How the Blue Jays plan to develop Ricky Tiedemann into ‘another Manoah’

DUNEDIN, Fla. — In October 2021, as Toronto Blue Jays minor-league catcher Phil Clarke was making ready for his day on the membership’s educational camp, a coach informed him he’d be catching a bullpen for one of many group’s current draftees that morning. Young left-hander out of a California junior school. Big child. Big stuff.

“I’d never met him — had no idea who he was. I just chatted with him quickly and asked what he throws. He’s like, ‘fastball, slider, changeup,’” Clarke remembers. “I didn’t know it was going to be the best fastball, slider, changeup mix I’ve ever seen. I was like, ‘Whoa, this kid’s special.’”

That child’s Ricky Tiedemann. Perhaps you’ve heard the title. The high prospect in Toronto’s group; a top-35 MLB prospect irrespective of which listing you favor; that includes a high-90’s fastball, sweeping slider, and changeup combine that, as Clarke indicated, appears fairly particular.

Appearing in his first major-league spring coaching solely a year-and-a-half after he was drafted, the 20-year-old’s been demonstrating what all of the hype’s about. Here’s the fastball zipping proper over Javy Baez’s bat on the top of the zone:

This is the slider dotted on the skin edge for a first-pitch strike in opposition to Matt Vierling:

And right here’s the changeup, which Clarke describes as Tidemann’s “most consistent pitch — it comes out the same as his fastball, gets to the hitter, and then the bottom just falls out:”

“Catching him that day at instructs, and even at double-A, I was just setting up down the middle and letting his stuff do its thing. Because it’s so nasty,” Clarke says. “The kid’s different. Just his demeanour, his stuff, everything. It’s just different.”

“Oh yeah, his fastball speaks for itself. It definitely comes out a little different,” confirms Andres Sosa, who caught Tiedemann’s first three begins with high-A Vancouver final season. “But he can also really pitch. He uses his off-speed well, lands his changeup early, back-foots his slider to righties. He’ll manipulate the outside corner. He’ll break a lot of bats. He gets a lot of uncomfortable swings.”

“And hitters knew it going in. They knew what they were about to face and that it wasn’t going to be a comfortable at-bat,” provides Zach Britton, who additionally caught Tiedemann with Vancouver. “I remember, we were in Hillsboro. The leadoff hitter steps in after Ricky threw his warm-up pitches and he just looked at me and went, ‘Well, shit. Here we go.’”

Now, some caveats. The pitches above are from Tiedemann’s first spring coaching look final week, a day he was undoubtedly filled with adrenaline, desirous to impress, and airing out his stuff in a single inning of labor. He’s not going to sit down within the higher 90’s together with his fastball as a starter when the highlight’s much less shiny and he’s making an attempt to finish two journeys by means of the order.

But sitting 94-96 from the left aspect will definitely play. So, too, will the first-pitch breaking balls for strikes, a well-disguised changeup with 35 inches of vertical break, a misleading low-slot supply from the primary base aspect of the rubber, and a stoic manner that hardly ever shows a touch of emotion as Tiedemann kilos the zone no matter how properly or poorly his day’s going.

Clarke remembers one in Hartford final August. Coming off the worst outing of his transient skilled profession, through which he coughed up 4 runs over two innings, Tiedemann fell behind his first hitter, 3-0, then proceeded to strike out the aspect. When he reached his 65-pitch restrict, he’d struck out 5 of the 9 batters he confronted and hadn’t allowed successful. It was solely a day after Tiedemann’s twentieth birthday. The common age of the extent he was pitching at was 25.

“And you’d never know. He carries himself like a big-leaguer,” Clarke says. “Hartford is probably the best environment in all of double-A baseball. Brand new stadium, they fill it up with over 10,000 every night. It’s buzzing there. And he was unfazed. He just went out and attacked from the beginning. It was super impressive.”

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You hear that phrase used to explain Tiedemann lots — unfazed. Rob Brantly supplied it after catching Tiedemann’s second begin of spring coaching Tuesday, an outing that didn’t go practically in addition to his first.

It began spinning rapidly. As he settled in for his first pitch of the day to Andrew McCutchen, Tiedemann found his PitchCom was malfunctioning, inflicting a delay that introduced a smattering of chirps from the Pittsburgh Pirates dugout and a cascade of boos from the 5,000 in attendance. And even after Tiedemann was provided with a brand new earpiece, he struggled to correctly align it in his hat and had hassle listening to the pitches Brantly was calling.

