Ryan Ward is an outfielder in the Dodgers organization that just finished his  4th year and 3rd season with the Dodgers and has one of the best “hit tools” of any prospect in any organization of professional baseball. 

Ward grew up smack dab in the middle of the Blackstone Valley, in Millbury Massachusetts, a small town that sits almost exactly halfway in between Boston and Springfield. While growing up in Millbury he had a memorable career as a Memorial High Woolie and was an SWCL All-Star all five years of his High School career, the T&G Player of the Year, and was a team captain as a senior, a year in which he hit .525, had an OPS of 1.580, struck out a grand total of 1 time, and was unquestionably one of the best hitters in the state of Massachusetts. 

Although his remarkable prep career drew some attention from scouts, he went undrafted and, quite frankly, lightly recruited as well, and eventually decided to take his talents to Bryant to play for Steve Owens, one of the best coaches in college baseball/

Ward had taken a visit to Bryan and fell in love with the school while he was there and decided to commit. His parents Carl and Jen, were alongside and he credits them for helping him so much and being such great parents.

I learned to hit, pretty much, from my dad. I worked with my dad my entire life and he’s always just a phone call away and I can’t thank him and my mom enough for everything they have done for me. Sometimes when I’m struggling and nothing is working it’s just a simple phone call, so the support they have given and continue to give has meant more than they’ll ever know, and sometimes it helps me just to hear their voices.

Bryant

Under the guidance of Steve Owens, Bryant baseball won 8 straight Northeast Conference Regular-Season titles and produced 18 players that were taken in the MLB draft, one being Ward. So Ward had a great program to play for at the Division I level, a great coaching staff to play under and a school that was a perfect fit.

Coming out of High School I didn’t really get much college attention. Millbury is a small town and I graduated with like 80 kids so when Bryant reached out we went to visit. Its only 35 miles from my house and it was the first school I visited so I was still learning how the recruitment process worked. I always dreamed of playing at a big school, but when Coach O showed us around, and I learned about the school, the classroom sizes and everything, I fell in love with it. When we left, the first thing I said to my parents was that this is where I’m going to school and it was the perfect school and perfect fit for me.

The left-handed-hitting outfielder got off to a fast start as a Bulldog and started the first 10 games of his Freshman season and was playing very well before he dove after a ball and broke his wrist on a cold day at Liberty. Although it was a disappointing setback, Ward used his time off the field learning the game, so, in the end, it might have actually worked as a benefit to the sweet-swinging left-handed hitter.

Freshman year we opened up at New Mexico State and it was a blast. I had all the jitters, then I hit back to back homeruns and it all took off from there. Then we went to Arkansas and we had another good weekend, then we went to Liberty and I remember it was the coldest game I had ever played in and I dove for a flyball, broke my wrist and ended up having surgery. I thought originally that I’d be back by the end of the year so it hurt when I realized I was going to have surgery that would end the year. But, ultimately, it helped me learn a ton because I traveled to every game and I was able to pick the brains of my coaches and my teammates and study the tendencies of pitchers and I learned that most of them are pretty repetitive. So that was good for me because it helped me learn and come back strong the next year.

The wrist injury ended his True Freshman season, but after being granted a Medical Redshirt, the Millbury native returned the next season and recorded the best offensive season in the history of Bryant. As a Redshirt Sophomore, he hit .409 and became the only player in the history of the school to hit over .400 for an entire season.

As a result of his great work, he became an All-American, was the NCBWA District I player of the year, the Eastern College Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year, and was awarded as an All ECAC first-team performer. He followed that up in 2019 by hitting .382 with 13 home runs, recorded an OPS of 1.064, and walked twice as many times as he struck out.

 After posting two of the most impressive years in all of College Baseball, the Dodgers selected the Millbury native in the 8th Round of the 2019 draft.

I honestly never really thought about my average that year but I was paying attention to the hit count because I knew I had a chance to break the NEC record for hits, so that kinda had my attention more than my average. Being able to put the bat on the ball is something I have really focused on because I really hate striking out so I’ll do whatever I can to put a ball in play, but growing up I was never really a “pull” hitter. If I was on I was hitting balls over the short stops head so being like that allowed me to learn how to let the ball travel so I’ve had the ability to see balls longer and foul off pitches I can’t hit or hit them the other way and I think that’s helped me greatly with my hit totals, averages and strike out numbers as well.

Onto the Dodgers

Ward played his first year in the organization with Ogden for the very popular Manager Austin Chubb and had a very good year hitting .271 with an OPS of .755. Despite the massive amount of success he had already experienced in the game, the young Ward needed to make some adjustments to his swing, and, to his credit, he was willing and open. During 2020, the left-handed-hitting outfielder spent his time changing a few things in his swing, and when he made it back to the field in 2021, as good as he had always been, he was better than ever.  

