St. Louis Cardinals prospect has five pitches, one dream with Peoria Chiefs

PEORIA — Cooper Hjerpe grew up on a ranch in the Capay Valley in California.

Now the highly touted St. Louis Cardinals prospect is down on the farm in the high-A Midwest League, seeding his promising pro career with the Peoria Chiefs.

He went from the NCAA playoffs with Oregon State to a first-round pick in the MLB Draft last June, then waited until this 2023 season to throw a pitch in his first pro game.

Those pitches have come with the Chiefs, for whom the left-handed starter is 2-3 with a 4.32 ERA in seven starts. The Chiefs have opened 19-18 and are in fourth place in the MWL West Division through Friday.

Hjerpe has helped them by tossing 33 ⅓ innings with 44 strikeouts and 20 walks, and batters are hitting .208 against him.

An early season outing, against Wisconsin, was a no-hit effort through 5⅔ innings in a scoreless duel. He's averaged 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings. But he's also given up eight homers.

"My goal was always to play professional baseball," said Hjerpe, 22. "The dream really came alive for me in college at Oregon. I knew there that I could play in the majors one day, I believe I can do it.

"You have to do the work, and really, everyone's road is different. I'm comfortable with the path I've started on."

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A star at Oregon State

Hjerpe emerged as a national star in his third, and final, season at Oregon State in 2022. The 6-foot-3, 201-pounder will never forget his final outing at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field, in Corvallis, Ore, in mid-June.

With a berth to the College World Series on the line in a Super Regional series against Auburn, Hjerpe suddenly found himself ill the night before he was to take the mound with his team facing elimination.

"The team thought it was some kind of bug," Hjerpe said. "But I was at home with a 105-degree fever and I knew it was serious. I had to call the coach. Turned out, I had COVID."

Weak and feeling sick, Hjerpe's manager told him he'd have to miss the final home start of his college career.The next morning, Hjerpe called and left a message for the manager: "I'm taking the ball."

He sure did. The redshirt sophomore retired eight straight batters to open the game and carried a no-hitter into the fourth inning. He worked into the sixth, struck out six, allowed three hits and three runs and enabled Oregon State to dodge elimination.

When he walked off the mound for the final time, the sellout crowd at Goss Stadium started chanting his name, and didn't stop until he emerged from the dugout for a curtain call.

"No way I was missing pitching that last game," Hjerpe said. "Then what happened was the cherry on top, that crowd, that goodbye, it was something you never forget."

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Oregon State lost the series the next day, but Hjerpe finished his college career with a resume no MLB team could resist.

He earned College Baseball Foundation and Perfect Game Pitcher of the Year honors, made four All-America lists and earned all-Pac 12 honors. He led the NCAA with 161 strikeouts. He struck out 257 in 192⅓ innings over three years at Oregon State, including a 17-strikeout performance against No. 2-ranked Stanford in April of 2022.

The Cardinals come calling

Every player remembers MLB Draft Day. Hjerpe spent his at home in Capay, Calif.

Scouts projected him as the first college pitcher to be drafted in the first round in 2022. He proved to be the third one chosen, by the Cardinals with the 22nd pick overall. St. Louis signed him at slot value for $3.18 million.

"I'd seen so many great players at Oregon State go in the MLB Draft over the years," Hjerpe said. "It meant a lot to be part of that group."

Hjerpe is a throwback, a guy that many would call a sidearm pitcher. He throws a fastball that sits 92-94 mph and from his sweeping motion has a rare combination of rise and run. He also throws a slider, a curve, a cutter and a rapidly improving changeup — quite an array for hitters to deal with.

"People call me a sidearm pitcher, but I like to think I'm a low-¾ arm slot," Hjerpe said. "I have no idea how that happened, honestly.

"I've just thrown like that all my life."

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Growing up with Coco Crisp

The Hjerpe family are all-in fans of the Oakland A's.

"I was in fourth grade when my dad brought home a beagle-pug mix dog for me," Hjerpe said. "I named him Coco Crisp, after my favorite A's player.

"We were really devoted to the A's. I liked the whole Moneyball approach. I just loved what they were all about."

His father, Carl, played baseball — he was a pitcher — at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo and earned a degree in agronomy and crop science.

He raised a son, in Cooper Hjerpe, who was a dominating player at Woodland High School, as one would expect. He threw a perfect game as a senior and went through the entire season allowing just 13 hits. Ranked the No. 5 left-handed pitcher in California, Hjerpe headed on to Oregon State.

The Aaron Judge test

When Hjerpe was asked who he'd choose if he could face any major league hitter, he responded with Aaron Judge.

"I'd want to see how my stuff does against him," Hjerpe said. "And what he does with it."

In the meantime, he studies guys who face MLB hitters.

"Max Scherzer, Chris Sale, Jacob deGrom — he's some kind of alien he's so good," Hjerpe said. "I watch those guys pitch whenever I can."

One day, perhaps all eyes will be on him. Baseball America ranked him as the Cardinals No. 5 prospect for 2023. MLB Pipeline has him at No. 6.

He's come a long way from the kid who started out playing in the Esparto (Calif.) Little League.

"I watched the MLB Draft from my house in Capay," Hjerpe said. "My family was all around me, and that's what I wanted. It was just amazing to watch it unfold and then you get called and the whole thing is a whirlwind.

"We celebrated a dream come true that day."

Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @icetimecleve.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Cardinals No. 6 prospect has five pitches, one dream with Chiefs