Maria Carrillo, SRJC grad Jake Scheiner tearing up Triple-A, waiting on MLB call-up

Jake Scheiner is making it very difficult for the Seattle Mariners to keep him in the minor leagues.

The former Maria Carrillo and Santa Rosa Junior College standout is tearing it up in his first full season with the Tacoma Rainiers, Seattle’s Triple-A affiliate. The 27-year-old infielder/designated hitter is leading the team in nearly every key offensive category and is arguably one of the top statistical hitters in all of Minor League Baseball.

As of Saturday morning, he was third in MiLB in RBIs (75), second in runs (68) and tied for second in home runs (22) to go along with slashing numbers of .283/.399/.579.

But as incredible as Scheiner has been this year, a big league call-up has yet to materialize.

“It’s a mental grind,” Scheiner told The Press Democrat this week. “If you watch around the league, a lot of it is out of your control, which is the tough part, ya know? But it’s also helped me grow mentally, just trying to remember to control what you can control, enjoy life, be present, be where your feet are and everything will take care of itself.”

Currently in his sixth season in the minors, Scheiner, a 2013 Maria Carrillo grad, has had to carve out his own path to pro sports. He wasn’t heavily recruited coming out of high school and redshirted his first year at SRJC before a monster sophomore year landed him a Division I scholarship and ultimately led to a fourth-round selection in the 2017 MLB draft.

He hasn’t gotten to the cusp of MLB by being impatient.

“I can’t put too much focus on where I should be, because then that snowballs your play, really,” he said. “You’ve got to be present and enjoy it. I mean, I’m playing baseball for my work. It doesn’t matter where I’m at, I’ve just got to enjoy it and do my best.”

Scheiner’s journey to professional baseball has been well-documented but bears rehashing. A four-year varsity player at Carrillo — where he played alongside Andrew Vaughn and Clayton Andrews, who have both seen playing time in MLB — he had no college offers and opted to go to SRJC, where he had an average redshirt freshman season before erupting in his final year as a Bear Cub.

Scheiner was arguably the top player in the state in 2016, slashing .402/.486/.674 with eight home runs, 61 RBIs and 51 runs to lead SRJC to a state title. He was named the NorCal Player of the Year, a First-Team All-American and was the MVP of the state tournament.

SRJC head coach Damon Neidlinger remembers the turning point for Scheiner. Always a hard worker, a true student of the game, Scheiner had a glaring swing flaw that was holding him back. Over Christmas break, before his breakout sophomore season, he asked Neidlinger if he could take home Wiffle balls for a drill to work out his hitch.

When he came back to the team three weeks later, he had nearly torn his rotator cuff due to the amount of work he put into his swing.

“In true Jake fashion, he didn’t tell anybody,” Neidlinger recalled. “His arm was essentially worn out from doing this one-handed drill and he kept it to himself and maybe the trainer. But he didn’t broadcast it, and that’s exactly who Jake is. He went all out with this drill because he wanted it so bad.”

The difference was noticeable almost immediately.

“When he returned back, when he took BP, you knew something had changed,” Neidlinger said.

He parlayed his breakout season into a scholarship with the University of Houston, where he continued his upward trajectory. He slashed .346/.432/.667 with 18 home runs and 64 RBIs en route to All-American honors and was drafted in the fourth round of the 2017 MLB draft by the Philadelphia Phillies.

He improved year after year in the minors and steadily advanced through the ranks. From starting in short-season single-A ball in 2017, he ended 2019 in high-A. He also ended 2019 playing for a new franchise. Scheiner was traded from Philadelphia to Seattle in a deal for Jay Bruce in 2019.

He, like thousands of other minor leaguers, was left to fend for himself when COVID struck in 2020, but spent the time away from the team training religiously at his house in Houston. He started the 2021 season in Double-A, where he really made an impression over two seasons.

From 2021-22, he hit 39 home runs with 165 RBIs and a slashing line of .253/.350/.455. Late in the 2022 season, when he hit 21 of those home runs and more than 100 RBIs, he came agonizingly close to making his MLB debut. He was called up by the Mariners and joined the team but never took the field. He learned just before first pitch that he was going to be scratched and sent back down.

“We were close,” he said. “I had a locker, I had a jersey — pretty much found out about 45 minutes before the game that I wasn’t in there.

“I feel like you could look at it two ways — you could be upset, be mad and all that, but I took it the other way,” Scheiner continued. “I took it as, ‘Look how far I’ve come.’ It was an accomplishment on its own to be able to be recognized. I didn’t have any offers coming out of high school, it was always a long shot for me, and knowing how close I was really kind of helped me focus in. Like, this is real. I can do this.”

Motivated by his brief taste of the pros, he finished out his Triple-A season batting .327 with nine home runs and 42 RBIs through the final two months of the season.

That momentum has carried into this summer for Scheiner’s best minor league season yet.

But the path to MLB is never straightforward, much like Scheiner’s career. Players more talented than Scheiner have toiled away in the minors for their entire careers, simply never getting an opportunity at the highest level. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before Seattle brings him up, but nothing is ever a certainty, especially in baseball.

Part of the issue in Scheiner’s case is Seattle’s depth chart. While he has experience at both first and third base, two of the Mariners’ better offensive players in Ty France and Eugenio Suarez inhabit those positions.

“He’s gotta take someone’s spot, right?” said Derek DeBenedetti, who coached Scheiner at Maria Carrillo.

“With the numbers he’s putting up, it’s gotta be hard for him,” Neidlinger said. “Like it must feel like he’s been held down, and whatever that inner conflict, those voices are hard to block out and that’s part of this journey of becoming a professional.”

Scheiner admits it’s been frustrating journey at times, full of many “What else do I have to do?” moments. But he’s also keeping perspective. His dream is within reach. There’s no way he could turn back now.

“It took a lot of work just to get to the collegiate level, and once I got there I never stopped working,” he said. “It really is a crazy story and one that I hope a lot of kids can gravitate to because I was never the best on the team growing up, I was always just the hardest worker in the room. It’ll mean a lot (when I make my MLB debut) just knowing everything I’ve been through. Wherever it takes me in life, I know I’ve learned a lot from this entire experience.”

You can reach Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @JustGusPD.