realize it’s all real and there are 150 scouts at every game, and you’re like, holy cow, what’s going on? When I got to the National Showcase, I had already had my experience at Jupiter and I was more prepared for it, so it didn’t scare me quite as much.
“Those (PG events) have been awesome,” he continued. “Getting out there and getting my profile on the (PG) website has been pretty cool, and I probably wouldn’t have come this far without Perfect Game getting my name out there.”
As enjoyable and beneficial as those PG experiences have been, nothing can replace the family feeling that accompanies taking the field with your high school teammates and classmates. These guys on this Grizzlies team are the same guys Eissler has grown up playing with – he called it a “brotherhood” – and as much he loves his teammates on his summer and fall teams, this is just a lot more fun.
“We come down here and we expect to win; that’s just what we want to do,” he said. “We want to come out here and compete and try to get better, and the end-goal is to go back to Colorado and try to win a state championship.” Is that a realistic expectation? “Yes. I feel like we have a chance, we just have to mesh and come together early like the other teams that are going to be good back at home.”
There were plenty of options for Eissler when it came to making his final college commitment – he carries a 3.96 grade-point average – with Stanford, Duke, Santa Clara and TCU comprising his final four. He ultimately decided to join the Horned Frogs’ program based entirely on the success head coach Jim Schlossnagle and pitching coach Kirk Saarloos have had in developing their pitchers into early round MLB draft picks.
In 2015 alone, TCU left-handers Alex Young and Tyler Alexander were both second-round selections, and right-handers Riley Ferrell, Preston Morrison and Trey Teakell were scooped-up in the third, eighth and ninth-rounds, respectively.
“That was obviously really appealing to me because (playing professionally) is ultimately my goal,” Eissler said. “It’s a great school in a great area – I wanted to go to a small private school instead of a big public school – and I think that school gives me the best shot of winning (an NCAA) national championship.”
Eissler admitted that the thought of being selected in this year’s upcoming MLB June Amateur Draft has crossed his mind, based only on some conversations he’s had with people within the industry. He’s taking the ultimate wait-and-see approach, knowing a lot of that speculation will either take on a life of its own or fade into the sunset depending on how his senior season at ThunderRidge HS plays out.
In the here and now, Eissler and his ThunderRidge Grizzlies teammates are in the Phoenix area, looking to build their resume and make a run at a Colorado state championship once they get back home. In the meantime: “It’s another beautiful day! Baseball and sunshine! You can’t beat it, right?” Indeed …