Ward played again for Manager Austin Chubb, this time in High A Great Lakes, and, again, had a very good year hitting .278 while recording an OPS of .876. His Manager Austin Chubb simply can’t say enough good things about the young Ward.

Ryan is a managers dream in every way. We played some really cold games early last year, and he just never complained about anything. He has a really good hit tool and his defense is getting a lot better, so he is a young man that has every chance in the world to be very successful. I had him in 2019, then also in 2021, and when I got him back in 2021 he had obviously put a lot of work in during the Covid year because his swing looked great. We had a bunch of really highly-rated prospects that stole some of the spotlight last year, so he didn’t get the recognition he deserved, but he had a great year and is a really, really good player.

During 2021 Ward had 36 multiple-hit games in total which included streaks in which he had multiple hits in 5 games in a row between June 17th and June 22, 3-7 game hit streaks, 1-8 game hitting streak, streaks where he hit safely in 16 of 20 games during the month of May, 20 out of 23 between late June and early July, 17 out of 20 in August, and 10 out of 12 in September.

This young left-handed-hitting prospect can simply hit, always has been able to, and always will. 

He entering his 3rd season on the field in the Dodgers organization, 2022, looking to continue the momentum he has created in his early career.

I haven’t really adjusted the type of hitter I want to be but I have made incredible changes. I’ve progressed to a full leg kick, and at first it was difficult, and in fact, in Spring training of 2021 I only got 1 hit. But, I started trusting the process and in the 2nd week of the season I hit a “pull-side” homerun on a pitch I had never been able to hit before and that’s when I felt everything work and I knew that was it and I went from there and got in a groove. Coming into this year I feel like I’m on a good path, I trust what I’m feeling, I like my swing, I trust my coaches around me and I’m just trying to continue that momentum

2022

Ward had another great year in 2002 hitting .255 with an OPS of .805. He also had 28 home runs, and led the organization in long balls until he got injured in August which slowed his momentum. 

In fact, on August 2nd, just days before his injury he hit home run number 25 which led the entire Dodgers organization and all of AA. He had just finished a month in July where he hit .303, and had an on-base % of .364, and had a 7-game hitting streak in June where he went 11 for 26 (.423).

He led AA Tulsa in home runs (28), Slugging % (.486), OPS (.805), and was 2nd on the club in batting average (.255) and RBIs with 78. 

As I said, the dude can rake, and is simply one of the best young hitters in the game, take that to the bank.

Feature Cut

Hitters work endlessly on getting their timing down and rightfully so because hitting is all about timing. But, there will be less than a handful of times a year where hitters will have perfect timing, so successful hitting is actually less about having perfect timing and more about what happens when the timing isn’t perfect. Hitters that create hard contact with less than perfect timing create the most consistency and because Ward is so balanced and uses his hands so well, he has learned how to put that puzzle together. Here is a home run he hit to right field while he was quite a bit out front and early.

On the other end of the timing chain, here is a home run he hit to left field when he was a little bit late and somewhat fooled as to the location of the pitch.

So, as you can see, Ward is great at making hard contact even when he doesn’t have great timing which is the absolute #1 determining factor as to whether or not a hitter has the ability to be consistent or not.

Let’s shift gears now and watch a home run Ward hit in one of the handfuls of times each year for a hitter when absolutely everything goes right. Watch how balanced he is through his swing and just how well he uses his hands. Hitters that stay balanced and use their hands have what I call “sweet swings” because they make the process look so easy and effortless. This ball was hit over 400 feet and the exit velocity was pushing 110.

The hitter that I compare Ward to is Fred McGriff. Although they have body types that are very different, the two share close to identical mechanics and are equally as similar in terms of style.  McGriff’s lifetime average was .284 whereas Ward has a .278 average in his 2 years in professional baseball. McGriff had a lifetime OPS of .886 whereas Ward’s OPS as a professional is .876 and Ward has averaged hitting a home run every 16 at-bats so far in his career whereas McGriff averaged hitting one every 17 at-bats.  To top off the comparison between both hitters, they both average(d) using the middle of the field the exact same 27% of the time, so they are remarkably similar in both mechanics and style.

Future

The Dodgers have a lot of extremely high-quality outfielders in the system, but having seen Ward hit, both in College and now in the Dodgers organization, I can tell you that his “hit tool” takes a back seat to very few if any. This guy can flat “rake” and has added more power to his game to find the most effective mixture between power and efficiency in terms of batting average and k%.

For instance, he hit a home run every 23 at-bats in College whereas he hit a home run every 16 at-bats in 2021 for Great Lakes, then spent large parts of 2022 leading both all of AA and the Dodgers organization in Homeruns.

The obvious trade-off for that added power was a higher k%, but keep in mind that he only struck out 32 times total in 3 years and 538 at-bats in college and struck out just 1 time his Senior year in High School, so there was a lot of wiggle room to give up in trade for his increased power.

Ward has made some really good adjustments to his swing and feels really connected and is primed to add to his already elite tool of hitting.