After leaving a lasting impact on the Northern Illinois University baseball record book in his career, catcher Jake Dunham, graduate of Plainfield North High School is preparing for what he hopes is the next step in his baseball career with the Major League Baseball (MLB) draft which will begin July 11.
The 20-round MLB Draft will begin Sunday, July 11 and goes through July 13.
The Huskies’ stalwart catcher since 2016, Dunham holds the Northern Illinois career record for walks with 140 and is second with 224 career games started and 228 career games played. One-hundred eighty-eight of his career starts came behind home plate. His durability showed when he started 169 consecutive games over the last three-plus seasons. Dunham made his first career start on March 4, 2016 at SIUE in a game where he recorded his first two career runs batted in. It would be his first of 188 starts at catcher as a Huskie.
“Once I had won the position, I was excited to be that rock the rest of the defense could be built around,” said Dunham. “That’s always what I wanted. I never said to myself to be some huge superstar, but a central, steady and stable player. That was always my goal and it was really cool to get that opportunity so early in my career.”
“Jake is a grinder on the field, and his games-started streak, along with the number of games he played, is a testament to his mental toughness,” said head coach Mike Kunigonis. “To play the number of games he did behind the plate at the level he plays at makes him truly an ironman.”
That grinder mentality applies not just to Dunham’s ability to be ready to go for each game, but at the plate with a bat in his hands. Dunham is Northern Illinois’ career leader in walks with 140, drawing a single-season record 43 in 2019 with a .429 on-base percentage. His 228 career hits rank sixth all-time at Northern Illinois as do his 44 doubles, 141 RBI, and 332 total bases.
“Early on in my career I had a very simplistic approach of just see the ball and try to hit it,” Dunham said. “As I went on I learned how to be more strategic, and I think that comes with being a catcher and spending my whole career thinking about pitch-calling situations and all that. So I applied that to my hitting and around my junior year [2019] is when my walks and on-base percentage skyrocketed.”
Dunham capped his Northern Illinois career this season with his first career Academic All-Mid-American Conference (MAC) honor. He was among the top 10 players in the MAC in both batting average and slugging percentage. Dunham was seventh in slugging at .530 and eighth with a .333 batting average.
He was second in the league with 16 doubles on the year and led Northern Illinois IU with 36 RBI. Dunham hit a walk-off double in Northern Illinois’ 7-6 victory over Akron April 30, to cap a three-for-five day at the plate. He put together a 13-game hitting streak from April 23 through May 15.
May 10, Dunham was named MAC Player of the Week after hitting .600 in the Huskies’ series against Western Michigan. He was nine-for-15 at the plate with a double and two home runs. Dunham drove in a career-high five runs in a game twice this season, against Central Michigan April 4 and at Bowling Green May 29.
After five years of college baseball, Dunham is hoping his body of work will prove he’s ready for the next level.
“In years past, what happens in the draft has been my entire identity and it didn’t work out the last couple years. I’ve come to terms with it, this year in particular, that I’ve given it everything I’ve got for five years now and whatever happens will happen. These teams know who I am and know what I can do. I’ve put it all on the table and so I’m just going to let it all play out.”
—Northern Illinois University