STARKVILLE — For three years, Jake Gautreau had a very good job with the Boras Corporation, the most powerful entity in professional baseball player representation. Gautreau was doing the player evaluation and recruitment in Texas and Louisiana, the two areas he knows better than any other. He and his family were living in his wife’s hometown.
All that was missing was on-field coaching. Mississippi State gave him that opportunity.
Gautreau was announced as MSU’s new assistant coach and recruiting coordinator in June; after a summer full of recruiting travel, Gautreau met the media for the first time Tuesday.
“Being back on the field, working alongside a really good friend of mine is very special, very unique,” Gautreau said. “Being able to be a part of this with (MSU head coach) Andy (Cannizaro) here was a no-brainer.”
The new job gets Gautreau back on the field, but as he sees it, his title of recruiting coordinator contains shades of his old job.
“(The Boras Corporation is) looking for elite talent. I was still recruiting, I was still evaluating the top players in the country,” Gautreau said. “Looking for the best players for the Boras Corporation and looking for the best players for Mississippi State really isn’t different.”
Gautreau’s relationship with Cannizaro goes back to college, when the two were teammates at Tulane. It continued to present day when the two would regularly call each other during the 2017 season, joking about the success Cannizaro was experiencing. Gautreau would call him a, “magician,” for winning the way he was with a roster so ravaged with injuries.
He couldn’t help but wonder if Cannizaro was his ticket back to coaching.
Gautreau had other opportunities to get into coaching before Cannizaro came to him, but he also knew his job with the Boras Corporation gave him the security to be more selective with the jobs he was offered. The moment that sold him on MSU, if he were to get the call, came when MSU lost in the Baton Rouge Super Regional to end its season: he watched players at the podium praise Cannizaro, calling him the best coach in the country and essentially guarantee Cannizaro will bring a national championship to school.
On top of that, the opportunity to work next to a long-time friend passed his qualifications, calling it, “very special, very unique.”
The MSU program being what it is certainly helped Cannizaro’s pitch.
“When I first get in touch with a player or when a player gets in touch with me, they immediately want to come to Mississippi State, they want to visit, they want to know about this program,” Gautreau said. “People call me and feed me players, feed Coach Cannizaro players. A lot of people want to be a part of it.
“It’s pretty special when you get somebody on the phone and they’re all in now.”
Bring it all together and Gautreau said it took him about 10 seconds to take the job — just as soon as he checked with his wife.
Now the two have teamed up for a summer of recruiting that saw MSU reach far and wide for commitments, as far north as Canadian pitcher Eric Cerentola with others from Colorado, Louisiana, Florida and more.
It’s part of the Cannizaro recruiting approach trusted to Gautreau.
“Wherever there are good players, we’re going to try to be there,” he said. “Just because somebody is far away from home or far away from Mississippi State doesn’t mean they don’t want to come here.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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