From Undrafted to Unshaken: Inside Sam Benschoter’s Success

Every little leaguer has a dream of playing professional baseball. Some exude insane levels of talent while others play for the love of the game. For Sam Benschoter, it was the latter.

He just loved playing baseball with his friends. He never viewed himself as a superstar and had a complex relationship with the sport at a young age. Despite that, he has found a genuine love for the game that has helped him find great success in professional baseball.

Benschoter was born in Tecumseh, Michigan, 40 minutes south of Ann Arbor. Like most kids, Benschoter played every sport he could growing up. Besides baseball, he participated in football, basketball, lacrosse, and even wrestled. Sam’s father, Adam, was drafted by the Giants in 1991 as a third baseman. His father was a big reason why Benschoter wanted to play professional baseball.

“As I started to get older at about nine or 10, I knew that he played professionally. I wanted to be just like my dad. He was like a superhero to me, so I wanted to keep playing,” Benschoter said.

“I was always pretty good, but I just loved playing.

Then when I was 11, I played on two different travel teams and a little league team during the same year, and the travel team played a league schedule, so I'd play Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

If we played in a tournament and we had a game on Friday, I'd play on Friday, but sometimes we got Friday off, and then I’d play Saturday and Sunday.

So I did that when I was 11, and then August hit, and I hated baseball, and I wanted to quit and didn’t want to play baseball anymore because it was just so much baseball.”

That’s a grueling schedule, especially for an 11-year-old. He needed to take a step back, take a break from the sport. The relationship he had with baseball was complicated. When he played the game, he thoroughly enjoyed it. But he bit off more than he could chew at such a young age. Once the spring season came back around, he kept at it, mainly to keep playing with his friends.

“I had fun playing middle school football, had fun playing middle school basketball, and then baseball season's coming around, and all my friends are going to go play baseball. Why would I want to sit at home now?” he recalled. “So, I wanted to get back into it, and it wasn't that I hated baseball. It was the fact that I was 11 years old, and every single day I'm in a car going somewhere to play baseball. I just needed to have time to be a kid. When I played on those teams, my parents weren’t pushing me in any way to do it. I wanted to play for those teams. I just wanted to go play, and then it was too much, and I was able to realize that's not what I want, but I still did love baseball.”

After his comeback, he began growing into a pitcher because he could always throw hard at a young age. Despite throwing hard, he struggled to throw strikes until he had the opportunity to work with a college coach who taught him how to simplify his arm and throw for both power and accuracy. At age 15, he went to his first showcase and was hoping to hit 83 to 85 miles per hour on the radar gun. He exceeded that and sat at 88 and 89 for the first time in his life. After the event, colleges started reaching out, and that was when he realized he was a better pitcher than he thought.

He continued to put in work and trained hard, and he went on to play college ball at Michigan State. His college experience had ups and downs, but one particular game that stuck with him throughout his career.

Back in 2021, Benschoter came in to pitch for Michigan State in the third inning against Nebraska, the Big Ten’s top-hitting team at the time. Expected to just simply eat up innings out of the bullpen, he instead delivered one of the most memorable outings in program history.

He baffled and confused the Cornhusker hitters, throwing 9.1 innings of relief as the game went into extra innings and set a school record of 17 strikeouts that still stands today. After the first six innings, Benschoter knew he was dialed in, as whenever he got a batter to two strikes, he thought to himself, “How should I celebrate this next strikeout?”

Though Michigan State didn’t win the game, his performance became the stuff of Spartan legend, and a turning point in his career.

Benschoter Named @B1Gbaseball Co-Pitcher of the Week!

⚾ Fired a career-high 1⃣7⃣ strikeouts in 9.1 innings of relief vs. NEB
⚾ The 17 Ks are most in modern day program history, besting Mark Mulder's 16 Ks in 1998.

📰: https://t.co/v4n1SxiZnY

⚾️#GoGreen | @sam_benschoter

— Michigan State Baseball (@MSUBaseball) April 27, 2021

After college, he signed with the Cincinnati Reds as an undrafted free agent, an opportunity he was very grateful to receive.

“It's probably been the best experience I could have asked for,” Benschoter said. When I came into the organization, obviously, undrafted, I looked at myself as someone who didn't quite measure up to all these guys that were drafted and took it as an opportunity to prove myself every day,” he said. “When I came into the organization, the pitching philosophy that we were given was to maximize strikeouts, maximize slider usage, and swing and miss. At the time, my slider was one of my better pitches, probably my best. So that was my first taste of the organization, and I think it was just supposed to happen this way, because I don't think it was anything that I changed or did differently, but I just think it was just supposed to work out this way.”

Since joining the organization in 2021, he has steadily climbed the ranks through the minors. This season, he has played most of the season with the Bats. He leads the team with seven wins and has a 3.67 ERA with 58 strikeouts in 31 games.

He got the call he’s always dreamed of, being called up to the big leagues twice this season, but has yet to throw a pitch for the Reds. His first stint ran from July 1 to July 4, while his second lasted from August 8 to August 13. Benschoter has remained very positive despite this, emphasizing how blessed he was to get a taste of Major League life.

“I don't have any complaints at all. It was an awesome experience. It gave me the opportunity to meet people in the clubhouse and meet the staff up there,” he said. “So overall, I viewed it as a positive experience. Everyone wants to go up and pitch, but if it wasn't my time, it's not my time.”

Throughout the ups and downs, he’s remained thankful for his opportunity to pitch in the organization. He emphasized how the support from his family, friends, and coaches has been critical for success.

Now, whether he’s in Louisville or Cincinnati, Benschoter’s approach is simple, attack the zone, one pitch at a time.

“All I try to do is attack, attack the hitter, attack the strike zone. I want to take it one pitch at a time and just take it slow. I can't strike a guy out in one pitch.” he said. “So, I just try to make each pitch the best pitch that I can in that moment, for whatever the situation is. Sometimes it's going to go my way. Sometimes it's not. I just try to put myself in the best position, both mentally and physically, to get the result that I want.”