T.J.'s uncle, Jim Friedl, played quarterback for the Univ. of Pittsburgh.

Friedl is a cousin of UK's John Calipari, who grew up with T.J.'s dad in suburban Pittsburgh. The two families have stayed close over the years.

"He's awesome," Friedl said. "He's a great guy."

And T.J. is a huge college basketball fan. He played hoops until his senior year at Foothills High School in Pleasanton, Calif.

"I wish I could shoot a little better," he said with a laugh. (Jeff Svoboda - Reds Report - Aug. 2021)

In 2013, Friedl graduated from Foothill High School in Pleasanton, California. He posted a career average of .308 with an on-base percentage of .373.

T.J. said only one Division I school showed interest in him out of high school, and that was the Univ. of Nevada, which offered him a walk-on spot. So he was off to the University of Nevada.

In 2015, he redshirted for his sophomore season. In 2016, he hit .401/.494/.563.

T.J. loves spending time with family and boating at Lake Tulloch in his free time.

Friedl is constantly working to improve his game.

Nevada baseball coach T.J. Bruce noted that Friedl "has he drive to be a really good baseball player,

“Not only a baseball player, but the evolution of being a good leader. He emerged as one of those leaders and a guy people look to when things weren’t going so well—or when they were going well—to see how he went about his things and work.”

T.J. is an amazing with an excellent team-first mentality about him that is contagious.

His enthusiasm doesn’t come across as eyewash, but as genuine. He wants to win and will do whatever it takes—even if that means confronting a bonus baby or veteran.

He can go 0-for-5 and never stop cheering on his teammates.

Friedl is unique. He's a guy who slipped through the cracks, not getting drafted in the 2016 Draft because no one knew he was eligible. So, in August 2016, T.J. traveled to Cincinnati for a physical exam. Everything checked out fine, and he agreed to a $732,500 bonus—the largest ever for a domestic player who was bypassed in the draft. He signed with scouts Rich Bordi and Sam Grossman. 

At the beginning of the 2016 college season, Friedl was a garden-variety overachiever eagerly awaiting his redshirt sophomore year at Nevada. Through a combination of confusion and fate, he became a member of the Rookie-level Pioneer League’s Billings Mustangs and the embodiment of the Baseball Everyman. He won the lottery, and he didn’t even realize he had bought a ticket.

In the 50-year history of the draft, a select few players have been passed over in June and gone on to make a mark in the big leagues. Prominent recent examples include Mississippi outfielder Bobby Kielty, who set the old bonus record of $500,000 in 1998; and Puerto Rican first baseman Kennys Vargas of the Twins.

But Friedl is different because this wasn’t a case of people improperly evaluating his talent. He was hiding in plain sight. And many of the executives, scouts, statistical analysts and agents/advisors who make up baseball’s draft machine were oblivious to him.

“I’ve been working the draft for 14 years, and this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Adam Karon, Friedl’s agent. “It’s so bizarre. Nobody knew this kid was eligible for the draft—including himself.”

The condensed version of Friedl’s saga goes like this: After walking on at Nevada as a freshman and redshirting as a sophomore rather than waste a year on the bench, Friedl blew up in his third season at Reno. He hit .401 with a .494 on-base percentage for the Wolf Pack, ranking 11th in batting and 24th in the nation in hits. Somehow, amid all those achievements, the vast draft mechanism overlooked him, paving the way for the Reds to swoop in and sign him, via scouts Rich Bordi and Sam Grossman. 

Inevitably, personnel people throughout the game reflect upon Friedl’s story and ask, “How the heck did this happen?” Some signs were available to clubs if they had only paid attention. For instance, the Baseball America 2016 Draft Map listed Friedl as the 10th-rated prospect in Nevada. Were the scouts entrusted with covering northern California and Reno negligent in failing to put Friedl on their radar?

“Being an area scout is so very difficult, and this situation is their worst nightmare,” said an American League personnel man. “I’m sure every scout in that area is trying to retrace their steps and seeing how they could miss him.”

Were the numbers crunchers at fault? How can anyone hit .401 as a redshirt sophomore and go undrafted? “I think most analytics departments take a broader look at performance history, and his freshman and summer numbers weren’t very good,” said a National League evaluator. In addition, Nevada plays in an offensive environment, so teams might have been skeptical of Friedl’s numbers. (Jerry Crasnick - ESPN.com - Aug 2016)

In 2017, the Baseball America Prospect Handbook rated T.J. as the 15th-best prospect in the Reds' organization. He was at #17 a year later, early in 2018. He was at #15 in the spring of 2019, and #18 in 2020, and he was at #22 in the spring of 2021. He was at #20 in 2022.

