Ryan Waldschmidt does it all in an Atomic August

Corbin Carroll is the gift that keeps on giving for the Arizona Diamondbacks. When the former Soddies fan favorite burst onto the scene in 2023 and won Rookie of the Year, it activated the Prospect Promotion Incentive instated in the 2022 CBA to reward teams with an extra first-round pick for having younger players on the Opening Day roster. That meant that after the Diamondbacks took Slade Caldwell, who Sod Poodles fans will get to lay their eyes on next season, with the 29th pick after making the World Series, Arizona selected Ryan Waldschmidt just two picks later with the 31st pick.

After draft day, Waldschmidt has done nothing but shine for the organization no matter where he’s gone. He hit .268/.415/.447/.862 with High-A Hillsboro, with 23 extra-base hits prior to earning his promotion to Bomb City on June 24th. Since then, the Sod Poodles have won all but two series: the series in which he made his debut against the Arkansas Travelers and last week’s set with Northwest Arkansas, stringing together a franchise-record six straight series without a loss in between. 

It wasn’t exactly easy early for Waldschmidt, hitting balls with 100+ exit velocities nearly every single night in his first full month with the team in July, but more often than not finding the leather of opponents. Like the good ones always do, Waldschmidt just knew that it was part of the game that we love and it was just a matter of time. "I think you just kind of change your definition of success. When you go in the box, you want to get a hit and you want to see results, but just putting the barrel on the ball and hitting the ball hard is all you can do. When you hit it hard, you know, that's a win.” Waldschmidt said early in the month before his all-around explosion. “Just seeing it that way, and then letting the outcome be what it is, is a lot easier to kind of just continue to keep pushing through that.” 

That mindset paid off significantly in the rest of August when he hit an astronomical .371/.504/.639/1.143 for the month, with 6 home runs, 6 doubles, and a triple as the cherry on top. Waldschmidt’s magnum opus for the month was a 6-game series against Corpus Christi at Hodgetown, where he torched the Hooks, hitting his first home run in 35 games and didn’t stop there. He proceeded to hit a second home run that night, another one the next night, and went ahead and tacked on two more the night after that. Five home runs in a 3-game stretch fueled a series in which he hit .524/.643/1.286/1.929 with a .462 BAbip in those 6 games. 

“It's always been a belief that I have had my entire life, swing to do damage. 
I try to have the most controlled aggressive swing possible. My setup and my load are simple, but then I let it loose when I take my swings.” Waldschmidt said last week. “I think it comes with the skill set I have as a player as well. 
My bat to ball skills are pretty good and my pitch selection is as well. That kind of all comes together when it comes to doing damage at the pitches you swing at when you do choose to swing the bat. That’s a lot of it all coming together for me right now.” 

The Sod Poodles star turned around the next week against the Missions in San Antonio, a place notoriously hard for hitters to produce great numbers, and adjusted accordingly. 

“​​It definitely is a factor just in your mindset going up to the plate and knowing you have to keep the ball low, try and get singles, extra base hits, low line drives, but at the end of the day, just trying to keep that same swing that was working. Once you put it in play, just whatever happens, happens. So I just was fortunate enough to actually keep it low (that) week and get a couple hits for some singles.”

For the second straight week, Waldschmidt, in a vastly different environment, posted a slash line that popped off the stat sheet:  .409/.500/.545/1.045

“I mean that’s a complete hitter no matter how you look at it. It feels like whenever he’s hitting the ball he’s hitting it hard.” Sod Poodles third baseman and Texas League leader in batting average and hits LuJames Groover said.”He’s got more walks than strikeouts, hitting for power, contact, he’s doing it all. Even when he first got here he was just getting a little unlucky, now that’s flipped and look at it now.” Waldschmidt is the only hitter on the team this season with a higher line drive rate than Groover (29.3%), who leads the Texas League among qualified hitters, with the outfielder sitting at a 31.7% during his time in Double-A. That number also would place him 3rd among Double-A hitters with at least 200 at-bats behind only former #1 overall pick Travis Bazzana and the Phillies Keaton Anthony.

If you ask someone about Waldschmidt who has seen a lot of him, like Groover, one of, if not the first thing that will come up, is his world-class plate discipline. When you see #11 shake his head at the dish, it is probably a ball. “It gives him such an enormous floor. Even when he’s not ‘hot’ at the plate, he is still productive because he gets on base,” the voice of the Sod Poodles, Zach Goodman, said. “He will shake his head no on close pitches that he thinks are balls, and when I check the Trackman strike zone, it’s always a hair outside the zone.” You don’t post a .504 OBP in the month without some presence at the plate, and Waldschmidt broke the Sod Poodles record for most walks in a calendar month with 24 in his atomic August, only striking out 14 times in that stretch. For his tenure, Waldschmidt has led the team in BB% with a 16.9% figure that would place him firmly in 3rd in the league if qualified.

When Waldschmidt does find his way on base he has been a weapon on the basepaths. In August, the Kentucky Wildcat and first round pick had more steals in the month than any active Sod Poodle (Jose Fernandez is the closest with 11 in 111 games with Amarillo) for the entire season, swiping 12 bags on 15 tries. 

It’s hard to quantify how much an outfielder does on defense in the minor leagues statistically, but the more games you watch Waldschmidt, the more you’ll see the game speed and the jumps required for a big league outfielder. Patrolling center for most of his time with the Sod Poodles, Waldschmidt frequently finds a way to make the big play while navigating the punishing Amarillo wind.

Altogether, the 2024 first-round pick had 9 multi-hit games and finished the month of August on a 10-game hitting streak after driving in 17 runs, while most importantly contributing to winning in every way he possibly can. Waldschmidt and the Sod Poodles will continue their quest to clinch a berth in the Texas League Playoffs this week, as the magic number sits at 6 games going into a series with a highly talented Arkansas Travelers team.