It’s hard—no, impossible—to imagine the pressure that a 23-year-old young man picked first in the MLB draft in July 2019, gifted a record $8.1 million signing bonus, consistently ranked the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball and tabbed as the savior of a talent-, playoffs-, and win-starved franchise faces on the daily.
If it all bothers Adley Rutschman, he doesn’t show it. When he’s asked whether the pressure gets to be too much sometimes, Rutschman always gives some extremely relatable and mature answer. He’ll credit his dad (a coach for over 40 years) for not forcing baseball on him, allowing him to develop his own passion for the game.