By joshjacksonmilb

By Josh Jackson / MiLB.com

Now that summer is in full swing and the Cape Cod Baseball League and other elite collegiate wood-bat circuits have begun, we at MiLB.com are going to take an occasional look back at how current prospects performed during their final amateur showcases.

Cliff Welch/MiLB.com

What better place to start than with catcher Kyle Schwarber, who’s batting .322 with a .440 on-base percentage for the Double-A Tennessee Smokies and is currently ranked by MLB.com as the Cubs’ No 2 prospect?

Before Schwarber was selected out of Indiana University with the fourth pick of the 2014 Draft, the Midwesterner had made quite a name for himself in Massachusetts.

He first made a splash with the Wareham Gatemen in 2012, which was the summer between his freshman and sophomore years. Schwarber split his time behind the plate and left field, but it was the way he stung the ball that left a mark.

With a .343 average, eight homers and 38 RBIs over 44 games that year, Schwarber’s bat was a key component in helping the Gatemen reach the playoffs. But the best — and worst — was yet to come.

Wareham was down, 5–2, to Yarmouth-Dennis in the ninth inning of the championship game, thanks in part to a fielding error by Schwarber in left. He’d also struck out in each of his first three at-bats, once with a runner on, and twice to start an inning.

“I still remember that game like it’s the back of my hand,” Schwarber said after a four-hit performance for the Smokies in late April. “It was probably the worst game of my life for the first eight innings, and then in extra innings I was able to turn it around. I’d just made the error and dropped a ball in the outfield to let a run score, and my coach [Cooper Farris] came over and said, ‘Is it going to get any worse than that?’

“I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘OK, good. I don’t want to kick you out of the game.’”

Schwarber homered to start the bottom of the ninth. Three batters later, Mott Hyde (now an Astros prospect) tied the game with another dinger. With two outs in the top of the 10th, a runner on first and the game deadlocked at five, Schwarber stepped to the dish and played the hero again, hammering a 1–2 pitch out of the yard.

“We were heading into the 10th and a teammate came over and said, ‘Hey, keep your head in it,’ and I did and eventually I hit the home run that just happened to be pretty important.”

In addition to assuring a Gatemen championship, the Middletown, Ohio native earned the Cape League’s Playoff MVP Award.

After a summer like that, what could keep Schwarber from returning to the Cape after his sophomore year? Well, he certainly had a lot going on. His Hoosiers reached the College World Series, and directly after that Schwarber joined Team USA.

Still, he came back to Wareham in time to suit up in nine Gatemen games. What did he do in his first game that year? Same old, same old –- he hit a two-run homer to tie it in the ninth, capping a 4-for-4 performance.

“I was really happy about [returning],” Schwarber said. “I had a good relationship with my coach, and I told him, ‘Hey, even if I do go to Team USA, I’m going to come back if we’re not in playoff contention.’ We weren’t at all, so I was really happy to be able to go back and spend time there with my coach and that team.

“There was another Indiana player [Will Coursen-Carr] out there, and I was able to help him out a little bit. It was a good summer overall, being able to play with Team USA and on the Cape again.”

Through his stay that abbreviated season, he batted .432 (16-for-37).