As pitch clocks ticked down round him, Tiedemann bought sped up in his supply and left a changeup over the guts of the plate to McCutchen, who chopped it to 3rd for an infield single. Next pitch, nonetheless dashing in opposition to the clock, Tiedemann left a 97-mph heater on the outter half to Carlos Santana, who was dishonest to the fastball and went with it over the proper area wall. Three pitches thrown, two runs on the board, one PitchCom nonetheless misplaced above Tiedemann’s proper ear.

“There was a lot going on. We got into a little bit of hurry-up baseball there. A little too quick of a rhythm. And Santana’s a good hitter, man. He recognizes that. He sold out for the heater. And that’s going to happen sometimes,” Brantly mentioned. “But that didn’t shake Ricky at all. He answered straight back. Stayed competitive. He answered back like a big-leaguer, honestly. Threw a strike the very next pitch. Controlled his time. Unfazed.”

There’s that phrase once more. But it’s becoming as Tiedemann adopted Santana’s homer with a 97-m.p.h. fastball down within the zone. He threw 9 of his subsequent 15 pitches for strikes, exiting the inning with out additional injury thanks partly to an out on the basepaths, but additionally to a well-received back-door slider to a righty for a known as third strike and a artful pickoff that erased a stroll.

Back out for a second inning of labor, Tiedemann breezed by means of the aspect on six pitches, getting a tender groundout with a fastball and a routine flyball with a slider earlier than carving up Rodolfo Castro for a three-pitch strikeout and stalking off the mound:

Between innings, Brantly made a degree of telling Tiedemann to proceed trusting his fastball and keep aggressive. The veteran catcher’s starting his 14th skilled season. He’s caught loads of younger pitchers desirous to impress of their first big-league camps. He’s seen this story earlier than. Turning the web page on a tough inning doesn’t come simply for 20-year-old’s dealing with the sport’s finest hitters for the primary time of their life.

“I just said, ‘Look, your fastball got hit. Let’s not shy away from it. Let’s keep going after these guys,’” Brantly mentioned. “And he comes out and simply retains pounding the zone, pounding the zone. Then he drops a very good slider in there, back-foot. And swiftly, we’re again within the dugout.

“That’s huge. Because, look, you’re going to give up your homers. It’s how you respond. Are you going to stay competitive through six, seven, eight innings and take that off your bullpen? He showed today he can be that guy. Trust me, everybody sees that.”

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These are the sorts of challenges the Blue Jays wish to see Tiedemann rise to. It’s simple that he may get MLB hitters out in the present day. He may’ve gotten them out final season when he was dominating three minor-league ranges. But the Blue Jays aren’t making an attempt to develop a leverage reliever right here. They’re making an attempt to develop a front-of-the-rotation starter who’s taking the mound to start postseason video games. They’re making an attempt to develop one other Alek Manoah.

And the muse of that’s an clever, rigorously thought of, dynamic workload development knowledgeable by knowledge and proof. Last spring, the Blue Jays sat down with Tiedemann and mapped out their imaginative and prescient of his development in his first skilled season. It would begin in A-ball however may finish as excessive as double-A if Tiedemann regularly proved he was too superior for the extent he was at.

He’d pitch as soon as every week on Friday’s, going so long as 5 innings and as many as 85 pitches if he was holding his stuff. There could be no arbitrary innings restrict for his season — it’s not 2006. But the membership could be conscious of {the teenager}’s total workload and the very fact he was coming off a pandemic-shortened, 38-inning Junior College season that hadn’t examined him like a real skilled one would. The final aim was a powerful, foundational season he may construct upon in 2023.

“I think they’re just trying to be careful. My last season before I got to pro ball was during COVID — so, I only pitched seven games,” Tiedemann says. “They’re just trying to ease me into pro ball and help me get into my routine so that, week in and week out, I can feel the same way. They’re doing the right thing.”

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Tiedemann shopping for into this course of is essential. Particularly at junctures like final July when, after his 14th begin of the season and as he was about to pitch in MLB’s Futures Game, the Blue Jays pulled him from competitors and introduced him to the membership’s participant growth advanced in Dunedin, Fla. for 3 weeks.

There was nothing acutely incorrect with Tiedemann that brought on the membership to make the most of MLB’s growth listing — a just lately established device that enables organizations to assign minor-league gamers to membership services for the aim of conditioning or growth with out them counting in opposition to an affiliate’s lively roster restrict — to summon him for a mid-season look beneath the hood.

Toronto’s participant growth employees merely needed to handle Tiedemann’s workload, measure how his energy and conditioning was holding up over his first full season, and assess his supply for any unideal habits or tendencies that may very well be creeping in. Think launch level, arm slot, spin effectivity. Throwing earlier than high-speed cameras capturing tremendous sluggish movement footage, sporting movement seize sensors gathering biomechanical knowledge, on mounds with power plates inside them measuring energy output.

