‘She must be the real deal’: How Olivia Pichardo defied the doubters and made baseball history
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Joon Lee, ESPN
FOR MONTHS, BROWN University head baseball coach Grant Achilles was asked when Olivia Pichardo might take the field and become the first woman to play in Division I. National media attended every game hoping to catch a glimpse of history — an unusual amount of attention for a baseball team typically covered by the student newspaper.
Pichardo, an outfielder and a pitcher who has played baseball since she was 5, had shined on stages from Little League to PONY baseball to MLB’s Trailblazer Series and all the way to a stint with the USA Baseball Women’s National Team in 2022. But when it was announced that she had made the Brown Bears as a walk-on, interest had perhaps never been higher.
On March 18, Pichardo pinch hit in the bottom of the ninth inning of a 10-1 Brown loss to the Bryant University Bulldogs in Providence, Rhode Island. On a first-pitch fastball from Bryant righty M.T. Morrissey, Pichardo grounded out sharply to first base. The at-bat would be her only appearance of her freshman season. The moment was indeed historic, but the lone at-bat also fueled Pichardo’s critics, who questioned whether her addition to the team amounted to a publicity stunt.
“The challenge was being able to stay focused and stay true with some of the outside noise and distractions and stay supportive of each other throughout,” Achilles said he told Pichardo and her teammates before Pichardo’s appearance. “Just because somebody has access to a keyboard or a social media account doesn’t mean that they’re somebody you should listen to.”
Pichardo has been drowning out critics just like those for her entire life: “Random chirps from parents or players in the stands or things that I’ve been told that people have said about me,” she said in an interview before the season. “It just bounces off of me — which is not an invitation for anyone to test.”
For most 18-year-olds, an Ivy League course load would be overwhelming enough. Add to that the growing pains that come with adjusting to Division I baseball. And to top it all off, Pichardo faces increased scrutiny due to her unprecedented success as a woman breaking barriers. All of this while trying to improve on the baseball field and earn more playing time next season.
“I feel like I’ve already had my midlife crisis through baseball,” Pichardo said. “It’s not a game like basketball where you can make up for a mistake by scoring another basket. You need to wait your turn for a chance to redeem yourself, keep a short-term memory, move past things and try not to let it be in the back of your mind.”
FOR AS LONG as the Pichardos can remember, the most frequent question about Olivia on the diamond was never about her love for the sport, her ambitions on the field or her favorite players.
When are you going to switch to softball?
When Max Pichardo started Olivia out on the Elmjack baseball fields by LaGuardia Airport in Astoria, Queens, softball wasn’t a thought in his mind. Max grew up in the Dominican Republic, and for him, baseball was everything. With his wife, Monita, who is Chinese American, working as a recruiter for the finance and insurance corporation AIG, Max focused his time as a full-time stay-at-home dad, raising Olivia and her sister, Nirvana. They gravitated toward playing with Batman and Superman action figures over Barbie dolls.
As a kid, Olivia often picked up the family’s Spider-Man baseball bat over other toys. That’s part of what led Max to sign up Olivia for Little League. During the summers, they often skipped lunch to keep playing, practicing everything from hitting to fielding to pitching. He signed on as a coach in the nearby Forest Hills youth baseball league, but by the end of Olivia’s first season, questions had already started popping up about her future. When one woman helping run the league pushed Max to switch Olivia to softball, he resisted.
“I took a lot of issues with another adult trying to tell my kid what to do,” Max said. “For somebody who doesn’t know my kid to presume they know what’s best to do or based on some gender roles society has tried to shape — get out of my face with that.”
The questions kept popping up from level to level. As the jump from Little League to PONY Baseball loomed, people doubted Olivia’s ability, noting that the boys would begin going through puberty. The sentiment from others often carried a tone of It’s been a good ride; I hope you enjoyed it. When she continued playing PONY Baseball and succeeding, others voiced concerns about whether Olivia could keep up in high school baseball.
“People kept moving the goalposts about what they were saying about a girl playing baseball,” Max said.
As Olivia got older, the infrastructure around women’s baseball grew. She participated in the Trailblazer Series, a tournament launched by MLB and USA Baseball in 2017 for girls, and the MLB GRIT program, designed for girls 18 and younger to showcase their abilities and receive pro evaluation from scouts. Justine Siegal — who became the first woman coach employed by an MLB team in 2015 for the Oakland Athletics — met a 14-year-old Pichardo through these programs. Pichardo’s focus on the field and where her family envisioned her baseball career taking her became clear very quickly.