Friedl is a high-energy player who plays with a lot of intensity. He hustles.

September 19, 2021:  Pinch-hitting and leading off the bottom of the sixth inning, T.J. slugged a first-pitch homer to right field against Dodgers reliever Tony Gonsolin.  Friedl became the first Reds player with a pinch-hit homer for his first Major League hit since Juan Francisco did so on Sept. 18, 2009, vs. the Marlins and Leo Nuñez.

According to the Bally Sports broadcast, TJ Friedl became the first player since Corey Patterson in 2006 to have at least 13 homers and 15 bunt singles in a season.

Friedl, who tripled the inning before his homer, picked up his 15th bunt single of the season Saturday Sep 9th. 

“The homers are obviously really cool, but for me, it’s the bunts,” Friedl said. “That’s what I pride my game on, just having the weapon in my back pocket. It’s kind of funny that they’re almost even.”

Friedl had a total of 16 home runs last season, with half coming with Triple-A Louisville and the other half in the big leagues.

“If I hit a homer, I want to lay down a bunt. The next one I want a bunt hit,” Friedl said. “They go hand-in-hand. The homers are going to come when I’m feeling good, but the bunt hits are something that are always in my back pocket when I’m not feeling good or if my swing’s not there or if the pitcher is a tough matchup for me and I’m not seeing the ball well … so look for a bunt hit coming soon.” (Rosecrans - Sep 11, 2023 - The Athletic)

Friedl taught himself to play the ukele in 2022.

Just before the All-Star break, Reds' outfielder T.J. Friedl came across Absolutely Ridiculous (X), a company that makes custom/unusual gloves, while trying to track down the source of the jazzy sliding mitts he kept seeing other MLB players wearing. “I was like, man, where are these coming from?” Friedl said. “They’re pretty sick.”

He tried buying one but discovered the company sold the mitts in weekly drops; when an item was gone, it was gone.

Friedl was lamenting that fact in the Cincinnati clubhouse when then-Reds pitcher Luke Weaver overheard him. “Let me see if I can hook you up,” Weaver said. Within 10 minutes, Weaver had a photo from X of the sliding mitts in stock. Friedl picked a Resurrection-themed sliding mitt.

Friedl said he gets a kick out of seeing baseball and softball players wearing mitts designed like an ice-cream cone, a snow cone, a taco, a banana, a s’more, or a cheeseburger in their youth games.

“I think it’s great for the game,” Friedl said, “bringing excitement and fun back to baseball.”

If Friedl were to design his own sliding mitt, he’d put the Cincinnati skyline on the back of his hand, in black and red like the Reds’ City Connect uniforms. On the front he’d have what he had this year: a cross. Whenever Friedl had the Resurrection mitt in his back pocket, he had the gold cross facing out.

“Faith is a big part of my life,” he said. “Being able to express that was incredible.”  (Nesbitt - Oct 30, 2023 - The Athletic)

Friedl has an advanced approach at the plate and below-average power, Friedl profiles as a prototype leadoff hitter and center fielder. He’s aggressive to his pull side with plus bat speed but can also hit the opposite way.

T.J. does a lot of things well, but probably not well enough to ever be a regular. He’s a lefthanded hitter who works counts, knows how to draw a walk and has gotten stronger to the point where he has below-average power.

Freidl went unpicked in two straight Rule 5 Drafts before he made it to the majors. Even now, he’ll be a player who lives on the edge of the MLB roster, because backup outfielders are luxuries when the bullpen or rotation needs help. (J.J. Cooper - Baseball America Prospect Handbook - Spring, 2022)

TJ is a pesky hitter who loves to work counts but doesn't really put much fear in a pitcher's heart. His well below-average power makes him more of a bottom-of-the-order-bat, but he gets on base and should be an average hitter with a contact-oriented approach. 

Friedl displays good plate discipline. While he likely will never be a slugger, but his intensity and high energy have him on the brink of the majors.

"It's just about simplifying about the at-bat and not over-thinking, not trying to do too much," Friedl said. "It's already hard enough to hit a fastball, so the worst thing you can do is go up there thinking and have all those thoughts in your head while trying to hit a 95-97 mph fastball. You're already beat. I think just simplifying it has really helped me immensely. Just see the ball, it the ball.

"I take pride in having a dirty jersey," T.J. said. "I know the clubbies aren't that happy with it, but that's part of the game. It's something I've always taken pride in, and my dad instilled in me since I was a young kid. I've always been a fast, scrappy player on every team I've been on.

