Jake Steels Joins Atlanta Braves Organization | College Sports

Jake Steels is the personification of a local player who stays local, makes for a good saga.

The Atlanta Braves selected the center fielder in the 18th round of the Major League Baseball draft on Tuesday. En route to being selected to play professional baseball, Steels was a standout at Righetti High School, Hancock College and Cal Poly.

“I was born and raised in Orcutt,” Steels said. “Youth baseball all the way.” Steels also played football at Righetti and was a wide receiver and strong defensive back for the 2018 Righetti football team that reached the CIF Central Section Division 2 final under then-coach Tony Payne.

As for his baseball career, now that he’s been drafted, Steels can finally relax for a while.

There was no draft party at the Steels family home during the MLB draft, Jake Steels said.

“We were all pretty nervous,” the Santa Maria Valley native said. “It’s a big relief to be selected.”

“I’m going to head down to Florida this weekend to work out and do my thing. It’ll take a little while,” before the Braves hand him his first assignment, Steels said.

“I’ve talked to a lot of teams. The Braves have shown a lot of interest throughout the draft process.”

Jake Steels has good baseball genes. The San Diego Padres organization selected Jake’s father, James Steels, in the eighth round of the 1979 MLB draft, shortly after James graduated from Santa Maria High School.

James Steels played parts of two seasons in the major leagues, 36 games for the Texas Rangers in 1988 and 13 games for the San Francisco Giants in 1989.

Unlike Jake, James Steels “was more of a corner outfielder, left to right,” Jake Steels said.

Jake Steels said “a few teams, nothing serious,” showed interest in him ahead of the 2023 MLB Draft. “I wanted to finish my senior year at Cal Poly,” Jake said.

His decision paid off. Steels posted some of the best numbers of his college career in his final season at Cal Poly. Steels led the Mustangs in batting average (.381), RBIs (34), on-base percentage (.494) and OPS (1.052). Steels was second on the team in slugging percentage (.558).

In center field, Steels did not commit a single error in his 124 fielding opportunities.

At Hancock, Steels led the Bulldogs in batting average at .416, RBIs with 33, OBP at .505 and slugging percentage at .600-plus in his sophomore season.

“All that time spent training at Hancock really helped me in my development,” Steels said. “I don’t know if it would have made a difference if I had gone straight to a four-year school out of high school, but I can definitely attribute a lot of my success to my time at Hancock.”

“Jake has the tools that are supposed to play professional baseball,” said Kyle Tognazzini, who was the Steels’ baseball coach at Righetti.

“Every time he plays, he has the opportunity to do something that impresses somebody, something that’s never been seen before. The Braves have a good opportunity and I think he has a real chance to go far in professional baseball.”

Jake Steels persevered through a tough year in high school. He suffered a season-ending ankle injury against Dos Pueblos in Righetti’s final nonleague football game of the 2019 season. The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out what could have been his final season of high school baseball.

“It was a tough time, but I had to persevere, you know, get through it,” Steels said.

Tognazzini said, “It’s such a cool story to see a kid who stayed local, Righetti, Hancock, Cal Poly, get this opportunity, and we’re all excited to see what happens next.”