Prospect Profile – Jacob Wetzel Can Handle the Bat

Every prospect has their own story. There’s always a beginning, a present, and a future. When the Cubs signed Jacob Wetzel out of Frederick Community College in Frederick,  Maryland, it began interestingly enough with current Cubs prospect catcher Bryce Windham congratulating Wetzel on Twitter. In trying to figure out why Windham would congratulate someone getting signed from a junior college. Turns out they were actually teammates for a little bit at Old Dominion.

Basic info

Height – 5-foot-11

Weight – 225

Throws – Left

Bats – Left

Age – 20

From Walkersville, Maryland

VA: 2018 OF Jacob Wetzel (ODU Commit) of the Maryland Cardinal's 17u laces an RBI 3B to CF pic.twitter.com/quD5J3swkF

— Prospect Wire (@ProspectWire) June 17, 2017

In doing a simple Google search of Wetzel, it’s easy to find out he was a two-sport star in high school and that he originally planned to attend Old Dominion. In fact, he had a full ride scholarship.

But things didn’t work out as planned. Wetzel sank into a depression in his first semester but sought help and received plenty of support from his Old Dominion teammates. However, he wound up leaving the school and then enrolling later at Frederick Community College.

In the spring of 2019 at Frederick, Wetzel rebounded and tore it up as a freshman. He hit .377 with a .510 on base percentage and slugged .667. He hit six home runs and drove in 55 runs in just 50 games. He only struck out 25 times and garnered an amazing 37 free passes to first base. In addition, he pitched 8.1 innings and struck out 16 with a 4.32 ERA

When it came to his sophomore season this spring, the first thing you notice is that he put on 30 pounds of muscle. He’s actually pretty stacked up on top but unfortunately he only got in 17 games this spring before the pandemic shut everything down. Still, Wetzel hit .333 with a .508 on base percentage and drove in seven. He only struck out 12 times but walked 14. He continued to play both ways as he got in 12 innings of work with a 2.25 ERA. All around, those are some pretty good numbers.  

One thing to take into consideration about Wetzel’s stats is that he was probably pitched around quite a bit. Once he got a rep in his JuCo circuit, he probably did not see a lot of good pitches to hit. That helps to explain his ungodly walk numbers and K/BB rate.

For Wetzel, you can easily tell that he lives, breathes, and eats baseball. I’m intrigued a lot by the bat. I don’t know if the Cubs plan to let him be a two-way player or not, but his swing is unique. He generates some pretty easy power just based on the strength of his upper half. If the Cubs can take his bottom half and work it more into his swing, I would really enjoy seeing what he could do. Because, right now, he hits the ball hard as is. If he can hit it even harder with his legs and hips helping out more, that’s going to be amazing.

If there had been baseball this summer, Wetzel would’ve likely spent the next few months at Mesa in the Arizona Rookie League. If he had a good spring next year, he could find his way to South Bend. I’m interested to see how the Cubs work with him to get him to maximize his whole body. Two things are very clear, he has talent and he works hard – the perfect combination. Add in that he’s already dealt with some adversity, that’s a huge life event to go through and come out the other side. That will only help him in the future deal with grind of being a professional player.

I really like the signing and if he can buy into what the Cubs are telling him, we could see some pretty prodigious fly balls in northern Indiana next summer.