It was the summer between Adam Kloffenstein’s junior and senior years of high school when the Blue Jays pitching prospect got a reality check that helped propel him into the professional game.

Kloffenstein turned 17 that summer. He was used to doing what he wanted, being “the man” around Magnolia, Texas: population 2,083, about 70 kilometres northwest of Houston.

It was also the summer he tried out for the Perfect Game All-American Classic, Under Armour All-America showcase and Team USA. Three teams he wanted to make, but didn’t.

“It was kind of a wake-up call (like), ‘Hey, I’m not as good as I think I am. I’m going to get by in high school, but doing what I want to do for a living is going to be a lot harder than just God-given talent,’” Kloffenstein said this past week.

Dennis Koenck, his strength trainer in Houston, remembers a teenager who was almost ready to quit after the setback. The pair instead met to hash out the pitcher’s goals, which he wrote down and gave to Koenck. Two things became clear: Kloffenstein was pissed, and he was committed to doing whatever it took to become a pro ballplayer.

“I’d never seen a look the way that I saw when he came in. He was like, ‘No, I want to do this. I’m going to go do this,’” Koenck said.

Kloffenstein had a similar talk with his mother Renee.

“He was upset … but he looked at me and he said, ‘Mom, you know, I haven’t been disappointed much so I’ll learn from this. This will be OK,’” she said. “There’s probably never been a prouder moment than that moment, seeing him embrace that disappointment.”

Kloffenstein started waking up at 4:30 a.m. to hit the gym before school, on top of sessions at lunch and day’s end. Koenck set up the six-foot-five right-hander with a nutrition plan, and Renee watched as her boy slimmed down and gained muscle.

“I think he kind of thought, ‘There’s a lot of Adams. I think I’m going to have to make myself stand out,’” Renee said. “He was eating fish and broccoli, all this stuff. I was like, ‘Who are you? No more macaroni and cheese?’”

The lifestyle changes came easy, said Kloffenstein.

“It was so clear to me that all I had to do was work hard,” he said. “I’d been blessed with the talent and the abilities. I just had to take advantage of that.”

The training paid off. Taylor Shiflett, a coach at Magnolia High, watched as the righty averaged about 13 strikeouts a game in his senior year, while walking just 19 in 78 innings.

“He always threw hard, but his control between his junior and senior year was exceptional,” Shiflett said.

Texas is known for its football culture, but Magnolia has produced four big-league prospects in the past four years. General managers and scouts got a two-for-one deal in 2018, the year Kloffenstein was drafted by Toronto in the third round. Infielder Jordan Groshans, now the Jays’ No. 3 prospect, was a teammate of Kloffenstein’s and in the same class.

Groshans went 12th overall to the Jays, but agreed to a deal worth nearly $1 million (all dollars U.S.) less than his slot value, allowing Toronto to get creative and pay Kloffenstein nearly $2 million more than the value of the 88th slot where he landed. It was first-round money, just not in the first round.

The $2.4-million deal Kloffenstein signed helped put any lingering doubts in his mind to rest, though he knows that flying under the radar — and coming face to face with people who didn’t think he had the stuff to become a big-league starter — kept him honest and made him work harder.

“I haven’t faced a ton of adversity in my life ... But I want to be the guy that everyone’s like, ‘Hey, watch out for this guy, he’s going to be a big leaguer one day,’” he said.

Kloffenstein, who turns 19 on Sunday, is on his way. He is the Jays’ 11th-ranked prospect — sixth among pitchers — with a 2.16 ERA in 12 starts for the Vancouver Canadians in the Class-A short-season Northwest League. His last two starts were particularly strong, giving up just seven hits combined over 12 shutout innings while punching out 15 batters.

He counts some of the Jays’ other top pitching prospects as good friends: Nate Pearson, Vancouver teammate Alek Manoah and fellow Texan Simeon Woods Richardson. Mentors? Aaron Sanchez, Troy Tulowitzki and Ryan Borucki.

Before the draft, Kloffenstein said he focused on stats — velocity, whatever would get him noticed. Today, he’s more concerned about development — on the field and off. He started this season intent on setting routines, improving command of his fastball and getting ahead in counts. He says he’s happy with the progress, but not satisfied: “Until my ERA is 0.00, I can still do better.”

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He says he feeds off hearing his name mentioned as part of the Jays’ future, something he and Pearson — recently promoted to Triple-A Buffalo — were texting about recently.

Mom Renee says her son is keen to pay back the investment the Jays have made in him: “He can’t relax because he’s been chosen to be where he’s at now. This is just the beginning.”

Koenck is hardly surprised by the pitcher’s early success. Whenever scouts at Magnolia High asked what changed for the righty between his junior and senior years, the strength trainer — who plans to hand deliver Kloffenstein’s old list of high school goals when he reaches the big leagues — had a simple answer: “All he did was everything he said he wanted to do.”

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