Inside the Northeast Ohio baseball facility that has developed 15 young players into Major League prospects (2024)

CLEVELAND, Ohio — After starting his college career at Case Western Reserve University in 2014, Ben Simon realized he had a place in the game of baseball. But it wasn’t as a pitcher.

He made eight appearances between 2014 and 2015, recording no decisions and an ERA of 9.35 in 8 2/3 innings of work.

After those two seasons, Simon decided to stay in baseball, but as a teacher and not a player.

“Honestly, I wasn’t great,” said Simon, an Orange High School alum who graduated Case with a dual business degree in management and marketing.

“I was always training pitchers while I was playing in Case. At some point, I was like, ‘You know what? These kids that I’m training are already way better than me. I’d rather do something I’ve got a chance to be pretty good at rather than keep banging my head against the wall at something I’m not all that good at.’”

That revelation helped lead Simon to open Prospect Performance Academy in the fall of 2017 in Streetsboro.

PPA is a facility that trains young baseball players not just from Northeast Ohio, but also from around the country. The clientele of players who attend PPA ranges anywhere from middle school to college players across all the power conferences.

PPA has had 15 players drafted by Major League Baseball teams since the first one was drafted in 2019, including five in just the last two years. Eleven are still playing in the minor leagues.

Four were drafted in 2023, including 22-year-old Kent State pitcher Joe Whitman, who went 69th overall to the San Francisco Giants in 2023; and 24-year-old Mayfield High School alum Mark Manfredi, who was drafted in the ninth round out of Dayton by the Milwaukee Brewers.

Four of those five players are pitchers, including 22-year-old Riley Huge, a West Geauga High School alum who was picked by the Oakland Athletics in the 13th round this summer.

Simon, hitting and performance coach Tyler Mitchell and Braden Durham, who works with the hitters and catchers to go with his strength and conditioning background, make up a small full-time staff at PPA. They coordinate with a rotating group of part-time staff that includes current college and pro coaches.

The key for building his staff, Simon said, is making sure the people he hires to help train players do so at a high level.

“I got a lot of great people around me, and it’s really hard to find people who uphold the standard that we have,” Simon said. “But I’m very fortunate. We got a great crew in there of players and a great crew of coaches. We take a lot of the ideals of how guys are being trained at the highest level of professional baseball and at the successful college programs, and kind of tailor and tinker with strategies on an individual basis for players who are looking to move on to the next level and beyond.”

As a former college pitcher, Simon understands the stress that pitching puts on the body, especially considering the health issues that have increasingly impacted pitchers in the Majors the past couple of years. He looks at developing pitchers as a long-range view more than a short-term fix, especially when it comes to velocity.

“Velocity development if done the right way is done on a two-to-five-year plan. What do we want to look like anywhere from two to five years from now? Not what are we trying to look like in 8-10 weeks from now,” Simon said. “When you do that (short-term approach), you inherently just cut corners.

“There’s no such thing as injury prevention. Injuries are part of the game of baseball. It’s not obviously anyone’s favorite part. But at the end of the day, the big leagues has turned into an arms race. If guys can get 1% better at something, they’re going to replace their competition.”

Huge is one of the area players who has been working at PPA for years. He started going there in middle school when he got to know Simon from the Brownlee Lookouts, a travel baseball program in Tallmadge.

From there, Huge and Simon developed a friendship that has continues to this day.

“Obviously, we’ve known each other for a long time. So we can bust each other’s (chops), kind of make fun of each other. But we both know it’s nothing serious,” Huge said. “We have a lot of respect for each other.

“Every time we go in there, it’s like we’re not going in there to just kind of not get better. Every day we go in there, we’re definitely getting better.”

The jump for Huge came when he started to hit a growth spurt early in high school. Once that happened, it didn’t take long for him to add more velocity on his pitches.

“I remember when he was the smallest kid on the team,” Simon said. “All of a sudden, one year, Riley went from like 5-6 to 6-2 in what felt like the span of probably two months. It was probably a year. But he grew 6, 8 inches in a year and all of a sudden, he went from throwing 80 or 78-80 to 85 as he keeps growing.

“Then all of a sudden, it’s 88 and it’s 90 and then, it’s 92.

“Part of it’s like, ‘Yeah this is really cool. This is awesome.’ But it’s like, ‘Hey, you know what? You knew this was in the range of outcomes for this kid, right?’ His thing is the breaking ball. He can really spin the ball.”

After Huge his growth spurt, it then became about growing into his body. In his final season at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., he stood at 6-3, 240 pounds.

“I felt like I was still growing for a little while after that, just kind of growing into my body,” Huge said. “I feel like I’m finally kind of just not like the baby deer anymore. It’s just kind of getting stronger and a better base with everything.”

After graduating West Geauga, he played two seasons at College of Central Florida in Ocala before signing with Winthrop. In two seasons with the Eagles, Huge was 5-7 in 23 appearances, including 19 starts, and had a 5.32 ERA.

His best outing came on March 2 against the University of Maine. In that game, Huge pitched 7 2/3 shutout innings, allowing just one hit, two walks and he struck out 20 hitters.

The 20 strikeouts were the most by any NCAA pitcher in a game since 2007.

PPA has yet to have a player reach the Majors, but two seem to be on the doorstep.

One is A.J. Blubaugh, a 24-year-old pitcher in the Astros organization. He is currently with Triple-A Sugar Land and has a 12-3 record with a 3.70 ERA in 23 starts at that level. Chris Gordy, who works for 790-AM radio in Houston, reported prior to the MLB trade deadline that Astros GM Dana Brown considered Blubaugh, a native of Bellville, Ohio, an untouchable.

Another player to watch is third baseman Riley Tirotta, who is in the Blue Jays organization. A native of South Bend, Ind., Tirotta, 26, has played in three different levels in 2024 and is at Triple-A Buffalo right now, hitting .241 with 12 home runs and 45 RBI.

Huge, meanwhile, is just starting his pro development arc. The Athletics told him they will be careful with him as a draftee this summer and limit his workload to a few innings in the Arizona Complex League. In his brief time so far with the A’s, Huge understands what they are asking of him.

“They really have five things that you need to do before we’re a great pitcher. Or if you do all these at the same time, you’re going to be elite at all levels,” Huge said. “No. 1 was command. You can be throwing 100 mph. But if you don’t have command, you’re not gonna go anywhere.”

While Huge’s journey in pro baseball is just beginning, others like Blubaugh and Tirotta are further along and could be close to getting the call any baseball player dreams of, which is a promotion to the big leagues.

For Simon, who is also an agent for many of the PPA prospects, even if they make it to the majors, he wants to celebrate the small accomplishments along the way as well.

“I think someone would expect to say it’s going to be this huge, incredible, emotional moment for me, and it very well might,” Simon said. “But you know what? Honestly, the small moments leading up to something like that are every bit as enjoyable as the last one.

“I think the day to day with these guys is just so cool. It’s not really a shock anymore. These kids have proven a lot of people right every step of the way. So it’s almost like every step of the way is every bit as rewarding as the final step.”