Apr 28, 2025 By Chris Dugan 4 min read

This time last year, Jacob McCaskey was willing to travel anywhere, and play any position on the diamond, just to start his professional baseball career.

So the former multi-position standout at PennWest California – then known as California University – packed his gear and boarded a flight from Pittsburgh to Denver. Then McCaskey made an hour drive to the town of Windsor, Colo., to play for the Northern Colorado Owlz of the independent Pioneer League.

Later, to make sure he could get to the ballpark each day and get around Windsor, McCaskey had his car shipped to Colorado from his home in Tarentum.

Hey, nobody said starting a professional baseball career was going to be easy.

While with Northern Colorado, McCaskey played in 54 games, including 35 as a relief pitcher. The other appearances were as an infielder. He developed into one of Northern Colorado’s top relievers, pitching to a 2-1 record, 5.44 ERA and 44 strikeouts in 44.2 innings in a league known for its hitter-friendly ballparks and high-scoring games.

When the season was over, McCaskey made a 21-hour drive back to Western Pennsylvania.

“That wasn’t fun,” he said.

This spring, the trip to the ballpark was significantly shorter – about 50 miles. McCaskey signed in the offseason with the Wild Things and is trying to win a spot in Washington’s completely revamped bullpen.

And, it will be just one position this time for McCaskey, who played four different spots for Cal from 2019 to 2022. He received a fifth season of eligibility that was spent at the Division I level, at Gardner-Webb, where he played 37 games at shortstop and pitched in nine during the 2023 season.

“I saw the success I had last year as a pitcher. You can only play this game so long and I want to make it as far as I possibly can,” said McCaskey, who played his high school ball for Deer Lakes. “I knew that would be difficult to do from both sides of the field, so I felt like my ceiling is a little higher as a pitcher, and I can take my game a little further being on the mound. … I’m putting all my eggs in the pitching basket.”

There are plenty of spots open in the Wild Things’ bullpen. None of the relievers who finished last season on the active roster have returned. That means McCaskey is starting even with all the other relief pitchers in camp.

The battle for roster spots heats up this morning when the Wild Things begin a series of spring training games leading up to the Frontier League season opener May 9 at Windy City. The Wild Things will play today at Florence.

McCaskey says he’s a much better pitcher than he was in college. At Cal, he had a 6-1 record in 2022 and was 8-2 over his final two seasons. Pitching in the Pioneer League, with its unique problems for pitchers – Northern Colorado’s ballpark has an elevation of 4,770 feet – made him learn to become a pitcher not just a thrower.

“In that league, you can’t just throw the ball over the plate. You have to learn what your pitches do and learn your craft, learn how to get guys out when you don’t have your good stuff,” he said.

“At Northern Colorado, I played for a manager, Frank Gonzales, whose son Marco, played last season in the majors for the Pirates. Frank is a really knowledgeable guy who helped me a lot.”

But it took help from some former Cal players to get McCaskey to Washington. After playing for Northern Colorado, he had ex-Vulcans standout Sam DiMatteo, who coaches a summer league team in the state of California, along with Casey Dill, a junior college coach who has ties to the Frontier League, to circulate a video of McCaskey pitching and contact independent teams.

Washington manager Tom Vaeth went to see McCaskey pitch during the offseason at Fennell Brothers Baseball in Allison Park. The facility is operated in part by former Cal and Wild Things player Mick Fennell. McCaskey was then offered a contract by the Wild Things.