“The combination of Olivia’s composure, her presence, the confidence she has and how hard she worked in actively engaging within school, it was clearly a winning combination,” Siegal said.
By seventh grade, Pichardo made the high school boys’ varsity team, and in 2018, 2019 and 2021, MLB invited her to participate in the Breakthrough Series, a program established for developing young players, both male and female. In July 2022, Pichardo played with the USA Baseball Women’s National Team as a pitcher and an outfielder alongside Kelsie Whitmore, the first woman to play in the Atlantic League.
As her college search began in the summer of 2021, Pichardo was looking for a school that met the standards of a 5.2 high school GPA where she might also be able to play ball.
“Olivia wasn’t going to sacrifice her academics to find a fit to play baseball,” said Elizabeth Benn, who met Pichardo while she completed a 2022 internship with the New York Mets. Benn is the Mets’ director of major league operations, the highest ranking woman baseball operations employee in franchise history. “She was going to end up at a D-I school or an Ivy League school, but we needed to see if a coach would be receptive to having her on the team.”
In 2021, Pichardo enrolled in baseball camps for Harvard, Columbia and Princeton, hoping to get in front of coaches. Again, she and her father heard questions about whether she would be able to compete with men hoping to play Division I baseball. The continued pushback led her father to stream college baseball regularly, hoping to scope out the potential competition for a roster spot.
“I saw people dropping fly balls and missing cutoff throws,” Max Pichardo said. “People make it seem like it’s a sport made for the gods, but I see kids playing baseball.”
During her senior year in high school, Olivia Pichardo made contact with Brown’s coaching staff about trying to walk on to the team; and when she was accepted last spring, Coach Achilles and Pichardo started a longer conversation about what that might look like. After a tryout Achilles called “the most complete” he has seen as a head coach, Pichardo became the first woman to make a Division I baseball roster.
“I wasn’t telling myself the odds,” Pichardo said. “I was just telling myself that I was going to make the team. I wasn’t going to let doubt creep into my mind.”
She quickly proved to teammates she could keep up with them, swinging on time to 90 mph fastballs during the team’s first intrasquad game and showing off the zip of her throws while playing catch.
“She’s not looking for someone to think it’s OK to not throw as hard or run as fast,” her father said. “She just wants someone to treat her like a person.”
THOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH teammates on the Bears were crucial to Pichardo in her first season. During an intrasquad game early in the spring, Pichardo made an error in the outfield, the type of physical mistake that happens at times. But then it snowballed. Senior outfielder Derian Morphew — a regular throwing partner of Pichardo — noticed the physical mistake started turning into mental errors, one bleeding into another.
“You could see how much pressure she puts on herself,” Morphew said. “I told her a couple of times, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. There’s a lot of attention on you and a lot of negative feedback, but the biggest thing is to try to block it out and keep improving.”
That negativity can reach uncontrollable levels. When the Boston Red Sox invited Pichardo to throw the first pitch at Fenway Park on Asian American Pacific Islander Night on May 3, her teammates encouraged her to throw as hard as she could and not think about getting the ball over the plate. When she did just that, the ball nearly skipped past utility infielder Rob Refsnyder, and it ended up in the right-handed batter’s box. Video of the pitch went viral on Twitter, with criticism getting so hostile that NESN television turned off replies for the tweet.
“The people that are skeptical are usually people that don’t even play baseball or never made it to this level,” Morphew said. “I just laugh it off because the people that I play with in summer ball from other Division I programs think it’s awesome for her, how she must be the real deal.”
Last week, in between study sessions for her final exams, Pichardo and Achilles met to recap her freshman campaign. Brown’s season did not go as anticipated, finishing 9-12 within the conference and failing to qualify for this past weekend’s Ivy League tournament. Pichardo’s single in-game appearance fell short of her own expectations too, according to Achilles.
“She expects perfection with what she can control,” Achilles said. “It’s probably to a fault at that point where she can probably take a step away and revisit things the next day.”
Her teammates saw her growth firsthand. Morphew noticed the strides she made in her confidence both at the plate and in the field.
“She became more relaxed, you could just see it,” Morphew said. “Her throwing, her stance at the plate. She looked like a more confident baseball player by the end of it.”
Achilles did not commit to giving Pichardo more playing time in 2024, but he points out that her freshman season aligned with the typical experience of a walk-on. He said the things Pichardo needs to improve — increased awareness on the offensive and defensive side of the game, more consistency through her swing and continuing to add strength in the weight room — are mostly the same as the team’s other freshmen. And when it comes to the critics who point to her roster spot as a stunt, he dismisses them.