"If I walk off the field with a dirty jersey, I feel like I've accomplished something that day." (Jeff Svoboda - Reds Report - Aug., 2021)

A lefty hitter, Friedl still needs to work on his gap-to-gap hitting, situational hitting and using his speed with better bunting. He runs the bases well but also needs to improve his base stealing skills. The clock is ticking . . . and this will be a big season for him to show improvement. (Spring 2020)

TJ has a crouched, slightly closed stance, at the plate and a swing built for contact, although he ran into trouble with strikeouts in the southern league. 

T.J.  has an impressive hit tool. Most scouting reports give Friedl above-average marks on all of his tools but power, so what did he do in his first at-bat as a pro but hit a home run. After getting hit by a pitch in his second at-bat, he homered in his third. He rounded out the game with a bunt single, finishing 3-for-3 in his debut.

“I was pretty nervous (during my) first pro ballgame and first experience,” Friedl told the Billings Gazette. “I had a little bit of butterflies, but I wanted to get that first hit out of the way. That was a big thing I wanted to do, and I got it out of the way in a big way.”

Friedl finally failed to reach base in his eighth career plate appearances when he was called out on strikes. He hit safely in his first nine pro games, going 15-for-39 in June 2016.

"King of Bunting"?  Let’s first start out by noting that the Major League season is longer than the minors by a month. And that TJ Friedl didn’t begin playing professionally until July 2016 – halfway through the year.

Since he was drafted, Friedl has attempted to bunt 75 times. Of those 75 bunts he’s gotten down, 44 of them were hits. That’s good for a Bunt Hit Rate of 58.7%. Comparing that with the Major League numbers, it would have been the second highest rate in baseball among players who actually bunted with any sort of frequency. 

Bunting Education: The Reds invited former major league outfielder Brett Butler to 2023 spring training camp.

"It was incredible, says Friedl. "I just got to pick his brain and ask him what he would look to bunt in certain situations, certain pitches, and what his favorite pitch was to bunt. He was one of the best to do it. I just wanted to get as much knowledge as I could. And I sat around and listened while he talked to other guys." (Mark Schmetzer - Reds Report - May 2023)

In 2018, Friedl won the Reds MiLB Hitter of the Year Award.

2021 Season: Friedl also had a good season at the plate, hitting .264/.357/.422 in 113 games. While he doesn’t pack quite as much power as Barrero, he showed a strong ability to make contact.

T.J. only struck out 65 times in nearly 400 at-bats while walking 44 times. He also led the Bats with 13 stolen bases. He earned a call-up at the end of the season and smacked a couple of dingers for the Reds. 

2022 Season: Friedl, 27, posted a slash line of .240/.314/.436 in 72 games in the big leagues last season. It was the fifth callup when things started clicking. He was recalled from Louisville on Aug. 16 and didn't have to go back while batting .267 with an .888 OPS, eight home runs and three triples over his final 43 games.  

Counting his callup in September 2021, Friedl has had six big league stints for the Reds. (M Sheldon - MLB.com - March 8, 2023)

2023 Season: What a year it was for the Cincinnati Reds, and the man who got the ball rolling, more times than not, was TJ Friedl.

An obscure, undrafted free agent, who worked his way up through the Cincinnati farm system, became the Reds most indispensable player in 2023.

Friedl, who was a platoon option to begin the season, became David Bell's most trusted player as the season unfolded. Friedl was, arguably, the Reds player this past season.

TJ Friedl, AKA Captain Chaos, was a leader on the field and in the clubhouse. Friedl, who saw time batting leadoff and as the Reds' No. 2 hitter, was oftentimes the team's table-setter; but would ride the pine against left-handed pitchers

However, as the season entered the dog days of summer, it became quite clear that Friedl was going to be in the lineup every day. By season's end, the 27-year-old had a better slash line against southpaws than he did against right-handed pitchers.

Friedl hit .260/.334/.449 against right-handers, but posted an outstanding .354/.421/.542 against lefties. Friedl is an everyday player.

.279/.352/.467 18 HR 66 RBI

Not only was Friedl great in batters' box and on the base paths, but he was dynamite in the field as well. According to Fielding Bible, Friedl was worth 1 defensive run saved (DRS) and 5 outs above average (OAA) per Baseball Savant while playing one of most important positions on the field.

