Hurtubise Hustles From West Point To Big Leagues Through Louisville

For any player that grows up playing baseball, everything needs to go right to get a college scholarship. Then, for those fortunate enough to earn a college scholarship, they similarly need the right combination of hard work, luck, and talent to earn a shot at professional baseball. Lastly, once a player begins his career in the minors, he needs to work his way up and find the right opportunity for a chance to get the call to the show.

Jacob Hurtubise has been through all that, and more. He earned the chance to play college baseball, choosing to go to the United States Military Academy at West Point. With that commitment to play for Army, Hurtubise chose to serve in the United States Army for a minimum of five years on Active Duty following his graduation.

So, when Hurtubise began his college career at Army in 2017, professional baseball wasn’t an option. Around the same time he was emerging as one of the top college players in the country a few years later, the U.S. government was passing a policy that allowed cadet-athletes to defer their mandatory service obligation to pursue a professional sports career.

With that, Hurtubise was looking for an opportunity to play. In 2020, the Cincinnati Reds gave him that chance at the height of the pandemic, becoming the first baseball player to take advantage of the new policy. Now, Hurtubise is just the second West Point graduate to reach the big leagues with his debut earlier this year and has since spent most of the season in Louisville.

While Hurtubise will serve in the Army once his playing days are over, he is making the most of the chance he has right now, taking the field each day at the top of the Louisville lineup with hopes of getting back to Cincinnati.

Recently, we caught up with Hurtubise to talk about his breakout season, lessons learned from West Point, how he’s helped the Reds off the field, and much more.

You were able to defer your mandatory military service to play professional baseball under a new policy that began in 2020. How were you able to do that and when did that become a possibility?

The policy didn’t exist until the second semester of my senior year, right before I graduated. We had been talking through the channels at West Point, trying to figure out whether or not it was going to be possible. We heard this policy would be coming into existence, but we didn’t know when because the bureaucratic processes can take a bit of time to get established. I was talking with teams, trying to figure everything out. It all came together at the very end. It was stressful not knowing exactly what was going to happen. But it all worked out.

And this was happening in the spring and summer of 2020. What were you doing to get your life in order in the middle of the pandemic?

I was doing remote school from home. We were on spring break when they said we needed to isolate at home. We thought it was going to be two weeks, then we’d be back on campus finishing our senior year. But as it turns out, we spent all of March, April, and May at home and then it was time to graduate. I took my final exams at home. The cool thing about West Point was we actually did have an in-person ceremony. We quarantined for two weeks, and then we graduated.

What did you do in between your graduation and the start of your baseball career?

When I graduated, mostly everything was still shut down. I started working for Amazon for a couple of weeks until I heard something from baseball. I had signed with the Reds while I was working at Amazon because I needed to make a little bit of money. I then I went to the instructional league in Arizona in the fall. Then did a bunch of little, small jobs and gave lessons until it was time for my first spring training.

Are there any skills you learned through your military training at West Point that helped you develop as professional baseball player?

The biggest thing would be on the mental side. This year is the first year I’ve realized how important the mental game is to baseball. Because of the challenges I’ve faced and had to overcome but resiliency is one of them. We talked about grit, perseverance, toughness, all things that I experienced at West Point. It’s not the same as professional baseball but I think that the skills I learned and how challenging it was to go through a school like West Point helped prepare me for life and professional baseball.

What would you be doing right now in September 2024 if you weren’t playing professional baseball?

If I wasn’t playing professional baseball, I’d probably be getting ready to go to what’s called Captain’s Career Course, Triple C, which is the next phase for Army officers. You do your platoon time, then you transition into Captains Career Course, which is essentially building you and preparing you to be a higher-level leader in the Army. A lot of my classmates are there right now.

How often do you think about that when you go out here and play?

It really makes me appreciate the abilities that I was given and how far I’ve come from the day I graduated West Point to today. I never would have thought I would have stepped foot on a Major League Baseball field. But the paths aligned, and it was really cool to be able to do that.

When did you realize you would be able to play professional baseball?

I would say it was after my sophomore year at West Point when I ended up leading the country in stolen bases. That in itself was an eye-popping moment for me when I realized I had an elite tool that could help me get to the next level. Once I was in professional and trying to get to the big leagues, last season I took off as a hitter. Maybe it was a little bit of luck, but it also takes a lot of hard work and dedication to the game.

You mentioned your breakout 2023 season for Double-A Chattanooga, what allowed that breakout to happen for you to jump up the prospect lists?

I was playing free. I really opened myself up last year, thinking it was going to be my last year of professional baseball. I’m a goal-oriented guy. If I didn’t see making the big leagues as a future, I was probably going to hang it up and give the Army a shot because that’s what I know I have in my future. I just gave it everything I had last season, and it ended up paying off for me.

When you got called up to the big leagues, you were actually on the Bats’ injured list and playing rehab games with High-A Dayton. What was that moment like to get the call?

It was an off day. I was at home in Indianapolis. I went home for the off day and I was going to have dinner with my mom and my family because it was Mother’s Day the day before. We were at the grocery store buying groceries for dinner and while we were checking out of the Meijer we were at, I got a call from Reds General Manager Brad Meador. He told me that I needed to get to Arizona because TJ Friedl got hit on his hand and was going on the injured list. So, I hung up with him and told my mom that dinner was cancelled because I needed to go to Arizona. From there, I had to pack my big leagues really quickly, get on a flight to Arizona, and that’s where I made my debut.

After about a month in the big leagues, you came back to Louisville. Was that tough news to hear?

I think it’s a part of the game, especially for a player like me. I know that I can make an impact at that level, but I have to be on. After those first couple weeks, the scouting reports started coming out. There was a big mental block where I couldn’t seem to get over the hurdle of all the pressure I was putting on myself and the pressure I was feeling from other people. It started to build up on me. So, when I got told that I was being sent down, I thought now would be a great time to focus on myself, focus on my games, and get back to who I am because I know I have the ability to impact the game at the big league level.

We heard you’re also using some of what you learned at West Point to help the Reds after the season. What have you been doing over the offseason to keep busy and help the organization?

I’ve been doing baserunning reports for the past two off-seasons. While I was at West Point, I was writing a thesis on baserunning. One of my primary sources that I was using was Nick Wan, who is the head of the Date Science department for the Reds. There was a connection between Nick Wan and one of my professors, they had worked together previously. So when I got to the Reds, I didn’t do anything the first season. But after my second season Nick reached out and asked if I would be interested in doing a little bit of coding to help filter the data to make sense of some of the numbers they had. I thought it was a great opportunity to get my foot in the door in that realm of baseball. I think it would be cool to be able to do something on that side of the game after I’m done playing.

Lastly, what should people expect when they see Jacob Hurtubise is in the lineup?

I’m a give it my all kind of guy. I want to go out there and just hustle. I’m not an ideal baseball player. I don’t hit a lot of home runs. But I feel like you don’t see a lot of hitters like me anymore who rely on their speed, their defense, and their competitiveness to get through the game. That’s what you’re getting, and I hope fans are able to enjoy that style of play.

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.