SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Peyton Olejnik has heard the reactions his entire baseball life. At 6-foot-11 - 7 feet in cleats - he doesn’t look like the usual pitcher, let alone one who grew up in Indiana and left basketball behind to chase baseball.
The path wasn’t a straight line, either. Olejnik played basketball in middle school and spent his early teenage years mostly as a point and shooting guard. By the end of eighth grade, though, he had committed to pitching and put the sneakers away for good.
That choice made a little more sense once you look at the family tree. His father, Tom, was a standout pitcher at Michigan State in the 1990s before Tommy John surgery ended his career.
Tom is 6-foot-9, so Peyton’s eventual climb in height wasn’t exactly a surprise. It just kept going.
He was around 6 feet as a sophomore in high school, then 6-foot-4 as a junior and 6-foot-7 as a senior. By the time he reached college, he was about 6-foot-10. Now, as a professional, he’s listed at 6-foot-11, and his development on the mound has moved right along with the growth spurt.
Even with that frame, Olejnik wasn’t heavily recruited out of Hanover Central High School in Cedar Lake, Ind. He started at Triton College in Illinois, spent one year there and then moved on to Oklahoma.
His early college run at Oklahoma didn’t give him much runway, and he said he got his “teeth kicked in a little bit” in limited action. Needing innings, he transferred to Miami (Ohio), where he struck out 84 batters in 64 1/3 innings. The real breakout came later, during his second stint in the MLB Draft League.
Pitching for the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, Olejnik turned in a 2.08 ERA across five starts with a 13.3 K/9 rate. Just as valuable was the time he spent around veteran voices, including southpaw Ron Mahay, the team’s pitching coach and a former big leaguer with 14 Major League seasons.
“He just kind of told me what to look for and what to do,” Olejnik said. “I've always been a guy that just put my head down and started working, and I think he saw that in me. I always talked to him, asked him questions, trying to hopefully get drafted at that time and just go play pro ball.”
That chance came quickly. The Angels selected Olejnik in the sixth round of the 2024 Draft, and he opened his pro career with Single-A Inland Empire. He went back there for his first full season before moving on to High-A Tri-City this year.
Now the Angels have pushed him into the Arizona Fall League to keep the development moving. Olejnik, whose 241 strikeouts put him in the 96th percentile among qualified Minor League pitchers over the last two seasons, is using the assignment to try to reach the upper Minors. The Fall League also gives him a chance to sharpen his arsenal, including a new cutter.
“Having that height out there kind of puts a presence on the mound,” said Mesa pitching coach Bo Martino, who serves as the Angels’ coordinator of pitcher performance and analysis. “Just allowing him to continue to go after guys and be aggressive with hitters has been a huge thing for him this year, just helping him build off of that.”
For a pitcher with arms and legs that long, repetition is always part of the conversation. Olejnik knows the challenge.
“Growing up, I've always heard, ‘It's hard to repeat your delivery with the long levers.’ I mean, I've heard it all, I've seen it all,” Olejnik said. “So a big focus for me is getting to repeat my delivery, and obviously some days are better than others where some days are just not synced up or some days I just don't have it, but everything's a stepping stone to get into that.”
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