Jagger Haynes: Making the Jump

SAN ANTONIO — For years, people in minor league baseball said the toughest leap for a young player was from High-A to Double-A. Shifts in league alignments and smaller rosters that force players to move up faster have changed that.

“When you take a high school kid and move him up the ladder, assuming they don’t repeat a level, every year these are going to be the best pitchers or hitters that they have seen in their lives,” said Missions pitching coach Jeff Andrews, who has been working in baseball for nearly 30 years.

“So there is going to be some level of angst and anxiety.”

Jagger Haynes‘ path navigation each of those jumps has had some bumps, but the 22-year-old has handled each one well. Injuries limited him to just 25.1 innings between being drafted in the fifth round in 2020 and 2023. Once he got healthy, the lefty from North Carolina has shown an intriguing mix of swing-and-miss stuff while working to dial in his command consistently.

He has delivered a 4.27 ERA in 24 starts and 99 innings for the Missions this year, the best totals on the staff after Henry Baez and Braden Nett were traded at the deadline.

While some of the results have been mixed, as with most of his career, the trajectory is on the upswing.  In the last three months, he has held Texas League batters to a .200 batting average and has a 2.81 ERA at home in 12 starts.

“Just attacking hitters more, it’s really that simple,” said Haynes on his increased success. “Keep pitching the same way when nobody is on or you have the bases loaded, attack the hitter.  That’s the gist of it.”

Haynes got off to a brutal start in Fort Wayne in 2024, leaving him with a 21.21 ERA after making it through only 4.2 innings in his first three starts. He then regrouped and was able to lead the team in strikeouts with 114 on the year. Navigating that jump helped him when he struggled to a lesser degree early this season.

“The consistent thing the last two years might be just the nerves of it,” said Haynes. “You have the whole winter to think about what you are going to do, and you might try to do too much. You aren’t playing free; as the season goes on, it starts to get a little easier.

“It’s only my second full season, so I did learn from last year, and it wasn’t as rough.

“And it’s much easier to turn around a couple of outings that you really want to go deeper into and build off of, as opposed to last year.”

Andrews, who is known for being blunt, likes what he has seen with Haynes.

“He has a fastball, slider, and changeup,” said Andrews on the 6-foot-3 North Carolinian’s repertoire. “All of them have value and are productive, but the slider is the best one. He has the ability towards the end of the year for all of them to be strikeable pitches on demand, because that is what he is going to need to be able to do in the big leagues.

“He isn’t the type of guy who is going to blow anyone away with plus velocity or movement. What will take him there is being able to have strikeable pitches on demand. He will need to change speeds and location on demand, and he has the potential to do that.”

For Haynes, part of the success of the slider comes from the progress he’s made on the pitch he can play off of it to go the other way, the changeup.

“That was the pitch that I was focused on during the winter and spring training,” said Haynes. “I think I’ve made a ton of improvement with both my changeup and my slider.

“For me, the key to the changeup is, it’s not so much a feel pitch, but it’s like any other pitch. You have your grip, you throw it, and you trust that you did it the correct way.”

After a game in July, manager Luke Montz, talked about how much growth he has seen in Haynes since the start of the year.

“Jagger is starting to learn not only the art of pitching, but his strengths and how to pitch to them,” said Montz. “He’s coming into the dugout now between innings and breaking down what he is doing right and how he could be better. He wasn’t doing that at the beginning of the season.

“As a former catcher who was always trying to get my pitchers to throw pitches with conviction, that is what you are starting to see with him. He’s learning sequences and getting guys out.”

As Andrews and Montz both noted, the key for Haynes in the future will boil down to one thing: becoming more of a pitcher.

“The slider moves down and to the right; it’s a little wobbly,” said Andrews.  “Right now, I don’t see the need for a secondary spin pitch like a curveball. I would rather him keep improving what he has.  

“The key for him is the maturity level, to understand his current situation and take control of what he is doing.  On the physical level, can he really command his fastball better? He can command it, and the key is to see what we see in practice and take it into games.

“I’ve seen everything I need to see from Jagger in practice, but it’s the part about these being the best hitters he has ever seen and how that translates to games. There is a defensiveness in him that needs to be addressed and managed better in the game.

“In a few games, we have given up leadoff walks.  We can’t do that, and won’t do that.  He needs to manage the game better to be successful. If it sounds like you are picking on things, and we’re not.  It’s about how to help someone achieve greater success.”

Haynes, who has discussed the significant impact of learning from all the coaches in the Padres’ system, particularly Andrews and his coach last season, Thomas Eschleman, has seen tremendous growth since entering professional baseball just out of high school, both on and off the field. But also knows there is still more to come.

“When someone gets here [Double-A] at 22 or 23 on, this is what they are going to be physically,” said Andrews. “You aren’t going to see a great spike in velocity or spin or grow five inches; this is it.

“The goal is to improve and become more consistent. If you ever want to be taken seriously in this game, it is consistency.  If you want people in the front office to talk about you, you need to be consistent.  If you want the manager to like you, you need to be consistent.

“They have to know what they are going to get to manage a game every time out.”