LHP Ricky Tiedemann, Lakewood HS [CA]
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DoB: 8/18/2002. Commitment: San Diego State.
Ricky Tiedemann's older brother, Tai, was drafted in the eighth round out of Long Beach City College in 2016, putting up a nice season at Class A Hickory in the Rangers' system in 2019. Now his younger brother, Ricky, has a chance to beat his draft selection by a significant margin. Depending on your views on Long Beach State's Adam Seminaris, Tiedemann is probably the best left handed pitching prospect in Southern California, coming out of the same Lakewood High School that produced Mariners infielder J.P. Crawford, Braves catcher Travis d'Arnaud, Rangers infielder Matt Duffy, and longtime big league infielder Damion Easley, among numerous others. While Tiedemann is far from a finished product, there's a consensus among scouts that he has an immense ceiling.
The very first thing you will notice about Tiedemann, aside from his long brown hair, is the looseness of his operation. He's an excellent athlete at 6'4" with great body control, an exceptionally loose arm that whips in fastballs around 90, and he figures to add significant velocity with added weight and improved mechanics. He has a slider, but it's fairly rudimentary right now and would need to be fully developed by a major league team. Lastly, he throws a changeup which is probably his best pitch right now. He gets great armside fade out of it, which plays really well off of his wide arm slot and the angle he gets on his other pitches.
Tiedemann throws his share of strikes, which is a plus and shows that he's not a complete project. Once he learns to channel his strength into his pitches and really drive towards the plate, and that seems very likely given his body control and athleticism, he could go from a lower velocity guy to a power arm. The fastball and changeup especially have the chance to tunnel off each other and become true weapons, and if he can sharpen that slider a bit, you're looking at an impact starting pitcher. For yet another positive, Tiedemann is very young for the class and won't turn 18 until August, giving him all the more time to develop.
As with any high school arm, there is significant risk here, but Tiedemann's left handedness and his natural athleticism alleviate at least some of that. You definitely have to squint a little bit, but it's really pretty easy to imagine him as an impact starting pitcher once you do. He'll need to develop that breaking ball and and refine his mechanics, though I'm definitely confident in at least the latter. He probably figures to go somewhere in rounds two through four if he's signable away from San Diego State.
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