Daulton Jefferies: A profile in perseverance

Daulton Jefferies stepped back from the pitching rubber, removed his cap and wiped his brow. Facing the Tacoma Rainiers in the top of the third inning on a sweltering Father’s Day Sunday at Las Vegas Ballpark, the No. 1 right-handed pitching prospect of the Oakland A’s was feeling the heat — literally and figuratively.

Having already allowed a double, single and a sacrifice fly that turned a 1-0 lead into a 2-1 deficit, Jefferies was in trouble again after surrendering consecutive two-out singles in the span of three pitches. As the pressure mounted, he was keenly aware of the stakes: The Aviators had lost six straight games, and if they were to avoid a seventh, Jefferies could ill afford to let the Rainiers tack on any additional runs.

After wiping the sweat from his forehead, Jefferies put his cap back on and returned to the rubber. Two pitches later, Tacoma first baseman Eric Filia hit a weak grounder to second base. Inning over. Rally halted. Desperately needed victory still within reach.

By the time Jefferies returned to the mound in the top of the fourth, he had a 3-2 lead. By the time he threw his 82nd and final pitch to end the fifth, he had a 7-2 lead.

The Aviators would end up cruising to a 14-3 victory, and Jefferies’ final numbers were outstanding: five innings, two runs, six hits, four strikeouts and — as is almost always the case when Jefferies pitches — no walks. He retired seven of the last eight batters he faced and became the first Aviators starting pitcher to earn a victory at Las Vegas Ballpark this season.

But what stood out more than anything was Jefferies’ ability to dance out of danger in the pivotal third inning — not just because he kept his team in the game, but because the 25-year-old from Atwater, California, once again revealed a character trait that has defined both his life and career:

He’s a master at overcoming adversity.

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Jefferies has had a love for baseball for as long as he can remember — and actually, even before that. “I always joke that my parents gave me a baseball when I was in my crib.”

He grew up attending his older brother’s baseball games, often lugging a yellow plastic bat to the ballfield and taking swings against anyone willing to toss him a Wiffle Ball. By the time Jefferies was 8 years old, he had talked his way into serving as the bat boy for his brother’s high school summer-league baseball team. One of his responsibilities was to keep the home-plate umpire stocked with baseballs, so when a pitching change led to a break in the action during a game on July 1, 2003, Jefferies grabbed some baseballs and began making his way toward the ump.

What happened next led to Jefferies’ first brush with adversity — serious adversity.

“During pitching changes, the next guys coming up to bat would always grab their bats and start swinging them outside the dugout,” Jefferies says. “Not wanting to get hit, I made sure to walk toward the baseline to give the ump the balls rather than going directly to home plate. Then I thought I heard someone behind me call my name, so I turned around to see who it was.”

When he realized nobody had called out to him, Jefferies turned his head back toward the field. Just as he did, one of his brother’s teammates unintentionally struck him in the face full-force with his bat. “My parents said the sound was like smacking a newspaper on your opposite hand as hard as you can. I remember stumbling a little bit, then falling toward the ground. I didn’t feel anything — just heard ringing in my ears.”

Jefferies was immediately rushed to a children’s hospital near his home in California’s Central Valley, where he had emergency plastic surgery to repair his shattered nose, which he was told “was like smashed potato chips.”

Jefferies was unable to open his eyes for eight days and remained in the hospital for 2½ weeks, during which time his diet consisted primarily of dry Frosted Flakes cereal and cherry slushies. “My tastebuds were gone, and that’s the only thing that sounded good,” he recalls. “In fact, to get my taste back, I had to eat a bunch of sour candy. To this day, I still love sour candy.”

As their son continued his recovery back home, Jefferies’ parents wondered if any lingering trauma would deter him from ever coming near a baseball field again. On the contrary. “I honestly couldn’t even fathom what really happened,” he says of the accident. “So I actually wanted to get back out there as soon as possible.”

Eventually he did, completely unaware of how lucky he was to be alive. “I found out later that if the guy who hit me had swung the bat at an upward angle,” Jefferies says, “there’s a chance I wouldn’t be here today.”

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As Jefferies made his way through Little League and club ball and into high school, there was nothing to suggest he’d one day pitch professionally, let alone be selected with the 37th overall pick of the 2016 amateur draft. That’s because he rarely pitched.

Growing up, Jefferies primarily played shortstop, his favorite big-league player being Colorado Rockies perennial All-Star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. Other than the occasional youth-league game when his strong arm was called upon in the late innings to close out a victory, Jefferies didn’t spend much time on the mound.

That changed late in his sophomore year at Buhach Colony High School after Jefferies’ coaches decided to see if a strong pitching arm was hidden inside their shortstop’s strong throwing arm. The answer was a resounding “Yes!”, and by the end of his junior year Jefferies — who continued to man shortstop on days he didn’t pitch — was named the Central California MVP after adding a .366 batting average to his 8-0 record and 1.26 ERA.

