Ian Ritchie Jr saw a big velocity jump after his freshman year of high school.
He had started playing football that year, quarterbacking for his Bainbridge (Wash.) High School team. During his baseball offseason, he was throwing a football 50 to 75 times a day, Ritchie told Perfect Game, and he feels like it made his arm a lot stronger.
It came with no compromise to his arm motion or anything related to that, either. Ritchie, who goes by JR, described himself as a gunslinging quarterback – he’s not over-the-top with his shoulder-padded arm, he throws the pigskin how he has naturally always thrown a baseball.
That cross training of sorts gave him the extra juice on his fastball, but hadn’t really turned him into a pitcher yet. At that point, after his freshman season, he had always been a shortstop. The velo had turned him into a thrower, but he wanted to be a pitcher.
“I was throwing pretty hard, but I wasn’t a pitcher,” Ritchie said. “I didn’t know how to pitch. I had been a shortstop leading up to that. I had always had people tell me that I was going to be a pitcher in college, but I was just like, ‘Oh, whatever.’ They said I wasn’t fast enough to play infield so I just thought, ‘Ok, I’ll get faster.’ I never really realized it until I made that velo jump that I really have a future in this.”
Ritchie then began working with a pitching coach, Kevin Gunderson, to turn himself into a pitcher. Gunderson is well-known in the Northwest, having pitched his way into the record books at Oregon State in the mid-2000s and pitching in the Braves system for some time.
Gunderson has worked with Perfect Game All-Americans in the past, including Mick Abel, who Ritchie works out with from time to time.
Routine was the biggest thing the pairing worked on, and learning how to become a pitcher, not just a position player who happens to throw pretty hard. His mechanics got locked down, and progress was certainly made.
At that point was when Ritchie started tinkering with his pitch mix a bit, too.
“I was really fastball, curveball, and I threw a changeup a little bit,” he said. “It really wasn’t some crazy effective pitch though. There was a lot of stuff wrong with it. I slowed my arm speed down, I babied it, tried to create movement. When I started working with [Gunderson], that curveball turned into a slider, and the changeup got locked down a little more. I’ve been working on those two pitches the last two offseasons, on top of my fastball.”
It was around that same time when Ritchie got connected with Josh Wright, a trainer in southern California. Ritchie told Wright, who has connections in the Canes organization, that he was interested in playing for the national travel ball powerhouse.
Wright made a call, and Ritchie was in. It didn’t take much convincing to grab a prospect as talented as Ritchie. Ritchie got on the phone with Canes National head coach Jeff Petty to set up a schedule of what events he would be at, and away he went.
There has been a lot of success since, which is of course nothing new to Ritchie or the Canes organization.
The 6-foot-2 right-hander, who is the No. 14 overall prospect in the 2022 class and No. 4 right-handed pitcher, has been named to all-tournament teams three times with the Canes name on his chest. His first such event was the 2020 WWBA 16u National Championship, in which he was up to 93 mph with his fastball. That performance was followed up by a similar all-tournament one at the 17u National Championship.
He was up to 96 on the mound at last fall’s WWBA World Championship, and was all-tournament at this summer’s WWBA 17u National Championship, throwing five innings of no runs and no walks while striking out seven.
Playing for the Canes has been eye-opening, Ritchie said. The amount of talent on the roster at any given tournament is impressive. It has raised his game in the process.
“Every single guy on that team is legit,” Ritchie said. “Growing up in the Northwest, I’d say the talent is pretty top heavy. So the first time I played with [Canes], there were a couple balls hit in the gap and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s a double.’ And I look back and we’ve got a guy getting there. Like are you kidding me? That ball should not be caught. It’s a crazy experience with all these guys I heard about growing up playing travel ball. I’m on their team now.”
There will be 11 prospects at the Perfect Game All-American Classic who have played for the Canes, including Ritchie. Most of them – guys like Roman Anthony, Ryan Clifford, Paxton Kling, Eli Serrano, and Cole Young – will be playing for the East squad.
Ritchie, hailing from Washington state, will of course be suiting up for the West. That may lead to some fun matchups when Ritchie gets his chance on the bump, and it’s something he is looking forward to.
“I really like facing those guys because I’ve been around them for so long,” he said. “I kind of have an understanding on how to pitch them…It’s always fun when I get to face my buddies, I always start laughing on the mound. It’s always fun.”
Getting to the All-American Classic is something Ritchie has had his eyes on for some time now. When he was 13 years old, he thought he had a good shot at making the Perfect Game 13u Select Festival roster, but didn’t make the cut.
That made him work harder than he ever had, while at the same time seeing players from the Northwest getting the opportunity to play in the Classic each year.
His workout buddy, Abel, is one of the notable selections from that area in the past couple years.
“Growing up in the Northwest, you see a couple guys every year make it,” Ritchie said. “There was Corbin Carroll, then Mick Abel, last year it was Malakhi Knight and Max Debiec. I got to play with those two, and I work out with Mick, so it’s definitely been something that I’ve always dreamed of and wanted to play in. Getting to play on TV and in Petco Park, it looks like such a fun experience.”
It’s a crowning achievement for Ritchie and the 59 other prospects selected for the event. Most of those guys are in the middle of the craziness that is late summer heading into their senior year. It’s PG National, then PDP, Area Codes, East Coast Pro, and finish up with the Classic.
It’s a whirlwind, but not something Ritchie has taken for granted. He wants to take it all in and enjoy himself as much as possible.
The way his dad put it really resonated with Ritchie.
“My dad described [the Classic] as a cherry on top of travel baseball,” he said. “It’s a celebration of your accolades of the past however many years you’ve been playing travel ball, whether that’s locally or nationally. I’m going into it trying to soak up the experience, knowing this is something that will only happen once in my lifetime.”