When Jarren Advincula gets ready to take up his post at second base on the infield dirt, he skips out to bump gloves with his fellow Cotuit Kettleers, a megawatt smile on his face. He has an infectious level of happiness as he runs from the dugout to second, an excitement to be playing baseball.

At the plate, a switch flips. His face goes from joyous smile to a stone-faced competitor. And if the at-bat doesn’t go the way he intends, his discontent will be visible. He wears his heart on his sleeve through every at-bat, challenging himself to be the best player he can.

Whatever the cocktail of emotions and mentality, it’s working. Advincula is leading the Cape Cod Baseball League in batting average with a whopping .404 mark and sits near the top of the leaderboard in a number of other statistical categories including hits (first), OBP (fourth) and runs scored (third). In the field, he has been crucial for the West Division-leading Cotuit Kettleers, recording a perfect fielding percentage in 108 total chances.

With all of his success, it’s no surprise the Cotuit infielder was named the starting second baseman for the 2024 All-Star Game West Division team. It’s also no surprise that after a standout freshman year at Cal, the decision to travel coast-to-coast to join the Cape League was a no-brainer.

“That was the easiest decision,” he said.

Advincula was one of the most consistent bats for the Bears during his freshman season. In his first career start, he went 2-for-3 and scored two runs –– a foreshadowing of what was to come. By the conclusion of the year, he led the team in average and earned a First Team All-Pac-12 honor.

Elite offensive production at the plate is nothing new for Advincula, it’s part of his brand of baseball. He attributes his success at the plate not only to his constant tweaking and grind but to his family.

“The support from my family is big for sure,” Advincula said about his success. “Then my self-motivation and my work that I put into this game.”

The baseball love of the Advinculas started with their father, Jeremy, a force who has been instrumental in Jarren’s baseball career and who played baseball at San Jose State.

The baseball genes trickled down to his sons, first Jonah, who is currently in the Cleveland Guardians Minor League system, and now to Jarren.

The youngest Advincula puts everything into his game. He is constantly tinkering and trying to learn from his failures. After contests he will be one of the last to leave the dugout, sitting with shoes untied thinking, before signing balls for the tiny Kettleer fans.

He's never satisfied. Or as his teammates will say, he’s a baseball perfectionist.

“He’s a perfectionist,” Cotuit shortstop Temo Becerra said. “I mean, you kind of see him talking to himself a couple of times. I don't really know what he says. He just kind of talks to himself in his own way. He's in his own world.”

With Cotuit this summer, the tinkering started with a swing adjustment he made to compensate for the transition from metal to wood bats, and it has been paying off in spades.

His defense is no joke either, with a squeaky-clean fielding percentage and 11 turned double plays. Fellow All-Star Kettleer Tanner Thach has even gone as far as to call one of Advincula’s plays at second “Jeter-esque.”

“He's made so many good plays,” Thach said. “There was one play against Bourne where he made one look like Derek Jeter threw it, and I picked it.”

But just like the duology in his defensive attitude and at-the-plate demeanor, Advincula does not only bring competitive consistency at the plate, but he’s a central personality in the team ecosystem.

Advincula is an ever-important figure to the Kettleers' team vibe. He’ll crack a smile, tell a joke at second, and he’s key during the team’s bus ride Mafia games. Laughter aside, he also brought the mental tools needed for dealing with the constant failure of baseball that he learned in his first season as a Bear to the Cape League this summer.

“It was a lot of failure in the beginning of my freshman season,” Advincula said. “And I felt like I handled it, not the best but the older leaders really helped me through the process, and I ended up having a pretty good season.”

He’s had a similar season with the Cape League, however, Advincula’s definition of a “pretty good season” may be a bit humble — at Cal he hit .325 and now he is batting over .400.

Despite being all the way across the country from his home state and starting off his Cape League campaign on the wrong foot by losing his host family's two dogs in his first days with Cotuit — no worries, they were found — he’s found joy in spending his summer playing baseball on Cape Cod. For Advincula, the Cape League is the perfect place to be his smiley California self while also being the cutthroat competitor that defines his game.

“I love it here, and you know the people over here make it a great place,” Advincula said. “Even though California is great, there is something special here for sure.”

Photographs by Nola Gallagher and Aidan Conrad

Statistics as of July 15