TJ Friedl led all Reds players in bWAR (3.8) last season and is under team control through the 2028 season. With Joey Votto on his way out and Jonathan India questionable to return in 2024, Friedl could very well be the emotional leader of the Reds moving forward. (Drew Koch - Oct. 11, 2023) 

2024 Season: Friedl made 126 starts in centerfield in 2023, leading to a productive five-category season (.279/73/18/66/27 over 488 at-bats). He spent two trips on the injury list over the first half of the year with oblique and hamstring issues.

Over his final 40 games, his bat (.293 with 26 runs, eight home runs, 20 RBIs, and five steals over 140 at-bats) helped fantasy teams move up the standings. Friedl was at his best against left-handed pitching (.354 with three home runs and 12 RBIs over 96 at-bats). His best production (13 home runs and 41 RBIs) came at home.

A mid-March right wrist strain led to Friedl starting the season on the injured list for 38 days. He suffered a broken thumb a week later, leading to another 16 games out of action. His back luck (hamstring issue) continued about three weeks later (32 days on the IL).

Friedl played well over his short at-bats (67) in June (.239/12/4/13/4). He hit .230 over his final 200 at-bats with 21 runs, nine home runs, 39 RBIs, and three stolen bases. His bat had less value against left-handed pitching (.209/7/2/13/4 over 67 at-bats). 

His strikeout rate (15.3) aligned with his career average while posting a slightly below-league-average walk rate (7.6). Friedl had career-low exit velocity (86.0 mph) while increasing his weak hard-hit rate (31.5). He has a fly-ball swing path (45.4%) with a slight increase in his HR/FB rate (11.9). (Shawn Childs | Feb 17, 2025 - SI)

T.J. is an exciting player whose speed and sound instincts will keep him in center, though he can play all three spots in the outfield. He provides above-average defense.

TJ is a plus runner who can play above-average defense in center or left field. his arm is below-average. (Spring 2021)

The Reds left Friedl exposed in the Rule 5 Draft, but he wasn’t taken. He also wasn’t invited to big league camp for 2020 like he was in 2019. But he still has several tools that could make him a strong fourth outfielder or a platoon guy in the Majors. (Spring 2020)

T.J.'s game is emphasized by his speed. He works on the small ball and incorporating his speed, opening up his offense as a pesty base-thief who upsets the opposition when he's on base.

“That’s the baseball player in him developing, recognizing when to do it, when to run, when not to run, who’s on the mound, who’s on deck, who’s in the hole,” Nevada coach T.J. Bruce said. “Knowing all that and being able to put it in his computer in his head and determining the right time to do that stuff, it was able to open up his whole offense.”

2017: Friedl missed time with a thumb injury.

April 29-May 7, 2019: T.J. was on the IL with an injured right shoulder.

June 23-July 1, 2019: Friedl was on the IL.

July 28-end of 2019 season: Friedl had ankle surgery, went on the IL, and ended his season.

Oct 3, 2022: After reaching on an infield single and advancing to second base in the bottom of the third inning of the win over the Cubs, Friedl attempted to steal third base. Just before he was tagged for the out on a head-first slide, Friedl felt pain in his right hamstring. After being down for a few moments, he had to be assisted in walking off the field. 

“It’s a little tight right now. Just that last step when I dove. I felt something, I felt kind of awkward,” Friedl said. 

Oct 4-6, 2022: T.J. was on the IL with right hammy strain.

May 12-23, 2023: TJ was on the IL with left oblique strain. Friedl went out after injuring himself on a swing during a May 11 game vs. the Mets. 

June 3-10, 2023: The Reds placed Friedl on the 10-day injured list due to a left hamstring strain.

March 16-May 7, 2024: Friedl fractured his wrist diving for a ball and rolled his glove hand in the process..

March 24, 2024: An MRI exam revealed a small fracture to the distal radius in his right wrist. The wrist was placed in a soft cast. Manager David Bell said that doctors told Friedl that he could start moving his wrist, and that Friedl's next evaluation would be in two weeks.  

May 13-29, 2024: Friedl sustained a broken left thumb and has been placed on the 10-day injured list. On the first pitch of the first inning from Kyle Harrison of the Giants, Friedl was hit on the hand by a fastball.

June 24-July 26, 2024: TJ was on the IL with right hammy strain.

Friedl underwent an MRI. He was instructed to rest for two weeks before he undergoes more tests. He was initially hurt making a diving catch on June 17 at Pittsburgh. After missing two games, he returned and played three games vs. the Red Sox while not at full strength.

“I wasn’t really 100 percent myself," Friedl said. "That’s something I realized the last couple of days — I can’t play 85 percent, I need to be 100.”