MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Since the fifth grade, Ryan Mitchell knew exactly what he wanted to do.
That dream became a reality in the 2nd round of the 2025 MLB Draft.
“Man, it’s been surreal. Just like, kind of like taking it all in because you see family, friends, teammates getting a whole bunch of texts. I feel like I’ve been really blessed and it’s a dream come true,” said Mitchell.
Ryan didn’t have the slightest clue that St.Louis was interested until just a few picks before he was selected.
That decision by the Cardinals to keep things quiet will allow him to start his pro career not too far from home, and one day hopefully bring him right back to Memphis with the Redbirds.
“We were trying to guess like before the draft, like guess who I was going to go to and everything, and like, you wouldn’t think it was the Cardinals just because, like, a lot of teams play games. They don’t want you to show how much they love you because they don’t want other teams to know,” said Mitchell. “I just think it was like a blessing that I get to come through Memphis, man, get to see the family, and only four hours away from St.Louis, so everybody can still come and support me”.
Reaching ‘The Show’ was always the goal for Ryan, but to get there, he knew he needed to dedicate more time to his game. This is why he chose to go virtual in the classroom during his senior year, which took a ton of convincing from his parents.
“My first reaction was, “What? It’s your senior year. Why would you not want to be in school your senior year?” He said, Mom, I’ve done all of that. He literally brought a dissertation to me and said, these are the pros, these are the cons, and this is what I would like to present to you,” said Ryan’s mom, Tiffany.
“She said, I could’ve been a lawyer just because of the way I persuaded her to go online this year. But her main thing is to just always make sure your academics are good. So I think it was very important for them to see what my goals were; they were able to help me achieve them because it takes a village,” said Ryan.
This time of year, most parents are preparing to send their kids off to college. For Ryan Mitchell’s parents, Ralph and Tiffany, their 18-year-old is trading a scholarship to Georgia Tech to take steps toward a shot at the ‘Bigs’.
“Throughout this baseball journey, we always looked at things in steps, like, OK, we want to get you faster, we want to get you stronger, you want to make your high school team, you want to be able to go to college. So this is just another step, and to be able to get paid for it is also nice for him because he’s off our payroll,” said Ralph.
” He was able to understand I can set a goal, but there are a lot of things in between to get to the finish line, and what that involved was work ethic, that involved commitment, consistency, and persistence,” added Tiffany.
And Ryan is just as ready to leave the nest as he is to get to work.
” You don’t want to get stuck in the minor leagues. You want to go and get up to the Major Leagues. I’m just ready to get to it, man, you see a lot of players that are in the draft and you may feel like you’re better than. So it’s really just show them it’s a race to The Bigs,” said Ryan.
But no matter where Ryan is, his parents won’t be far behind.
“If he’d gone to California to play baseball, we’re going to come and see you, but the fact that you’re up the road, you’re going to see us more often and that may be a good or bad thing,” said Ralph.