Retired right-hander Ryan Pressly has been hired by the Twins, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. According to Declan Goff of SKOR North, Pressly will be working in player development with both major and minor leaguers.
Pressly, 37, just announced his retirement as a player a couple of days ago. It seems he doesn’t plan to sit by the fire smoking a pipe and reading the paper. He has quickly launched the next stage of his life with this gig with the Twins.
Presumably, Pressly has a lot of wisdom to pass on to younger players after the twists and turns of his baseball journey. He just wrapped up a professional career that lasted almost two decades. He was drafted by the Red Sox with an 11th-round pick back in 2007. He was never really a top prospect and was left unprotected in the 2012 Rule 5 draft, which is how the Twins were able to get him from the Sox.
That proved to be the springboard for him to establish himself as a major leaguer for 13 seasons. The Twins traded him to the Astros in 2018 but that doesn’t seem to have created any sour feelings between him and the organization, based on the fact that he is now rejoining the Twins in a new capacity.
Now he’ll pivot to helping other players who are in the earlier stages of their journeys. This is the second time in a week that the Twins have brought back one of their recently-retired players for a new role. Michael A. Taylor was hired as an outfield instructor a week ago.
Photo courtesy of Brad Rempel, Imagn Images
Twins get recently retired players. Congrats to Pressly on that!
I saw a post on this a few days ago, and seeing that MLBTR reported it, I know it’s real! Thanks for clarifying.
I wish he was hired to pitch in the bullpen.
Good for him and for the Twins. I like to see former players involved in the game in these capacities.
I’ll handle the fireside sitting and pipe smoking.
He just said 2 days ago he wants to retire and he’s really excited to start this new chapter in his life and spend more time with his family — guess he’s already had enough of that!!! 😂
Both things are still possible, compared to the grind of a 162 game season.
That was a quick turnaround.
Pressley has a hunka burning love for the Twins and they have a great facility just on the end of lonely Street where when not instructing players, he can walk his hound dog, but don’t be cruel and give it chocolate if you see him, instead meet him for a clam bake at the jungle room!
At 37, there is a chance that Pressly has never sat down to read a paper in his life. His first experience with news was likely AOL or Yahoo, not the newspaper.