How Star Fresno State Parents Shaped MLB Players Tyler Soderstrom, Nick Yorke

Fresno State DNA flows through two young Major League Baseball stars.

Tyler Soderstrom is in his fourth season as an Athletics outfielder. He recently signed a seven-year extension through 2033. He is the son of 1990s Bulldogs pitcher Steve Soderstrom.

Nick Yorke is an outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He’s been up and down with the team this season and was once a first-round draft pick for the Boston Red Sox. He is the son of Robyn Yorke, a four-time softball All-American at Fresno State under head coach Margie Wright. Yorke graduated in 1997, a year before the Bulldogs won the NCAA championship.

While both Soderstrom and Yorke have Bulldog lineage, neither played for Fresno State. But they carry the lessons learned in Fresno by their parents.

Yorke: My Mom is My Coach

Yorke always knew his mom was a Fresno State softball legend. Her bat-and-ball knowledge is still part of his game today.

“I kind of always knew what she did there. She’s kind of been my coach my whole life. So I’ve known for a while that she was a baller there,” Yorke said.

Robyn Yorke raised three sons to follow her onto the diamond — Nick with the Pirates, Zach Yorke, a college player at LSU, and Joe Yorke, who formerly played at Cal Poly.

“We’ve learned everything we know from her. From a young age, she was the one who took us to the cages to hit, played Wiffle ball with us in the front yard and stuff like that. So it was just a cool experience. I had a great childhood with my mom raising me, and it was a lot of fun,” Yorke said.

Although he grew up in Southern California, Yorke attended Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose. A recent road trip against the San Francisco Giants was the first time he played a major league game in California. Because the Pirates recalled Yorke from the minors a day before the series started, it was too late for his family, including mom, to attend.

He talked about the most valuable piece of advice from his mother.

“Just to play hard and keep going. She understood how difficult this game is from an early age. So she kind of instilled that into me — to work hard and always keep pushing forward, and good things will happen,” Yorke said.

And she’s still advising him.

“Not so much on the swing or stuff like that, but she’ll be the first to tell me I took a bad round in the outfield,” Yorke said.

Robyn Yorke is currently a vice principal at an elementary school in Tucson, Arizona.

Soderstrom’s Fatherly Advice Remains

The Athletics are relying on Soderstrom as part of their future. He’s already had a longer major league career than his father, a pitcher for coach Bob Bennett from 1991 to 1993. A first-round draft pick by the Giants in 1993, Steve Soderstrom reached the majors in 1996.

The father’s career lasted three games, during which he registered a 2-0 record. He pitched professionally through 2000 but never again reached “The Show.”

The Soderstroms grew up in Turlock. Tyler showed baseball skills growing up but was not recruited to follow his father at Fresno State. He did have an offer to play at UCLA. The A’s selected him out of high school in the first round of the 2020 draft, and the younger Soderstrom started his professional career. According to the A’s, the Soderstroms are the 10th father-son duo to be taken in the first round.

“I know he had great experiences there and went to school with my mom there. They built a great relationship, and now we’re here,” Soderstrom said.

His parents still live in Turlock, about 90 minutes away, and make it to occasional games in West Sacramento, the temporary home of the A’s. Steve runs the Backyard Sports Academy, training young baseball players.

“He’s always there for me. I think I’m at a point in my career now where I kind of have everything under control. But he’s there to keep me positive and lift my spirits if I need it,” Soderstrom said.

One piece of fatherly advice that still resonates is the need to work hard.

“It’s pretty cliché, but I put in countless hours after practices, hitting in the cage, extra reps and stuff like that. So just hard work,” Soderstrom said.

Matt Frazier could be the next Fresno State parent-MLB son combination. The son of Terance Frazier has made it as high as Triple-A. He is in the Boston Red Sox system on the Triple-A injured list. Or it could be Nora Judge, the daughter born in 2025 to Yankees slugger Aaron Judge (wink, wink).

Hitting from Brant Brown

Although he is not the son or father of a major leaguer, Brant Brown is a Bulldog alum who played six MLB seasons with three teams and continued his career as a coach. He is in his second year as the St. Louis Cardinals’ hitting coach. He also won a World Series as an assistant hitting coach with the 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers.

Brown grew up in Porterville, which he said gave him an appreciation for “the little things in life.”

As of mid-May, the Cardinals were 15th in MLB with a .240 team batting average. Brown has to adapt his message for both veterans and rookies.

“You just have to know the individual and how they learn. Sometimes we speak, and they don’t really hear us right. Understanding their language, learning how to talk to them in their language so they can actually hear it,” Brown said.

Brown will double-check to make sure his message is getting through.

“You never know how people interpret information. On the other hand, it’s taking the bundles of information that we have or get as hitting coaches and trying to condense that into either a simplified plan of attack or a simplified version of something they need to do,” Brown said.

In this modern age, Brown said, the team has hitters meetings and several data points to analyze. Playing in the 1990s and 2000s, players “just got this big book.”

There can be data overload, Brown said.

“They only have so many pitches, and there’s only one plate,” Brown said.

The post How Star Fresno State Parents Shaped MLB Players Tyler Soderstrom, Nick Yorke appeared first on GV Wire.