What they found was Tiedemann’s metrics and assessments had been all just about degree with those they’d taken throughout spring coaching. He’d thrown 67.2 innings since, and a career-high 84 pitches in his last outing with Vancouver earlier than being positioned on the event listing. But he wasn’t exhibiting as a lot put on because the membership anticipated.

That informed the Blue Jays Tiedemann was nailing his energy, conditioning, and arm care routines between begins. That he was consuming, sleeping, and lifting in useful methods. That he was managing stress, prioritizing restoration, avoiding over-training — all of the issues they’d been instructing him since he arrived of their atmosphere a 12 months prior.

“There’s a lot of things I didn’t know before I got into pro ball, routine-wise. Everything I went through last year definitely helped me get my stuff together,” Tiedemann says. “A lot of arm care. Mobility work. A lot of stuff in the weight room. Things you shouldn’t do on the days prior to your start, how to properly recover after. There’s certain lifts that you don’t want to do the day before. Certain lifts you should do the day after. Just how to set it up right to where your body feels 100 per cent going into each game.”

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You’ll see the Blue Jays using that mid-season check-in mannequin extra broadly this season. Maybe even with Tiedemann once more. But it gained’t solely be high prospects sticking to workload plans. Think starters who’re having hassle carrying their stuff by means of outings; relievers who over-trained throughout the winter and are actually struggling to recuperate between appearances; hitters mired in slumps whereas carrying minor accidents and combating the psychological calls for of every day competitors.

Going ahead, the Blue Jays will endeavour to present gamers like {that a} breather from affiliate life, get them in Dunedin’s labs to evaluate any areas of concern, and ship them again out to an affiliate after every week or two with a cleared head and refreshed physique. It’s a framework the membership’s been contemplating for years however didn’t have the means to facilitate till the opening of its new participant growth advanced.

And it labored for Tiedemann, who was aggressively assigned to double-A from his Dunedin sabbatical and pitched to a 2.45 ERA over his last 11 innings of the season, placing out 14 whereas strolling 4.

“It’s good to have. They put you in the lab, you throw a little bit. You see where your stuff’s at. As the season goes on, there’s a lot of things that happen as you build up fatigue. It’s good to see how that’s affecting you,” Tiedemann says. “But, at the same time, even if something’s a little bit down or other things are a little bit up, you’ve still got to go out there and do the same things. You still have to compete.”

There’s no query Tiedemann does that. What’s unknown is how his 2023 workload builds upon 2022’s. It’s not so simple as pencilling him in for just a little over 100 innings after he topped out at 78.2 final season. Not all innings are created equal. They’re a measure of outs — and a few outs come on one pitch, some on 12. It’s a poor gauge of workload.

Rather, the membership will monitor the target knowledge they collect on Tiedemann’s efficiency all through the season and use that to tell the method. How he’s holding his stuff, the energy he’s demonstrating within the weight room, his ranges of central nervous system fatigue. They’ll use a Catapult wearable and Hawkeye monitoring expertise. They’ll assess and alter technique as they go. They’ll formulate an individualized plan with him this spring, simply as they did final, and adapt it on the fly in keeping with the efficiency and measurables he’s producing.

The final aim is having Tiedemann accessible for summer time and fall, when his high-octane arm may make a dramatic impression on an MLB postseason race — and even on a postseason mound. That will possible imply preserving ammunition with shorter outings of 3-4 innings or 40-50 pitches again at double-A to start the 12 months earlier than a possible mid-season triple-A call-up if Tiedemann’s proving the extent is now not difficult him.

Provided all’s going properly, the size of Tiedemann’s outings will enhance in flip. And if issues actually go properly, Tiedemann may very well be on a major-league mound in a Blue Jays uniform someday throughout the back-half of the season. That may very well be as a starter; may very well be out of the bullpen. It’ll rely on want. And, in fact, on Tiedemann checking each field alongside the best way.

Not that anybody expects in any other case. Ever since that first bullpen he threw to Clarke at an educational camp 16 months in the past, Tiedemann’s been on a rocket to the sport’s highest degree on the similar expedited tempo Manoah travelled. They’re such totally different pitchers, but unattainable to not join. The expertise, the stuff, the manner. Composed, unfazed, totally different. Couple large children with large stuff.

“That’s who we were all comparing him to at instructs,” Clarke says. “Because it was right after Manoah debuted and had that amazing year. And then Ricky turns up, and it took one bullpen for everyone to be like, ‘This kid’s unbelievable. We’ve got another special arm in the org.’ Everyone was like, ‘We got another Manoah.’”

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