Colleen Costello-Kreidler has this mantra.
“My whole mantra is, you know, bet on Ryan and you’ll be fine,” Colleen said of her son, Detroit Tigers infielder Ryan Kreidler.
She laughed and repeated it: “Bet on Ryan.”
This is precisely what the Tigers did when they selected Kreidler out of UCLA in the fourth round of the 2019 MLB draft.
This is what they did when he made the Tigers out of spring training.
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This is why he started the first game of 2023 at third base.
This is why he keeps finding his way into games.
The Tigers are betting Kreidler’s talented glove and wonderful baseball IQ and tremendous instincts and ridiculous range and professional attitude and quiet leadership and rock-solid personality will benefit this team enough until he starts hitting (with a .143 average over his first 87 career at-bats).
They are betting he is only going to keep working, keep improving, never satisfied.
Bet on Ryan, and you’ll be fine.
And so it came as no surprise on Wednesday morning, less than 12 hours after the Tigers played a night game in Houston, Ryan Kreidler was on the field in front of the Tigers dugout in Minute Maid Park, doing individual drills, working on his fielding, exaggerating his technique, practicing the same movements over and over.
“I think so many people think when you get to this level, you’ve done your work and that you’ve made it,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We see it as the work has just begun. So there are small things that you can gain, whether it’s handling the ball off of a short fungo or developing a hitting routine.”
Kreidler wasn’t alone.
Kerry Carpenter, Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson — all the youngsters took turns putting in extra work before the games during the series in Houston.
“That is part of being a big leaguer,” Hinch said Wednesday, “and the only place that you can experience that is here.”
So let’s be clear: This is just the starting point for all of these youngsters.
But still, Kreidler is a fascinating player to study because he’s already so dang good defensively. “Kreidler is an impact defender,” Hinch said Tuesday.
Here is another way to say that: After the Tigers’ first seven games — and Kreidler only played in parts of six of them — he ranked in the 83rd percentile in MLB in outs above average, according to MLB Statcast. That means he’s making plays four-fifths of the league doesn’t make.
But here is the other way to say that: “He’s an elite defender,” Hinch said on Thursday.
You get the sense that Hinch has mentioned Kreidler darn near every day for a week?
“Anytime he’s in the vicinity — he calls everybody off and makes the catch,” Hinch said. “I mean, those plays are natural for him. His near-misses make you wonder how big his range can be.”
He has already made several outstanding plays.
Running into the outfield to make a catch.
Sliding behind second base to steal a hit.
Capturing an errant throw to second base that looked like it was headed to right field.
“He’s very sure-handed,” Hinch said Thursday. “I don’t want to jinx him. He’s gonna make an error at some point, but I think he’s a contributor in a lot of different ways, and he’s prepared and thorough and that makes me feel really comfortable with him in a multitude of positions.”
But Hinch would rather see him in the middle of the diamond to capitalize on his range.
“We have a weapon in Kreidler in the middle of the field,” Hinch said on Tuesday afternoon in Houston. “Just watch him one play. He’s always in the right spot. He’s always active. If you look at his pre-pitch, if you look at his reaction … there’s a reason why he grades up there with the best in the game on defense.”
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Learning through his father
In the first game of the season, Kreidler started at third base and calmly scooped up his first grounder and threw it to first for the out.
“How many times have you seen that?” I asked his father, Mark Kreidler.
“A 100 million times,” Mark said, laughing. “He was always a dirt devil. He was one of those kids who loved practice.”
Mark started off coaching Kreidler, and he hit him an endless bucket of fungos.
“I got to coach his Little League team but also his travel ball team … until it was completely apparent that I could no longer coach him, and we should probably get this kid some real coaching,” Mark said.
Kreidler developed into an elite, run saving defender.
But that just scratches the surface of what makes him special.
He is just a good kid, a tremendous teammate and a natural, understated leader. Somebody who just gets it. And maybe, that part developed in a more subtle way.