“If they want to speak about it one way or the other, they can show up to more of our practices and games to watch what actually goes on,” Achilles said. “It’s really beyond ludicrous some of the things people who have no business commenting on, stuff they have no idea about.”
Her teammates remind Pichardo that backlash she faces often has nothing to do with baseball.
“You see the comments, and we remind her that she’s the first female to ever play the game in Division I baseball,” Morphew said. “Brush off all of the negativity, it does not matter, because you are the first one to do it. And that says something.”
At the end of the season, Achilles reminded Pichardo of the progress she made during her first campaign, reminding her she is more than just a headline or a figurehead or an on-field trailblazer.
“You’re not a video game,” Achilles said. “The transition is hard, and you’re a person too. You’re not valued by just your performance. That’s such a transactional way to look at life. We want to win, we want our players to perform at their highest, but they’re more than who they are between the white lines.”
Pichardo took a deep breath and smiled.
“You’re right,” Pichardo said. “It’s not going to be perfect.”
It’s in these moments she reminds herself why she loves the sport that helped put her in a position for ever-increasing scrutiny.
“Your attitude really does matter,” Pichardo said. “You can’t throw a fit after you strike out. Sometimes you feel like you’re the best baseball player to ever exist. Everyone hits a point where you hit a wall, and it seems like you’re swinging at strikes but not making much contact. You just need to fix your attitude and keep going.”
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Kiley McDaniel
MLB trade season has officially kicked into high gear with contenders looking to add to their rosters for the stretch run ahead and rebuilding teams aiming to stockpile young players with an eye to the future before Thursday’s 6 p.m. ET deadline arrives.
As the moves go down, you can probably form your own opinion of the MLB veterans headed to new teams, but it’s much more difficult to figure out what to make of the minor leaguers who have moved.
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s our running ranking of every notable prospect who was dealt during July sorted by tiers using my Future Value grades so you can see where they slot in an MLB top 100 list or your team’s farm system ranking.
This story will be updated with top prospects headed to new teams added to the list with every new deal, so come back every time a move goes down to see which stars of tomorrow are on the move this month.
40+ FV tier
Acquired from Seattle Mariners in Josh Naylor deal
A 2023 11th-rounder out of Texas A&M, Garcia was a sleeper in the Seattle system who broke through as a starter in 2024. This season, he was moved into a full-time relief role, leading to his big league debut earlier this month.
He has an upper-body-reliant delivery with very short extension and a near-sidearm slot that nonetheless creates a lot of velocity, with his fastball peaking at 100.4 mph this season and living at 95-98 mph with his plus sinker. He also mixes in an 88-90 mph cutter and 84-86 mph sweeper that are both plus pitches. Garcia’s fastball command improving and the cutter continuing to be a useful weapon against righties are keys to him becoming a late-inning reliever.
40 FV tier
Acquired from New York Yankees in Ryan McMahon deal
Herring signed for $800,000 after being selected in the sixth round of the 2024 draft. He made only one start over two seasons at LSU but showed starter traits. Through 16 appearances as a starter this year, pitching across both Single-A levels, that theory has mostly held up.
His 88-92 mph heater touches 94 and looks as if it’ll be a fringe-to-average pitch, while his slider is above average and his changeup (which should be used more often) also flashes above average. He’ll move up to the 40+ FV tier with a little more bulk of performance and/or a strong finish/promotion in Double-A.
Acquired from New York Mets in Gregory Soto deal
Aracena was a low-profile international signee, getting a $70,000 bonus in 2022 out of the Dominican Republic. He sat 90-94 mph for his first two pro seasons, then his velo exploded in 2024 to 95-98, hitting 100 mph. This year he’s been even a bit higher, sitting 96-99 and hitting 101 mph at 20 years old as a starter in Single-A.
The reason he isn’t ranked higher is his command is below average to the point that his likely career outcome is as a reliever. His fastball also plays below its velocity right now due to his command issues and higher arm slot, which creates a nonideal plane and a cutting action to the pitch. His 89-95 mph slider (possibly a cutter and slider that run together) is nasty, a clear plus pitch, while his changeup is rarely used and rudimentary.
The raw ability here is impressive and Aracena is young and athletic enough to get another year or two to prove he can start, but he also has late-inning potential as a reliever if that doesn’t work out. Aracena will move into the 40+ FV tier with either a tick more of command, developing a legitimate changeup or just keeping his head above water performance-wise as a starter in High-A.
