Jack Flaherty

Jack Rafe Flaherty (born October 15, 1995) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). Selected by the Cardinals in the first round of the 2014 MLB draft, he made his MLB debut in 2017. Flaherty attended Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, California, where his pitching coach was current White Sox pitching coach Ethan Katz. He pitched and played shortstop and third base as a member of the varsity baseball team for all four of his years at Harvard-Westlake. He was a sophomore when two of his high school teammates and fellow pitchers, Max Fried and Lucas Giolito, were both drafted in the first round of the 2012 MLB draft. In 2013, as a junior, Flaherty pitched a 13–0 record with a 0.63 ERA, striking out 112 batters in 89 innings while only walking 10. During his senior season, Harvard-Westlake was the consensus #1 team in the nation in the MaxPreps "XCellent 50" for much of the beginning of the season, before dropping out of the rankings altogether. On April 29, 2014, Flaherty pitched a complete game, a 2–1 victory over Bishop Alemany High School, to bring a two-year win–loss record to 20–0. In his last two seasons, his record was 23–0 overall. He finished the 2014 regular season with an 0.63 ERA and a 10–0 record on his way to being named Southern Section Division I Player of the Year along with the Los Angeles Times Player of the Year. He pitched 78 innings (IP), struck out 125 (SO) batters while giving up just 32 hits and 12 bases on balls (BB). In the first game of the playoffs – which was also the last game of his high school career – he threw a no-hitter against Riverside North. He was subsequently named the 2014 Gatorade Player of the Year in baseball for the state of California. The Los Angeles Times selected him as their baseball player of the year. In his four years on the mound, his record was 35–3.