In the four years that Joey Aversa spent following Ricky Tiedemann’s progress at Lakewood High School, the Toronto Blue Jays scout became convinced that he should take the lefty in the 2020 draft.
Of course, there was a lot to like. Elite caliber athlete. A six-foot-three frame to dream of. Fastball in the 88-91 mph range, complemented by a changeup with plus potential and a developing slider.
Tiedemann could also hit, but his arm was his ticket and Aversa was determined to hit it.
Only pandemic-related suspensions this summer narrowed the draft, which went from 40 rounds to five, and the unexpected availability at No. 5 overall of high-priced Austin Martin further stifled the opportunity. Still, Aversa hit the table, virtual this year, so the Blue Jays could use their fifth and final pick to bring in Tiedemann. But essentially after Martin was evaluated, they drafted collegiate outfielder Zach Britton.
“That’s one part of the job that sucks,” Aversa says. “You get close to guys, then the draft happens and you don’t get them. I wanted it. I was rooting hard for him. … And they all liked it.
No other team took Tiedemann that summer either, so the Blue Jays got another shot at him the following year. This time, Aversa didn’t miss, pinning him for the third round and taking him there to No. 91 overall.
All the 19-year-old has done since then is make the pick look like a steal as he rockets through the farm system and up top-100 prospect lists. He’s already moved from low-A Dunedin to high-A Vancouver, with another promotion to double-A New Hampshire imminent after his clean fifth inning during Saturday’s prospect Futures Game at Dodger Stadium.
Aversa was completely convinced by Tiedemann from the jump. Even he did not expect such a trajectory.
“I’ve never seen a guy make adjustments so quickly and put them into play so quickly — and I was in player development,” said Aversa, a Blue Jays scout for 12 years who reached Triple-A as player and coach for the Miami Marlins and San Diego Padres. “It’s amazing to see what they’ve done with him. In the third round, essentially, you buy the athlete. He was basically the same, but he jumped. Things are completely different.
Under a flawless sky on a 27C afternoon, Tiedemann sits in the stands at Nat Bailey Stadium, home of the high-A Vancouver Canadiens. He just threw another electric bull – there’s a lot of “attaboy Ricky” from coaches and teammates after every throw – and finished taking care of his hands after practice, considering all his growth over the past 12 months and how quickly he’s progressed.
“Yes, very quickly,” he says. “This is my first professional season and it was fun and great to see all the recognition and everything. But I try not to let it control my game. I go there every week, I treat myself the same way. I don’t really listen to a lot of the things people say, simply because I still have to do the same thing every week. I just have to keep doing it.
When he first joined the Blue Jays after signing for essentially a $644,800 slot, Tiedemann “didn’t really have a program.” He had done some higher-level work on his mechanics, learning how to use his lower half more effectively, but during his year at Golden West Junior College, he was basically doing the same things he did at Lakewood High.
“It didn’t even lift much,” he says. “Once I got drafted, I started putting it all together and it shows.”
The Blue Jays gave him a detailed routine that included not only lifting weights, but also a series of exercises designed not only to build strength, but also to preserve and increase his flexibility. Yoga was part of the plan along with weight balls and arm bands. The usual. Tiedemann pursued it and also followed the nutritional plan provided as he threw himself into the Player Development Complex in Dunedin, Florida.
By the autumn, the club’s player development team were excited about the transformation. Fastball velocity began to rise, first into the mid-90s and then up another notch. As he got stronger, the high school slider, which Aversa described as “the thing that took that crap out of my arm,” began to show legitimate bite. The excitement grew even more during spring training, when his stuff played as well in competition as it did in the pitching lab.
“He’s a young kid, and for a young man to be so focused on the process of getting better, sometimes you can get lost in the level of talent that he has,” said Canadiens coach Phil Kundari, who worked with Tiedeman in the spring before signing him in Vancouver. “He’s been dominating and it looks like there’s still another gear, I believe, that he hasn’t touched. That will come with the challenge when he gets to another level.”
