Reetz, 19, has "intangibles" to become one of the top catchers in Nats system

Catching prospect, 19-year-old Jakson Reetz, continues to gain experience at the professional level with the short-season Single-A Auburn Doubledays in the Nationals system.

Auburn manager Gary Cathcart, who is also the Nationals coordinator of instruction, said Reetz truly is a baseball player who shows he has all the makeup to be a good one. Cathcart said Reetz just needs the repetition of game experience while playing at the top levels.

Reetz, a 2014 third-round selection, has that baseball look about him, like he could have played an extra walking out of the corn fields in the important scene from "Field of Dreams".

"That's a great analogy because it is exactly what he is," Cathcart said. "He's a Midwest guy who was going to Nebraska to play football. He is a real throwback. Way beyond his years as far as knowing the game, being a student of the game. The only thing to do with Jakson is just how much his skills develop. He's still not only a young man but also young baseball-wise."

Reetz is from Firth, Nebraska (population of 579) and is listed at 6-foot-1, 195 lbs.

"He has got a nice skill set, obviously, very physical body," Cathcart said. "Just a matter of him developing his skills because he's already way ahead of the game as far as knowing game situations, working with pitchers, handling a staff. Just a relentless worker, almost to a fault, where we sometimes have to back him off a little bit because he wants to be so good."

It is very rare to hear a manager talking about a catcher who can handle a pitching staff and direct a game at the just the age of 19 with no college experience, but Cathcart believes Reetz has that untouchable ability.

"He's probably the guy with the most intangibles I've seen at that age in quite sometime," Cathcart said. "It's just a matter of him now developing his skills, his catching, his throwing, his offense, because everything else is way ahead of schedule."

Reetz is batting .212 in 36 games for Auburn, but does have five hits in his last five games. Former major league catcher Michael Barrett, who managed Reetz at Gulf Coast Nationals last summer, raved about Reetz's ability, and Cathcart confirmed the Nebraska backstop is continuing to improve in the NY-Penn League.