Acquired from the Detroit Tigers in Chris Paddack deal
Jimenez is a 19-year-old, switch-hitting catcher playing in Rookie ball who has a solid chance to stick behind the plate long term, but, as you’d guess, he still has some defensive work to do. He’s a slightly above-average framer (particularly to his glove side) and has above-average arm strength (catching 34% of baserunners this year), but is a below-average blocker of pitches in the dirt.
He’d benefit from getting more agile behind the plate but the athleticism is there to do so: Jimenez is a solid-average runner right now despite a stout 5-foot-9 frame. His raw power projects as fringe-to-average given his lack of physical projection, though he has solid ball flight (think 15ish homers at peak), with a grade more power as a left-handed hitter. Jimenez’s contact and on-base skills grade about average, so the sales pitch here is an overall average offensive threat, which is enough to warrant playing him at other positions to get his bat in the lineup as a platoon option, but hoping he can progress in all phases enough to become a primary catcher.
5. Ashton Izzi, RHP, Arizona Diamondbacks
Acquired from Seattle Mariners in Josh Naylor deal
Izzi was a classic projection righty who signed for $1.1 million after being selected in the fourth round of the 2022 draft out of an Illinois high school.
He has delivered on that projection, with his average fastball velo having crept up from 93.1 to 94.0 to 94.5 in his three pro seasons. His four-seamer is a solid-average pitch, while his slider can get to average with slightly better locations and his sweeper is an above-average pitch, maybe plus.
The issue is Izzi’s sinker; although it has a fine velocity/movement combination, it is too center-cut in the zone and has been hammered by hitters while being used almost as much as his four-seamer. He also doesn’t use his changeup much — but probably should, especially as he dials back his sinker. With some progress in his mix and locations, this is a No. 4 starter package, but Izzi is more of a long reliever as currently constituted.
Acquired from Kansas City Royals in Randal Grichuk deal
Hoffmann was a 12th-round pick out of Illinois in the 2021 draft who was traded to the Royals in 2022 and finished the season in Double-A, beating predraft expectations. He was seen as a potential back-end starter at that point, but moved to full-time short relief this season en route to making his big league debut.
His mid-90s fastball is a solid-average pitch that plays up due to his funk and deception, and his main weapon is a plus changeup that tunnels well to the bottom of the zone. His slider is a clear third pitch and is fringy, which is why he was moved to relief to focus on using his two best pitches. With better fastball locations, Hoffmann could move from middle relief into the later innings.
35+ FV tier
Acquired from New York Yankees in Amed Rosario deal
Beeter was a second-round pick in the 2020 draft and has slowly moved down the starter-to-reliever spectrum to becoming a full-time reliever for the first time in 2025. He’s 26 years old with five career big league appearances under his belt, but Beeter is still in Triple-A for now because of his walk rate: 7.2 per 9 innings — including issuing seven walks in his last 8⅓ innings pitched.
Beeter is still a solid prospect because of his 65-grade slider and above-average fastball that peaks at 99 mph. His fastball command is the variable that, with more progress, could turn him into a late-inning reliever, but Beeter is a higher-variance middle reliever who needs to avoid walks in Triple-A to get his next big league shot.
8. Browm Martinez, CF, Washington Nationals
Acquired from New York Yankees in Amed Rosario deal
Martinez signed for a $130,000 bonus last January and was solid last summer in the Dominican Summer League before having a huge repeat season in the league this year — posting an OPS of 1.139 driven by higher contact rates.
There is still a wide range of potential outcomes for Martinez as an 18-year-old playing in the lowest level of the minors, but the key here is he has above-average bat control and pitch selection at the plate, arguably the two most important things to demonstrate at lower levels.
He’s also a solid-average runner who has 34 career stolen bases, and that speed could allow him to stay in center field. There’s some physical projection left given his age, but his power projects to continue to be below average, so sticking in center would be key to his long-term value.
9. Josh Grosz, RHP, Colorado Rockies
Acquired from New York Yankees in Ryan McMahon deal
Grosz is a potential No. 5 starter/swingman type with some feel and deception from his abruptly quick delivery. He throws a 92-95 mph dead-zone fastball with heavy tail that plays around average, an above-average changeup and a fringy slider.
He has a tougher road to being a solid big leaguer if he can’t stick as a starter because most teams prefer a middle reliever to have an above-average breaking ball to get right-handed hitters out.
10. Cameron Foster, RHP, Baltimore Orioles
Acquired from New York Mets in Gregory Soto deal
Foster is a 26-year-old long reliever who sits 93-96 and hits 99 mph from a high slot (it’s on the whole an average big league pitch). He also mixes in an 86-88 mph cutter (a solid-average pitch), an 81-84 mph slurve (an above-average pitch), and a big loopy 75-78 mph curveball (effective as a fourth offering that’s used in certain situations). He’s a solid back-end-of-the-roster-type utility arm who can be used in multiple roles and should debut this year or next. He needs to be added to the 40-man roster after the season to protect from the Rule 5 draft.