The manner in which Tiedemann set about the work is striking.
Young prospects, especially talented ones, can get stuck in their ways, believing that whatever they did to get drafted will be enough to move them up the ladder. Sometimes it takes experience with the harsh reality of the game to make them realize that talent alone is not enough. Instead of having that mindset, Tiedemann simply didn’t know what he didn’t know. However, his intent to dominate left him sufficiently open to the resources around him.
“These are professionals,” he says of the club’s player development team. “I trusted what the Blue Jays wanted me to do and followed everything they wanted me to do. It kind of got out of there.”
The positive reinforcement came from seeing what the extra power did to his stuff. While he continued to use the same grips he had been throwing since he was nine years old coming up on the incredibly deep Southern California baseball scene, the stronger throw helped give his slider some definition. The fastball also played better and further emphasized the changeup, which dies just when the hitter thinks he’s about to crush it. Natural athleticism made every gain a play, a byproduct of the deliberate approach taken with his development.
“You can’t just build strength and expect to throw harder,” Tiedemann says. “You have to build strength while remaining free. A lot of guys who throw hard are flexible, weaker guys who are really loose. So you have to get stronger. But you must also remain free.”
He has done that and more so far this season. In six low-grade starts with Dunedin, he allowed just six runs on 11 hits and 13 walks in 30 innings of work while striking out 49 batters. In high-A Vancouver, where he is 4.2 years younger than the league average, he has allowed 12 runs, 10 earned, in 37.2 innings over eight starts, 12 walks and 54 strikeouts.
“Some players, whether they’re that age or older/younger, need to see how the process works before they trust it, where I think Ricky jumped in headfirst and trusted the process that the Blue Jays they laid out for him, nutrition, strength and conditioning programs for throwing, recovery, the whole package,” Canadiens manager Brent Lavallee said. “It’s easy to give credit where it’s due because he’s really immersed himself in his routines and what the organization has asked of him, and now he’s reaping the benefits.”
Not to mention gaining widespread recognition for the way it performs.
“He’s going to be so good,” said JP Crawford, a Seattle Mariners shortstop who grew up playing with Tiedemann’s older brother, Ty, a prospect in the Texas Rangers system. “We should see him with double A soon. Just watching all his videos, I don’t see why he’s still there (in A). He’s a dog on the mound. He is not afraid of anyone. You want this guy on your team.
American League relief pitcher Ricky Tiedemann throws to a National League batter during the MLB All-Star Futures baseball game, Saturday, July 16, 2022, in Los Angeles. (Mark J. Terrill/AP)
Once he gets to New Hampshire, within a stone’s throw of the big leagues, expect the talk surrounding Tiedemann’s big league schedule to intensify, especially if he continues to push.
Earlier this season, Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins raised eyebrows when he said the teenager “has the stuff to compete right now in the big leagues” but that “it’s just a matter of being really consistent with it and getting a load “.
There are those who think late-season relief isn’t unreasonable, and Alec Manoa’s aggressive path to the majors certainly challenges organizational thinking about how many minor league innings a pitcher really needs. The workload factor is a key difference, however, as Manoa had college seasons of 55.2, 54 and 108.1 innings at West Virginia before going 11th overall in the 2019 draft and then spending 2020 , working at the Blue Jays’ alternate practice facility.
Tiedemann, meanwhile, had his senior year at Lakewood cut short by the pandemic and, after decommitting from San Diego State to try out for the 2021 draft, logged 38 innings in seven starts for Golden West, a junior college graduate after his first choice, Long Beach City, closed its program.
For that reason, the Blue Jays are wary of exposing Tiedemann to too much too soon. A touch of the big season at the end of the season, if deserved, will come at the end of a spike in workload and under increased pressure given the added adrenaline and stakes. This is one of the many reasons to cut such talk.
Matt Bushman, the club’s bullpen coach and minor league pitching coordinator, said the priority “is getting him used to playing professional baseball and pitching for five months straight and dealing with the ups and downs that the season brings.”
Despite the dominance…
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