The college offers came flooding in, and Jefferies eventually signed with Cal-Berkeley, which recruited him as a pitcher and shortstop. It didn’t take long, though, for Cal’s coaches to determine their top-notch recruit was far more valuable to the team with a ball in his hand than a bat. And they let Jefferies know it in a not-so-subtle way. “After the fall semester of my freshman year,” he says, “I went to my locker and there was no longer a bat in there.”

Jefferies did occasionally get to play shortstop, but he spent the majority of his time at Cal on the mound — that is, until early in his junior season, when adversity came calling again. After starting the 2015-16 season 7-0 with a sparkling 1.08 ERA in eight starts — numbers that attracted the attention of Major League Baseball scouts — Jefferies suffered a shoulder injury that halted his season and affected his draft stock.

He ended up falling out of the first round of the 2016 draft, but during the Competitive Balance Round that bridges the first and second rounds, Jefferies’ phone rang. He’d been taken with the 37th selection by the Oakland A’s, who play their home games just 100 miles northwest of Atwater.

“I grew up going to A’s and Giants games — more A’s games, because tickets were cheaper,” Jefferies says. “I had [former A’s third baseman] Eric Chavez’s poster in my room. To grow up watching those guys play pretty much in my backyard, then to get drafted by them was a dream come true for me and my family.”

After signing his contract, Jefferies decamped for Rookie Ball in Arizona, where he posted a 2.38 ERA in five starts spanning just 11 1/3 innings. Following spring training in 2017, he was assigned to Class-A Stockton, just an hour’s drive north of his hometown.

Excitement about Jefferies’ budding professional baseball career was building both within his family circle as well as Atwater’s tight-knit, small-town community. But after two appearances with Stockton, Jefferies once again received that “not-so-fast” adversity tap on his shoulder — or, more specifically, his right elbow. He’d soon hear the three words all pitchers dread hearing: Tommy John surgery.

“The initial diagnosis was a little shocking, because I didn’t know much about Tommy John surgery, but also because I had a rubber arm growing up; I didn’t really have any injuries until college,” Jefferies says. “So I just called my parents and told them, ‘This is the deal, this is the plan, and we’re just going to stick to it.’”

That plan: At least a year of post-surgery rest, recovery and rehabilitation. It wasn’t long into the process before Jefferies realized that repairing his mind would be as challenging as repairing his elbow. “It’s takes a lot more of a mental toll than a physical one,” he says of the ligament-replacement surgery. “But if you attack the recovery the right way, you strengthen your mind as much as your body, which is important because while you’re not physically in isolation when you’re recovering from Tommy John, emotionally, you kind of are.”

Jefferies leaned specifically on two individuals to get him through rehab. One was fellow right-handed pitcher and eventual Aviators teammate James Kaprielian, whom the A’s had acquired from the New York Yankees in July 2017 and who also was recovering from Tommy John surgery. The other? Oakley, a puppy that Jefferies got soon after surgery.

“Best investment I ever could’ve made,” he says of Oakley, an Australian Shepherd-Border Collie mix. “I knew I’d have a lot of free time to myself, but what really made it great were those times when I’d come home a little bummed out after a stagnant day of rehab. But then this little thing wiggles up to you and immediately brightens your day.

“So anytime someone who is getting Tommy John asks me, ‘Hey, what should I do?’ I tell them, ‘Get a dog!’”

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After pitching two innings in one start in Rookie Ball at the end of the 2018 season, Jefferies returned to the mound in earnest in 2019, splitting time between Stockton and Double-A Midland (Texas). Combined, he made 26 appearances (15 starts), went 2-2 with a 3.42 ERA and solidified his reputation as one of the best control pitchers in professional baseball — and that includes the big leagues: In 79 innings with Stockton and Midland, Jefferies notched 93 strikeouts and allowed a grand total of … nine walks.

Throw in his numbers from 2016-2018 — when he struck out a total of 28 and walked three in 20 1/3 innings — and Jefferies ended the 2019 season with this almost-impossible-to-believe career stat: 121 strikeouts and 12 walks.

All indications were that Jefferies would at least start the following season in Triple-A with the Aviators, if not challenge for a spot on Oakland’s pitching staff. And then … another dose of adversity, one that affected the entire planet: the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered the entire 2020 Minor League Baseball season.

As one of Oakland’s top prospects, Jefferies was part of the A’s 60-man, alternate-site player pool that was stationed in San Jose, California, throughout the 2020 season. The group of prospects and veteran free agents worked out and regularly participated in intrasquad scrimmages, keeping sharp for when the A’s needed to replace an injured or ineffective player.

Jefferies clearly impressed his coaches and Oakland’s front office during his first six weeks in San Jose, because on September 11, he got the news he’d been waiting to hear his entire life: He was going to the big leagues, taking the roster spot of — ironically — Kaprielian.

