Drake grad on cusp of making pro debut
Joe Ryan, 2-time MCAL Pitcher of the Year, is Rays’ No. 14 prospect
From 2013 to 2014, there was no MCAL pitcher more dominant than Drake’s Joe Ryan.
As a junior, he helped lead the Pirates to a league title and then went on to post a 12-1 record with a 0.76 earned run average as a senior. He was named MCAL Pitcher of the Year both of those seasons before he embarked on his collegiate career at Cal State Northridge.
In the six years that followed, Ryan experienced his fair share of highs and lows. He impressed right away in college, then battled an injury that ultimately led him to transfer, a move that revived his career and helped him get drafted in the seventh round of the MLB Draft in 2018.
Now, after a meteoric rise through the Rays farm system in 2019, Ryan, currently ranked as the organization’s No. 14 prospect by MLB Pipeline, is on the cusp of finally fulfilling his dream of breaking into the big leagues.
“He’s got stuff to work on, but he can go out there and compete against Major League hitters right now,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said earlier this month. “Watching him in his bullpens and his
live BPs, he really gets after it. He does some things that create a lot of swing and miss. He’s a strikethrower.”
To those who have been around him since his development in high school, seeing what Ryan is accomplishing now comes as no surprise.
“I mean he was as dominant as it gets at the high school level,” said Adam Farb, Ryan’s head coach at Drake and the current pitching coach at College of Marin.
Farb has known since Ryan’s junior year that he had the skills to be a Division I college pitcher and maybe even break into the big leagues. But Ryan’s journey, like many potential pros winding their way through college and the minor leagues, has not been straightforward.
Injury year
During the 2017 season with Cal State Northridge, Ryan, then a junior, dealt with an injured lat that limited his performance with the Matadors. He appeared in only five games and posted a 12.79 ERA in 6.1 innings.
Farb, who still keeps in constant communication with Ryan, remembers near the end of that season when Ryan told him he wasn’t going to enter the draft that year and was looking to transfer. He needed a change of scenery.
Ryan eventually landed on Cal State Stanislaus, which turned out to be a
perfect fit. In his one season with the Warriors, he went 8-1 with a 1.65 ERA and 127 strikeouts (the most in the NCAA) in 98.1 innings. That season led him to being selected by the Rays in the seventh round that year. As good as that season was, Ryan’s work to be a pro was just beginning.
A meteoric rise
Ryan started out his minor league career with a strong first season with the Rays Class-A short-season team in 2018, striking out 51 in 36.1 innings with an ERA of 3.72 in 12 appearances. But that simply set the stage for what was to come in 2019.
While Ryan brushes off compliments about his 2019 season, it’s undeniably impressive. He started the year with the Rays Class-A full-season team and was quickly called up to their Class-A Advance (SingleA) team after striking out 47 in 27.2 innings in six games.
He spent most of the rest of 2019 in Single-A with the Charlotte Stone Crabs, 15 games in total, and felt it was there, working with pitching coach Steve ‘Doc’ Watson, where he made some of his biggest improvements to date.
“I guess I learned what made me successful,” Ryan said. “Like before it was like I was successful for a reason but I couldn’t tell you exactly why that was or how I was doing what I
was doing. I wouldn’t say it was luck but I just did what I did, which was go out there and pitch, throw strikes, fastballs, curveballs, whatever.”
Watson, Ryan said, helped him understand pitching more than relying on instinct. It was also in 2019 when Ryan developed his changeup more, a pitch that was devastating to hitters who already struggled to hit his fastball, his go-to pitch.
“Doc Watson was definitely a very big help in my career,” Ryan added. “He really helped me take my game to the next level.”
In his stint in Charlotte, Ryan went 7-2, posted a 1.42 and struck out 112 in just 82.2 innings. He was rewarded with a late-season call-up to the Rays Double-A affiliate, his third call-up that year, where he closed 2019 striking out 24 in 13.1 innings with a 3.38 ERA in three appearances.
In total, across three levels of minor league baseball in 2019, Ryan struck out 183 in 123.2 innings with just 27 walks and a 1.96 ERA, earning him the Minor League Pitcher of the Year award.
Ryan said that season was “pretty sweet” but he remained hungry for more. Careers in the minors, no matter how good, aren’t necessarily remembered (“Nobody knows what any hall of famer’s minor league stats were,” Farb said). You play well and you keep leveling up, with the ultimate goal of getting out of the minors.
“I don’t think either Joe or me or anyone around him is thinking that that’s the end goal,” Farb said.
“The end goal is to have stuff and command and polish and poise and mentality to be able to make it to the big leagues and to be successful there.”
Knocking on the door
After the 2020 MLB season was delayed in the midst of spring training, Ryan was eventually one of the 60 players invited to be on the Rays alternate site. That’s where he spent his 2020 season, pitching against some of the highest caliber hitters he had faced that far in his career.
He had success there, which has since carried over into this year’s Spring Training. While Ryan was optioned back to minorleague camp about two weeks ago, he was stellar in his three appearances this spring, throwing three perfect innings with four strikeouts.
Farb said that success against pro hitters has only made Ryan more confident heading into this season, which for the Rays starts on April 1. Reports indicate that Ryan will likely start the season in the minors but a call-up to the bigs may not be far off.
“On a low-key basis, he’s focused on being one of the best pitchers in the world, and not just ‘God, I hope I just make the roster,’” Farb said. “Obviously, that’s on his mind, it’s on any minor league pitchers mind once you’ve had success like that, but I don’t think the goal for him is to just make it up there, have a cup of coffee and then be able to walk being like ‘Look, I was in the Major Leagues.’
“He’s trying to stay there and be successful there.”