Sure, there was a lot to like. Elite athlete. Six foot frame to dream. Fastball in the 88-91 mph range, complemented by a changeup with upside and a developing slider. Tiedemann could also hit, but his hand was his ticket and Aversa was determined to hit it. Only pandemic-related shutdowns that summer reduced the draft, which went from 40 rounds to five, and the unexpected availability at No. 5 overall of expensive Austin Martin further stifled the opportunity. However, Aversa hit the table, virtual that year, for the Blue Jays to use their fifth and final pick to land Tiedemann. But essentially out of bonus space when Martin was honored, they chose college outfielder Zach Britton instead. “That’s the only part of the job that sucks,” says Aversa. “You get upset with guys, then the draft happens and you don’t understand them. i wanted him I was taking him out hard. … Everyone liked him, too.” No other team took Tiedemann that summer, so the next year, the Blue Jays ended up taking another shot at him. This time, Aversa didn’t miss, sticking him for the third round and getting him there, at 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 into top 100 prospect lists. He’s already moved from low-A Dunedin to high-A Vancouver, with another promotion to double-A New Hampshire looming after his clean fifth inning during Saturday’s prospect Futures Game at Dodger Stadium. Aversa had full confidence in Tiedemann from the jump. He didn’t even expect such a trajectory. “I’ve never seen a guy make adjustments that quickly and put them into the game that quickly — and I was in player development,” says Aversa, a scout with the Blue Jays for 12 years who reached triple-A as a player. and coach with the Miami Marlins and San Diego Padres. “It’s amazing to see what they’ve done with him. In the third round, you basically buy the athlete. It was basically the same guy, but jumped. Things are completely different.” Under a clear sky on a 27C afternoon, Tiedemann sits in the stands at Nat Bailey Stadium, home of the Vancouver Canadiens. He just threw another electric baton — there’s a lot of “attaboy Ricky” from coaches and teammates after every pitch — and finished taking care of his hand after practice, considering all his growth over the past 12 months and how quickly he’s progressed. “Yes, very quickly,” he says. “It’s my first pro season and it’s been fun and nice to see all the recognition and everything. But I try not to let it control my game. I go out there every week, I treat it the same way. I don’t really listen to much of what people say just because I have to do the same thing every week. I just have to keep doing it.” When he first joined the Blue Jays after essentially signing for $644,800, Tiedemann “didn’t really have a plan.” 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 basically did the same things he did during high school at Lakewood. “He 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, one that included not only lifting weights but also a series of exercises designed not only to build strength but also to maintain and increase his flexibility. Yoga was part of the plan along with weighted balls and push ups. The usual. Tiedemann followed suit and also followed the nutrition plan provided while flying to the Player Development Complex in Dunedin, Florida. By the fall, the club’s player development staff were excited about the transformation. His fastball velocity began to increase, first in the mid-90s and then up another notch. As he got stronger, the Aversa High School reliever who he described as “it was out of my hands” started to show legitimate bite. The excitement was heightened even more during spring training, when his players played as well in competition as they did in the pitching lab. “He’s a young kid, and for a young man who’s so focused on getting better, sometimes he can get lost in the level of talent he has,” says Canadian pitching coach Phil Cundari, who worked with Tiedemann in the spring . before taking him to Vancouver. “He’s dominant and he seems to have another tool, I think, that he hasn’t touched. That will come with the challenge when he gets to another level.” The way Tiedemann enters the project is impressive. Young candidates, especially talented ones, can get stuck in their ways, believing that everything they’ve done to enlist will be enough to get them up the ladder. Sometimes, it takes experience with the harsh realities of the game to realize that talent alone is not enough. Instead of having that mindset, Tiedemann simply didn’t know what he didn’t know. Still, his intent to dominate left him quite open-minded about the resources around him. “These are professionals,” he says of the club’s player development staff. “I trusted what the Blue Jays wanted me to do and followed everything they wanted me to do. He just left there.” Positive reinforcement came from seeing what added strength it did to his stuff. While he continued to use the same grips he had thrown with since he was a nine-year-old emerging in the incredibly deep Southern California baseball scene, throwing harder helped give his slider some definition. The fastball also played better and further strengthened the changeup, which dies just when a hitter thinks he’s going to crush it. Physical athleticism made every gain play, a byproduct of the deliberate approach taken with its progression. “You can’t just build strength and expect to throw harder,” says Tiedemann. “You have to build strength while at the same time staying relaxed. A lot of guys who throw hard are slackers, leaner guys who are really slackers. So you have to get stronger. But you also have to stay relaxed.” He has done that and more so far this season. In six low-A 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 major league average, he has allowed 12 runs, 10 earned, in 37.2 innings over eight starts, walking 12 and striking out 54. “Some players, whether they’re that age or older/younger, have to see the process work before they trust it, where I think Ricky jumped in and trusted the process that the Blue Jays set up for him, the diet, programs throwing strength and conditioning, recovery, the whole package,” says Canadiens manager Brent Lavallee. “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 he’s reaping the benefits now.” Not to mention it won widespread acclaim for the way it was presented. “He’s going to be so good,” says Seattle Mariners shortstop JP Crawford, who grew up playing with Tiedemann’s older brother Tai, a prospect in the Texas Rangers system. “We should see him double-A soon. Watching all his videos, I don’t understand why he’s still there (in high-A). It’s a dog on the mound. He is not afraid of anyone. You want that guy on your team.” American League reliever Ricky Tiedeman throws 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 arrives in New Hampshire, within striking distance of the big leagues, expect the chatter surrounding Tiedemann’s big league timeline to continue, 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 him being really consistent with it and create workload”. There are those who believe a late-season reliever isn’t unreasonable, and Alek Manoah’s aggressive path to the big leagues certainly challenges organizational thinking about how many minor league innings a pitcher really needs. The workload factor is a key difference, however, as Manoah 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 in the bullpen. Blue Jays center practice. Tiedemann, meanwhile, had his senior year at Lakewood cut short due to the pandemic and, after decommitting from San Diego State so he could take a chance in the 2021 draft, made 38 innings in seven starts for the Golden West, the junior college he finished. after his first choice, Long Beach City, closed his program. For that reason, the Blue Jays are wary of putting Tiedemann through too much, too soon. A touch of the majors late in the season, if worth it, would come at the end of an increased workload and an increased pressure given the added adrenaline and stakes. This is one of many reasons to limit such discussions. Matt Buschmann, the club’s bullpen coach and minor league coordinator, says the priority “is getting him used to playing professional baseball and pitching for five straight months and dealing with the ups and downs that the season brings.” Despite the dominance at this point, there is still work to be done…