Jefferies jumped on a plane bound for Arlington, Texas, where he would face the Rangers on September 12 in the first game of a doubleheader. COVID-19 protocols meant his parents, extended family and friends wouldn’t be able to witness Jefferies’ big-league debut in person. While disappointed that he couldn’t share the experience with loved ones, Jefferies nevertheless savored the moment, understanding all the work he put in and all the obstacles he overcame to reach this point.

“We got to the stadium pretty early that day — nobody was there,” he recalls. “I go out to the field, there’s music blasting and I start running on the warning track, all alone in this brand-new empty stadium. I thought it was the coolest thing.”

Not so cool was what happened once the game started: Stunningly, Jefferies walked two of the first four batters he faced, then with two outs, he surrendered a three-run homer, followed by a two-run homer. In a blink, the A’s trailed 5-0. Although Jefferies retired three of the four Rangers he faced in the second inning, his debut was over after 53 pitches. The next day, he was on another plane, this one headed back to San Jose and the A’s alternate site.

Dejected, angry, devastated — most pitchers in such a situation would’ve been experiencing all these feelings, and understandably so. But Daulton Jefferies isn’t like most pitchers.

“I appreciated the moment the entire time — even when I was giving up bombs,” he says. “Obviously I was disappointed in the results, like any pitcher would be. You want to give your team a chance to win, and I failed to do that that day. But I had come a decently long way, dealing with several injuries to that point. So, selfishly, I was happy just to be there, and I felt like I got what I needed out of that outing, which was a lot of confidence — despite the results.”

He also got a memory he’ll forever cherish. It came during a pregame conversation with catcher Jonah Heim, whom Jefferies played with in Double-A in 2019 before Heim was promoted to the Aviators. “We were walking in from the bullpen to the dugout, and Jonah said, ‘Hey, what’s the No. 1 goal today?’ And I said, ‘Have fun.’ And he said, ‘That’s right!’”

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Despite his brief and inauspicious debut, Jefferies arrived at spring training this past February as one of several candidates to land a spot in Oakland’s five-man starting rotation. He was given every opportunity to prove himself worthy of one of those spots — and prove himself Jefferies did, posting a 1.50 ERA and a team-high 24 strikeouts in five starts spanning 18 innings.

Still, when the A’s broke camp, Jefferies was the odd man out. Adding injury to insult, as he was prepping for the Triple-A season in April, Jefferies was stricken with biceps tendinitis that sidelined him for a month. After arriving in Las Vegas on May 24, though, Jefferies shined, going 2-0 with a 3.77 ERA in his first six starts.

Although Jefferies has struggled in his last two outings, he still has amassed 31 strikeouts and walked just seven in 35 innings, and it’s only a matter of time before he earns a permanent promotion to Oakland. Just don’t look for him to lobby for it.

“I’m being patient and not playing GM,” Jefferies says. “I’m just going out to the mound and trying to be as consistent as possible. That’s all I can control.”

It’s easy to see such a statement and react with cynicism. After all, how many 25-year-olds on the precipice of fulfilling their dream of being a full-time major-leaguer possess the maturity to keep things in perspective? How many aren’t so full of themselves as to believe, deep down, that they belonged in the big leagues yesterday?

The answer: Not many. Perhaps, though, this is what comes with earning a Ph.D. in adversity: an ability to be introspective, to appreciate the now and to look at the future with a broader worldview.

“After Tommy John surgery, I came to the realization that baseball really isn’t the most important thing in my life,” Jefferies says. “If I stopped playing right now, I think I’d be happy with what I’ve done on the field. To be among only a handful of guys in history to get the opportunity to play professional baseball was a major accomplishment for me and my family.

“At the same time, I wouldn’t be happy knowing how much bigger of an impact I could’ve made off the field because of baseball.”

That’s not just lip service, either. Among other charitable endeavors, Jefferies often visits the same kinds of children’s hospitals that once cared for him. So as much as he’s looking forward to racking up victories and strikeouts (and, yes, limiting walks) with the A’s, he’s just as eager to get involved with helping the greater Oakland community anyway he can.

Because he knows firsthand that he can make a difference.

“A few years ago, I organized a visit to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital with a bunch of friends who were playing in the Arizona Fall League, including [New York Mets slugger and former Las Vegas 51] Pete Alonso,” he says. “One mom started crying because her kid didn’t want to get out of bed that day, but when he realized we were there, he immediately jumped out of bed. That was the moment when I realized, ‘Wow, we can really impact kids — or anyone, really — simply with our presence.’ That’s pretty special.

“I know a lot of professional athletes do a lot of charity work, and it’s amazing. And I want to try to be one of those guys. I want people to remember me more for what I do off the field than what I do on the field.”