Hard-throwing pitchers are associated with a certain mythology, and Jacob Misiorowski already possesses more of it than most players twice his age. However, the most important aspect of his story is likely the one that is overlooked or nearly ignored. There was a more subdued era on a small campus in southwest Missouri before the 102.3 mph fastballs, the All-Star selection that divided baseball, and the Brewers cap with the number 32 stitched on the side. No one really wants to discuss the years a player wasn’t a star, so it’s easy to overlook.
Neosho, where Crowder College is located, is a town that most people pass on their way to another location. The baseball facilities are not very large. Glamorous recruiting videos don’t highlight the fields. However, after renouncing his initial commitment to Oklahoma State, Misiorowski, a young man from Grain Valley who had lost his entire senior high school season due to the pandemic, chose to settle here. That decision is telling in some way. He could have continued on the more expansive route. He didn’t.
For him, the 2021 season at Crowder was essentially a short one. A knee injury ended it after two games. Red shirt. A young pitcher’s confidence can either be shattered or sharpened into something more difficult when they are nineteen years old, far from home, and watching teammates play while you ice your knee in a training room. It appears to have done the latter in Misiorowski’s case, though it’s difficult to determine what kind of person he would have become in the absence of that missed year. Injuries can sometimes show the true nature of motivation.
He had already decided to transfer to LSU by the fall of his redshirt year, making him the first Crowder Roughrider to ever head to Baton Rouge. However, the 2022 junior college season took place before he ever wore purple and gold, and what transpired was remarkable. It begins at fifteen. Ten victories and no defeats. 2.72 ERA. In 76 innings, 136 strikeouts were recorded. figures that would appear impressive at any level. They alluded to something different at a junior college, where scouts were already waiting in line to witness it firsthand.
Then came the MLB Combine, which was essentially the end of his amateur career. Misiorowski pitched the event’s eight fastest pitches. The average speed of his fastball was 99.8 miles per hour. on average. That figure represents the middle of the distribution rather than a peak. It’s difficult not to feel as though everyone in attendance was witnessing something they weren’t quite sure how to appreciate when watching footage from that combine now, given what happened later. Luckily, the Brewers did. In order to completely avoid LSU, they paid him more than twice the slot value and selected him 63rd overall.
All of it has a subtle irony. Misiorowski was recruited, courted, and committed to Louisiana State, but he never pitched an inning there. Practically speaking, his entire college career was made up of those redshirt months and the incredible 2022 season at a junior college that most major league fans had never heard of. When larger programs would have been controlling his arm, Crowder gave him innings. He received reps from it. He told The Athletic that it provided him with the necessary grind.
The route through Neosho might not have been the ideal one. Most likely it wasn’t. However, the Grain Valley kid who missed his senior season found something at a smaller school that he might not have received at a larger one. Above all, that seems to be the more accurate account of the Miz’s origins.
