Ryan Minckler sat in his aunt’s bakery in Idaho wondering what he was going to do with his life.
A few years earlier, Minckler moved across the world because of his love for baseball. Now he was trying to get as far away from the game as he could.
Born the son of an American-born semi-pro soccer player, Minckler spent his first 15 years in Thailand. His father helped start a travel baseball team that produced 10 players who went on to play collegiately in the United States, one of those being Vanderbilt’s Calvin Hewitt, who was from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Minckler frequently visited Hewitt in the United States, where he played during the summer. Eventually, Minckler’s family moved to Portsmouth, beginning a journey that made him a highly-recruited pitcher to nearly quitting the game to wondering if he had the right stuff to hack it in college.
After going 0-9 as a starter for Niagara in 2023, Minckler suddenly saw his pitch velocity go from 92 mph to 96 in the NCAA tournament this year. He was moved to the bullpen, going 5-2 and earning second-team All-MAAC honors.
But Major League Baseball scouts noticed the pitch speed of the 6-foot-3 Minckler in the spring and the kid who thought his career was over two years earlier was a pro prospect. On Tuesday, Minckler was taken by the Washington Nationals in the 19th round, 560th overall.
“Every young baseball player you know dreams of, something that everybody is working hard for and it’s a big dream for a lot of people, and for me, man, I guess just seeing seeing that the whole draft process unfold, and seeing how it went, and seeing my name up there when I when I got the call, was absolutely insane,” Minckler said. “Like it was honestly just a dream come true. … It’s just something that honestly wasn’t in, I didn’t think was in my cards at the time, but throughout the years, man, I just kept on working hard.”
Moving to the United States was a drastic change. With an American father and Thai-born mother, Minckler has spoken English his entire life, but he still had to adjust to American food and culture.
Baseball, though, was still the same. He became one of the top pitchers in New Hampshire, good enough to net a scholarship from the University of Virginia.
But Minckler quickly found it wasn’t what he desired and internal struggles caused him to quit before even playing a game. Minckler played club baseball at Virginia, which helped reignite his passion for the sport, but instead of playing summer ball, he went to Idaho ready to quit for good.
Then a friend called.
Brady Desjardins was a shortstop for Niagara and inquired as to whether Minckler would be interested in transferring. Then-Niagara coach Rob McCoy made some calls and became comfortable enough with Minckler’s past that he wasn’t going to turn down a Power 5 arm.
“Those big schools put kids in precarious situations, and it’s not a negative, it’s just what they’re able to do,” McCoy said. “If you’re not up to par, they don’t need you. They don’t spend the extra time and extra care that a school like Niagara could. And you’re just another guy, if you’re even a guy at those places, whereas at Niagara, you could be something special.”
Minckler was back in baseball, but his game was still lacking. He was roughed up often in his 14 appearances, 13 of which he started, posting a 6.97 ERA, allowing 101 of the 246 batters he faced to get on base.
McCoy didn’t blink at his performance, though, feeling confidence would bring out his best. Over the summer, Minckler played with the Thai national team and did some hitting, and with Niagara uncertain of its outfield situation in the fall, Minckler subbed in.
By the time Minckler returned to pitching full-time in February, he noticed his pitch velocity increased. He was rested and Minckler felt practicing rotation as a hitter helped bring it back into his motion as a pitcher.
Instead of throwing 92 on a good day, Minckler began throwing 92 on a bad day. McCoy kept him in the bullpen for the entire season — even though he threw more innings this year — feeling Minckler could throw harder in spurts and the result was dropping his ERA to 4.21 and bumped his strikeout total from 45 to 53.
“The lower half, pitching and hitting are the exact same,” McCoy said. “It’s just that one is down a slope and one is on flat ground. So the issue is that sometimes pitchers get coached out of rotating or repped out or whatever. If you struggle rotating on the mound, then you’re not going to throw as hard because your arm doesn’t whip the way it should, you get pushy and your arm’s not on time.”
Pro scouts are typically looking for velocity and the ability to throw one off-speed pitch, with the idea they can teach a pitcher command but not velocity. Hypothetically, pitchers don’t have to pitch well to get drafted, but Minckler was pitching well when scouts took notice during a game against Queens in February and it was obvious his velocity wasn’t going to dip.
Minckler also tossed a solid game in the MAAC tournament with scouts watching. He went 3 ⅔ innings against Rider, striking out four without allowing a hit or a run.
Getting picked by the Nationals, Minckler now has a choice to make. He transferred to Arizona State with two years of eligibility remaining, but while he hasn’t made up his mind completely, Minckler is leaning towards signing with the Nationals and ending his college career.
“Not a lot of these draft guys — other than the international draft — lived in another country for 15 years, had to move across the world just to play baseball and with aspirations to be drafted,” Minckler said. “Man, I can’t fully say it set in just yet, but I’m definitely very appreciative to my parents, especially my dad, my mom, for you know, all the sacrifices they’ve made.”