From hearing his father talk about his work.
When Ryan was growing up in California, Mark Kreidler was a sportswriter, first covering the San Diego Padres then becoming a sports columnist.
Mark would come home from work and tell his sons stories about the athletes he was covering, giving them subtle lessons on how to act and be a good teammate.
“He heard me praise team guys through the years, which I did a lot,” Mark said.
The epitome of that was Tony Gwinn. Classy as heck. Unfailingly kind. A great teammate. And a tremendous worker.
“Both of my sons heard me tell far too many Tony Gwynn stories,” Mark said. “He’s certainly the greatest hitter I’ve ever seen in person, but he was also the person who practiced the most. This guy was hitting .325 or whatever, and he was taking 200 cuts on an off day. It was just crazy.”
The lessons seeped into Kreidler.
“My dad speaks highly of people who were good players but played the right way,” Kreidler said. “I try to do the right things.”
In everything.
Kreidler is a 25-year-old who wakes up and makes his bed every day.
“Every morning, he makes his bed, no matter where he is, no matter what’s going on,” Colleen said. “That’s a sense of accomplishment, first thing. He has had this inner strength ever since he was a little kid. He has this intrinsic sense of self. He thinks clearly when things are clear to him, like when all that unnecessary stuff, the unnecessary clutter, is put away. So, he can just focus on what he needs to focus on.”
And yes, the Tigers are betting on that, too.
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Just the beginning
After Kreidler was drafted, Mark got a different view of pro baseball.
“I remember when he got drafted,” Mark said. “I saw a friend of mine, who was at that time a scout for the Brewers. He was walking his dog on the other side of the street. He shouted, ‘Congratulations.’ And I said, ‘Oh, man, thanks.’ And he goes, ‘Now he can get started.’
“And I thought, yeah, I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
Kreidler has climbed through the Tigers’ system, despite being slowed by COVID-19 and injuries.
For his entire life, he has been an every-day player. Now, he’s adjusting to playing sporadically. Learning how to warm up during a game in case he’s used as a pinch-hitter. Learning to stay sharp and get into a rhythm without getting consistent at-bats.
“We need some production from him for him to get more opportunity,” Hinch told reporters Saturday. “But it’s just so early.”
In his first 14 at-bats, he had two hits. But Hinch stressed that the Tigers will give him plenty of time.
“He’s learning a new role, not playing every day, as he has his whole career,” Hinch said. “He’s got a long leash to figure it out.”
The clock is always ticking
When he took the field for the Tigers on Opening Day, Mark was blown away.
“It was, I started to say surreal, but it’s kind of hard to — that’s hilarious — I’m gonna run out of words in about two sentences,” he said.
Yes, here was a professional writer running out of words.
“Let me just put it this way,” he said. “We’ve watched him play thousands of times, going all the way back. And so to sit there for Opening Day, my wife and I both had a big overwhelming moment. Then your kid runs out. It’s like, well, oh, I know him. It can’t be that surreal because that’s Ryan, and he looks just like the person we saw growing up, and so it must be real.”
Still. It was all so … surreal.
“Until Ryan became not just a player, but a professional player, I can’t honestly say that I really understood the depth of feeling that is involved for these guys,” Mark said. “To get that far.”
Now, he understands far better how the journey to this moment is so difficult, how the clock is always ticking on these players, how injuries or happenstance, or even a virus such as COVID-19, can mess everything up, how baseball players age “in dog years.” At the same time, these players have to keep working.
Have to keep grinding. Have to keep working to get better. Have to hit. Just to stay up.
Before they run out of time.
“It’s really hard to describe how different it feels on this side, because I just have a greater understanding than I did as a writer about how hard these guys work,” Mark said. “To just even get to the point where that’s even a possibility.”
But this is real.
This is happening.
For all of them. The Tigers. His family. Himself. Like some wonderful mantra coming true.
Bet on Ryan, and you’ll be fine.
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Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @seideljeff.
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