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Beer League Live #42: Ryan Redmond on the Transfer Portal, the Art of the Changeup, and Coaching 13U Travel Ball the Right Way

beerleaguelive
Sep 3
6 min read

🎧 Listen to Episode 42

Listen to the full conversation with Ryan Redmond: https://linktr.ee/beerleaguelive


From a 10-ERA Freshman Year to Coaching Franklin's Newest 13U Travel Team

Ryan Redmond's freshman year at Susquehanna University was, in his own words, a "train wreck." No confidence, a double-digit ERA, walks everywhere. Four years, one transfer portal move to Division I Sacred Heart, and a relief outing in front of 10,000 fans at South Carolina later, Redmond hung up his cleats, moved to Nashville for work, and posted on Facebook that he was looking to volunteer as a coach. Now he's running Franklin's newest 13U SBA National travel team — and he joined Beer League Live to talk about the portal, his changeup, and why he'd rather bench a talented kid's helicopter parent than the kid himself.


👋 Meet the Guest

Ryan Redmond grew up in Radnor, Pennsylvania, and pitched collegiately for three years at Susquehanna University (NCAA Division III) before transferring into the portal after his junior year and finishing his career at Sacred Heart University (NCAA Division I). A right-hander who topped out around 93 mph with a fastball, cutter, slider, and a changeup he calls his best pitch, Redmond moved to Nashville for a job in wealth management and, missing coaching, put a volunteer post on Facebook. Jim Schindley — Beer League Live's guest on Episode #41 — and fellow FBC travel commissioner John Conger reached out, and Redmond now co-coaches Franklin's 13U SBA National team alongside Brian, off to a 6-2 start this fall.


📈 The Number That Matters

10.00. That was Redmond's ERA over 15 innings as a Susquehanna freshman — "awful," in his words, with no confidence on the mound. It's the number he points back to whenever a parent on his current 13U team panics about a rough outing.

"I threw like 15 innings, had like a 10 ERA. Like it was rough."

⚾ The Midweek Start That Changed Everything

Redmond's sophomore year started the same way — until, three weeks after his last blown outing, he asked his coach for one more shot at a midweek start against a nationally ranked Division III powerhouse. He didn't feel ready. He went out anyway.

"I was like, man, all right, this is my opportunity. So I kind of went out there and I was just like — love it, like, it can't go any worse than it has so far."

He threw six and two-thirds scoreless innings and beat the favorite. That start moved him to Sunday starter, then Saturday, then into a regional start — and set up a strong junior year: roughly 70 innings and an ERA around 4.00.

🔄 The Transfer Portal, Done the Right Way

After his junior year, Redmond entered the transfer portal — mainly to get his senior year paid for rather than take on more student loans. He turned down several Division I offers to walk on as a preferred walk-on ("PWO," he explained — not a roster spot, just a tryout with no scholarship and no obligation to keep him) in favor of a real offer from Sacred Heart, where coach Egan had recruited him hard.

Leaving Susquehanna wasn't clean. Redmond went to his coach directly instead of going around him — the right way to do it, he says — but the conversation didn't go well.

"He said, 'you're ruining our program.'"

Looking back, Redmond is entirely grateful for the opportunities that coach gave him, portal exit and all: "If I don't get that midweek start, I'm probably sitting there shagging BP and throwing bullpens the rest of my career."


🏟️ First D1 Outing: One Inning at South Carolina, 10,000 Fans

Redmond's Sacred Heart debut came in relief, in the 8th inning of a one-run game at South Carolina.

"I blacked out that inning. I walk out there, I step on the mound — 10,000 fans here, this is pretty cool."

One inning, one earned run on a bloop hit after he'd struck the batter out with a well-located slider, two strikeouts. He finished his senior year with 31 innings pitched.


🎯 The Changeup Is Everything

Redmond's signature pitch was his changeup — thrown off the same arm speed and tunnel as his fastball, with three to four inches of late drop.

"It's the art of deception, right? If you can throw something that looks like your fastball 8 to 10 miles an hour off, and I was getting 3 to 4 inches of drop on it — I had guys completely fooled."

He gave up exactly one extra-base hit on the pitch all season — a bloop over a notoriously short 290-foot fence at Mount St. Mary's.


🧠 The Mental Game: Untangling Identity From Outcomes

The turning point in Redmond's career wasn't mechanical — it was mental. Midway through his sophomore year, sitting miserable while his friends laughed around him, he realized how much of his identity was wrapped up in his pitching lines.

"I hate baseball right now, like I hate it, I couldn't hate it anymore. My whole life, my whole identity, my whole life was baseball. I need friends outside of baseball. I need to find new hobbies and I need to find a purpose beyond just throwing a baseball."

That shift — not the mechanics — is what let him pitch loose again:

"Regardless of if I go out there and throw six scoreless innings or I go and walk the house and get pulled, nobody cares. I'm the only one that cares about the outcome."

📋 What Makes a Kid Coachable

Picking his 13U roster, Redmond says he's looking for coachability and ambition over raw tools — and he's just as selective about parents.

"It's not, 'my son's the best shortstop I've ever seen, he needs to play here.' Anyone that's a helicopter and overarching — I'm probably gonna shy away from that. If you're letting me coach your kid, you need to trust me with him."

🎤 "It's Your Fault": Coach Accountability

Redmond doesn't let his players off the hook for effort or focus — but he draws a hard line between that and fundamentals nobody taught them.

"If you have a team and they show up and they can't hit a cutoff, they can't throw the ball down, they can't hold runners on — it's your fault. Those are the things you cannot get mad at the kids for, because that is your responsibility as a coach to get them ready for it."

He's just as direct about radar guns and exit velocity chasing pitching development: "It's not a starting-versus-relieving thing. It's mechanics. If you're throwing less than 50% strikes, you shouldn't even think about throwing anything but a fastball."


🗣️ Tone Is Everything

Ask Redmond what separated the coaches who earned his respect from the ones who didn't, and the answer isn't scheme or resume — it's tone. He credits his Susquehanna coach, known as Skip, for consistently believing in him through a rough two years, and his Sacred Heart coach, Egan, for balancing being personable with holding players accountable face-to-face.

"Commanding their respect is being consistent, being a positive influence in their lives, and showing them by actions that you care about them. That is how you command their respect."

🏈 Play Everything, Then Specialize

Redmond played football, cross country, basketball, and baseball growing up, and says today's youth sports landscape has split into two extremes: kids who don't specialize falling behind, and kids who specialize too early burning out. His current 13U players juggle fall football and cross country, and he tells parents not to worry about a late arrival to practice.

"The more sports they're involved in, the better."

😤 This Episode's Rant: Banana Ball

Co-host Seth used his rant on the Savannah Bananas' banana ball — stilts, flips, bat flips, the works — calling it everything wrong with modern baseball entertainment. Redmond, a self-described baseball purist, pushed back.

"I don't consider that baseball — it's a show. But I think it's genius. It targets a different market."

He made the business case too: the whole appeal, he said, was making a ballgame affordable and fun for families who don't follow the inside of the game the way diehards do — and, in his view, it isn't pulling fans away from the MLB.


🔗 Resources From This Episode



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