Senior year of high school. Playoff baseball.
This story typically ends one of two ways: with your head hanging low in the sting of defeat, or with your hands held high, hoisting a trophy with your teammates; your brothers.
For Bradley baseball’s redshirt freshman pitcher Noah Edders, there was a third, even more painful outcome that ended his high school story before the game even did.
“It was a playoff game, actually the last game of the year,” Edders said. “I was pitching and felt a really sharp pain in my elbow, I kind of knew what it was right away, but I just was hoping it wasn’t that.”
“I caught the ball from my catcher and tried to throw again and right as I threw it my arm just went numb, I couldn’t feel anything, so I had our athletic trainer come out and they had to take me out of the game,” Edders added.
Edders’ injury resulted in the two most dreaded words in the pitching world: Tommy John. The surgery consists of replacing a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in the elbow and can sideline pitchers for over a year. The right-hander went under the knife that same summer.
When Edders visited Bradley, he fell in love with the staff immediately. Soon after, the right-hander made the decision to come to Bradley. Still recovering from surgery that spring season, he was held out from pitching duties for the Braves last season.
Like father, like son
Far from the only athlete in the family, his father, Mostafa Edders played professional soccer and competed with the Moroccan national team.
“I’ve seen the videos and clips of him playing,” Edders said. “Whenever we go to Morocco, he would have a good fanbase, so it was nice to kind of see that.”
Most assumed Edders would follow his father in the soccer route. He tried soccer as a kid, but baseball grew on him a bit more.
Edders refined his craft at Downers Grove South High School, which sustained success in baseball even before he started playing for the Mustangs. During his senior year, Edders became the top pitcher in the rotation with a sharp 1.12 ERA and 39 strikeouts. That success led the Mustangs to a regional championship.
The injury in his final game in baby blue could’ve been enough to derail the young pitcher’s career, but despite the long road ahead, Edders felt supported through each step of the process.
“[In] July, I got surgery and [in] August, I came on campus, and it was just a big rehab process,” Edders said. “The coaches were very supportive of me, they gave me everything that I needed to do in order to be successful, they told me what their thoughts were as I was progressing. It was very nice honestly, they were very very supportive of me the entire process.”
Edders worked hard, got back on the mound and got to work. He kept throwing, re-learning mechanics, working hard and refusing to quit. During his season on the bench, he yearned to throw again in high-intensity games the whole time.
One of the coaches working closely with Edders was pitching coach Andrew Werner. Pitchers often see a change in their pitching motion after Tommy John, but Werner doesn’t think that’s been the case with Edders.
“I might argue it’s a little bit better,” Werner said. “He’s a kid that works his tail off. I know that when it happened, just knowing he was gonna miss his whole true freshman year from that, he was really bummed.”
Werner believes Edders attacked the situation head-on and fought through it well.
“He’s pretty much conquered it, knock on wood he’s injury-free,” Werner said. “Just more about getting experience, he hasn’t pitched in over a year. The walks, the health, it’s all coming together, but the stuff looks great, honestly better than it did before surgery.”
Edders believes his biggest rival while on the mound is ball four. Walks are sometimes the sign of a good or bad performance from this young righty.
“Me and Coach Werner looked at my zone percentages, basically how many pitches I’m throwing in the zone,” Edders said. “It takes away all the swings and misses, all the pitches that are borderline strikes that the umpire calls a strike.”
“We’re starting to think alright, we’re just gonna straight up attack the zone, we’re kinda gonna get away from being so fine and perfect in each at-bat and just attack the zone and see what the hitters can do [and] for the most part, this year every time I’ve been in the zone it’s been an easier process for me and I haven’t had as many walks.” Edders added.
Werner sees this as well and is helping Edders work through this struggle.
“The strike zones are bigger when you’re in high school, the hitters chase a lot more off the plate, so you kind of condition yourself when you’re younger how to get outs, and you find those a lot of the time when the plate is bigger,” Werner said. “When you get to college, and you’re facing guys that have seen your stuff before, you’re not gonna just overpower everyone. So it’s just learning the strike zone in college, I think for Noah it’s a mindset of not just going out there and throwing it wherever he wants but also not trying to be so perfect.”
The mental game is a big factor in baseball, and throughout the battles he’s gone through, mental focus is sometimes the difference between what happens to that batter. After experiencing the recovery comeback, the mental game is of no concern for the young righty.
Out of qualified pitchers, Edders has the lowest ERA on the Braves team, posting a 4.07 through his nine appearances. He has thrown 19 strikeouts and 17 walks in 24.1 innings of work while providing a steady presence in the Braves’ bullpen
Edders is ready to spend the next three, possibly even four years throwing off the mound at Dozer Park.
“Hopefully I can gain myself a starting role and solidify myself in the starting rotation,” Edders said. “Just continue to be consistent every time I go out there, I wanna leave here not looking back and regretting anything. I just wanna put it all out there, play as hard as I can and just try and do as much as I possibly can to help this team win.”
