The Diamondbacks’ Comeback Kid: Glaesmann Hits Cycle

Coming into the 2015 season, most fans of Minor League baseball didn’t know who Todd Glaesmann was. The prospect in the lower levels of the Arizona Diamondbacks’ farm system didn’t even crack their top 30 prospects and was barely a blip on the radar screen. Last night, he started to turn some heads. 

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Glaesmann, against the wishes of manager J.R. House, hit for the cycle in the High-A Visalia Rawhide’s 9-2 victory over San Jose last night. Glaesmann already had a single, double and home run on the books when he hit his sixth inning triple. If House had his way, it would have been a double, since he threw the hold sign up. Glaesmann ignored the signal.

“When I was standing on third he said, ‘Did you just do what I think you did?’,” Glaesmann recollected to MiLB.com. “I said, ‘Yup,’ and he said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry I held you up — I had no idea.’ I said, ‘That’s OK, because I was definitely going for a triple anyway.’”

It was a big night for Glaesmann who is off to a hot start in 2015. Though he is way down the list of Diamondbacks’ prospects to watch, Glaesmann is just happy he is being watched. The 24-year old right fielder hung it up and retired from baseball in 2014. Last night showed he made the right choice for a comeback.

“I, for whatever reason, did not have same passion for the game,” he said on MiLB.com. “I don’t know if I took for granted what I had with the sport, but I thought I was ready to move on. Obviously, I wasn’t when I stepped away, but it gave me the right amount of perspective of how blessed I am to play baseball every day. Sometimes you need something taken away to realize what you have.”

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Glaesmann was drafted by the Tamp Bay Rays in the third round of the 2009 draft. He became an Rays’ Organizational All Star in 2012 before being traded to the Diamondbacks in 2013 as part of the Heath Bell deal. Coming off of a 2013 regression from his breakout 2012 season, and on the heels of a trade, Glaesmann hung up the cleats.

He came back last June and made his way back to Double-A. Though last season had its ups and downs, this season, Glaesmann looks to have found that talent that made him an All Star in 2012. He has started the 2015 season batting .400, with 10 hits in his first 25 at bats. Six of those hits have been for extra bases, three being home runs.

Now, Glaesmann can say he has hit for the cycle in his professional career. Whether the 24-year old ever makes the Diamondbacks roster, Glaesmann proved to himself that he made the right choice, and that he is in fact, a baseball player last night.

"“When I made decision to come back, I told myself going back a second time, you only get to play this game [for so long]. If you don’t give it everything you have, you’re going to live a life of regret, thinking about what could have been, what kind of player you could have been.”"