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Jeff Legwold
BOULDER, Colo. — University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders announced Monday that he had undergone surgery to remove his bladder after doctors discovered a tumor there. Sanders said, since the surgery, there are no traces of cancer, and he will continue to coach this season.
In a packed Touchdown Club in the Dal Ward Athletic Center, Sanders appeared with Dr. Janet Kukreja, director of urological oncology at University of Colorado Cancer Center, and answered some of the questions that have swirled around him throughout the offseason.
The 57-year-old Sanders has largely been out of the public eye in recent months, save for an appearance at Big 12 media days earlier this month when he acknowledged Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark for repeatedly checking in on him and praised Colorado athletic director Rick George.
Sanders deflected questions about his health at Big 12 media days and previously had not publicly offered any specifics. In July his son, Deion Jr., posted a video on social media in which Deion Sanders is heard saying he was dealing with a health issue and that “I ain’t all the way recovered.”
In the video he was seen stepping into an ice bath as well as shooting a basketball and a walk with his daughter. Sanders said in May he had lost about 14 pounds as he had limited contact around the program during the team’s spring and summer workouts.
Sanders has previously dealt with serious health issues. He has had bouts with blood clots in his legs, had two toes amputated in 2022 and emergency surgery in June 2023 to treat the persistent clots, including one in his thigh in one leg and several just below his knee in his other leg.
On the field, Sanders is set to begin his third season at the school. With his son, Shedeur, at quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, college football’s most accomplished two-way player in the modern era, the Buffaloes finished 9-4 last season with an Alamo Bowl appearance. Sanders’ son Shilo, a safety for the Buffaloes for the past two seasons, has also moved on to the NFL, along with several high-profile players on offense.
The top storyline on the field for the Buffaloes is the battle to replace Shedeur behind center. In two seasons, Sanders completed 71.8% of his passes for 7,364 yards with 64 touchdowns.
It will be the first season Deion Sanders doesn’t coach a high school or college team with Shedeur at quarterback.
Seventeen-year-old true freshman Julian Lewis, a five-star recruit and No. 2 player in the 2025 ESPN 300, and Kaidon Salter, who started 24 games in four seasons at Liberty, will compete for the job.
Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase on Monday was placed on non-disciplinary paid leave through Aug. 31 as part of Major League Baseball’s investigation into sports gambling, the second Guardians pitcher to be caught up in the inquiry.
Guardians right-hander Luis Ortiz remains on non-disciplinary paid leave after originally being placed there July 3 after unusual gambling activity on two pitches he threw for balls, sources told ESPN. Ortiz’s leave was later extended to Aug. 31.
In a statement, the Guardians said “no additional players or club personnel are expected to be impacted” by the investigation. The investigation, a source confirmed, has not turned up information tying other players with the team to sports gambling.
Clase, 27, is a three-time All-Star and two-time winner of the Mariano Rivera Award as the best relief pitcher in the American League. He finished third in AL Cy Young voting last year when he posted a 0.61 ERA over 74.1 innings. In 47.1 innings this season, Clase has a 3.23 ERA and has already allowed more hits this year (46) than last (39) while striking out 47 and walking 12.
His ties to the investigation that started following a June 27 alert from IC360, a firm that monitors betting markets for abnormalities, are unclear. Sportsbooks and gambling operators were alerted after a spike in action on Ortiz’s first pitch in the bottom of the second inning against the Seattle Mariners on June 15 and in the top of the third inning against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 27, according to sources. In both cases, unusual amounts of money were wagered on the pitches being a ball or hit-batsman from betting accounts in New York, New Jersey and Ohio, according to a copy of the IC360 alert obtained by ESPN. Both pitches wound up well outside the strike zone.
At the All-Star Game in mid-July, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said while he still supports legal gambling because of the transparency regulation offers, he was concerned about so-called microbets, such as ones that offer action on individual pitches.
“There are certain types of bets that strike me as unnecessary and particularly vulnerable,” Manfred said. “I know there was a lot of sports betting, tons of it that went on illegally and we had no idea, no idea what threats there were to the integrity of the play because it was all not transparent,” he added. “I firmly believe that the transparency and monitoring that we have in place now, as a result of the legalization and the partnerships that we’ve made, puts us in a better position to protect baseball than we were in before.”
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