The rise of Red Sox prospect Ryan Fitzgerald: An analytical success story

Red Sox Prospect Ryan Fitzgerald went from undrafted to fan favorite

“Fitzy! Fitzy! To the streets, Fitzy!” shouted World Series Champion and NESN Boston Red Sox broadcaster, Kevin Youkilis, after Ryan Fitzgerald hit a towering 400-foot home run this past Spring. Fitzy, now a top 20 prospect in the Red Sox organization, quickly became a household nickname for Fitzgerald after he finished second on the team to Rafael Devers in total Spring Training home runs this year.

But six years before Fitzgerald took Red Sox Nation by storm with his luscious flow and tremendous display of power, his path to playing professional baseball was unclear. Fitzgerald, a four-year letterman and three-year starting shortstop who was molded into a slap hitter at Creighton University, went undrafted in the 2016 MLB First-Year Player Draft.

Fitzgerald quickly realized the hitting approach he was told to use in college might not translate well at the next level. And after several independent league tryouts over the course of that summer, he received little attention.

"“I would always get the same answer (from Indy Ball teams),” Fitzgerald said, when I had the chance to talk with him about his career thus far. “You can really play, but you don’t have any professional experience… so we can’t sign you.”"

It was a classic chicken-or-the-egg situation. Independent league baseball teams prefer to sign players with professional experience, but how was Fitzgerald supposed to get professional experience if no one would give him a chance?

But to Fitzgerald, that didn’t matter. He was determined to make his dreams of playing professional – and eventually major league – baseball come true. Later that September, through connections his parents had made at a showcase for his younger brother, Fitzgerald received an invitation to take batting practice with the Gary SouthShore RailCats of the American Association of Professional Baseball. And no less than two months later, the RailCats finally offered him a contract.

Fitzgerald’s professional baseball career began in the Spring of 2017, and so did a new approach for him at the plate.

"“Once I got the handcuffs taken off me from college and I got into Indy Ball, I was like ‘Okay, now I can do what I want. I have nothing to lose.’ So, I was trying to hit a home run every at bat,” said Fitzgerald."

Transitioning from a slap hitter during his college years to a left-handed power hitter, Fitzgerald tapped into raw potential that saw him total more home runs in one year of independent baseball than he did in four years of college ball. But while his results were real, there was still something missing that he knew he could improve upon.

"“I didn’t really know how to do it,” Fitzgerald said. “I was just like, ‘I’m going to try to hit a home run every time,’ but I didn’t understand what I was doing and how it was going to happen. But once I started learning why things are happening, and what to correct when things aren’t going right, that’s when the analytics took over.”"

Analytics. It’s a buzz word in baseball these days, and it has a different connotation depending on who you talk to. Analytics regarding when a pitcher should be pulled from a game, or where to shift defensive players against certain hitters are one part of the equation. But the analytics of hitting a baseball are entirely different. And, depending on who you are, they are fascinating.

Ted Williams was one of the first people to granularly analyze the baseball swing. Similarly to how Napoleon Hill analyzed the 13 principles of success in the renowned book Think and Grow Rich, Williams analyzed the principles of the baseball swing in The Science of Hitting. But what Williams didn’t have the luxury of during his playing days was the technology that exists around the game today. Not only can hitters today study proper mechanics, but they can also physically measure where they stand compared to other professionals.