Confident Glasser Prepared For Professional Baseball

Phillip Glasser SS / RHP / Tallmadge, OH / 2018

TALLMADGE - Times have surely changed since Phillip Glasser graduated high school back in 2018.

“Out of high school I only had one D-I offer and it came late,” reflected Glasser, who helped Tallmadge to a Division II state baseball title his junior year.

Two colleges later and now 23 years of age, Glasser is a professional baseball player after being selected in the 10th round of this year’s draft and signing with the Washington Nationals.

“I was at my house in Ohio with my parents and girlfriend,” Glasser related. “Once I got the call it was pretty surreal. I thought I had a good chance to go on day two. I talked with quite a few teams and I talked quite a bit with the Nationals. I knew they were interested.”

The 285th selection in the 2023 MLB Draft did not take long to officially become a National.

“I signed the day I got drafted … that night,” Glasser noted. “I’m flying to their complex at West Palm Beach for a physical and everything. We’ll see what happens from there.”

Past opportunities proved beneficial in helping the current opportunity take place.

“Going to Youngstown State made me develop,” Glasser explained. “From there I had a chance to go to Indiana.

“It’s pretty surreal thinking about where I was my senior year in high school. I just put my head down and worked. Having confidence in yourself was big for me.”

In three years at Youngstown State and two at Indiana, Glasser not only developed but made an impression starting 225 games during his college career. This season the left-handed hitting shortstop reached base in 45 straight games, earning second team All-Midwest and second team All-Big 10 honors.

The 6-0 200-pounder was 19th in the nation in hits with 95 and 42nd among Division I players in runs scored with 70. Glasser started all 63 games for the Hoosiers at shortstop.

“Every offseason I focused on one thing,” Glasser said about how he improved along the way to go from a lightly-recruited high school player to being selected in the MLB Draft. “It was arm strength one year, speed one year and hitting another year. There were a lot of sacrifices, I just believed in the end goal of getting drafted. I kept my head down and I’m a totally different player than I was coming out of high school.”

And now he is a professional baseball player.

“Never stop believing in yourself,” is the advice Glasser gives to anyone that wants to move on in the game but is being shown doubts by others. “I always believed this would happen, and a lot of people probably didn’t. I worked super hard day in and day out. The guys at Indiana, when they saw my PBR video from high school, my metrics are not even close to how they are now.”

While Glasser has changed as a player, one thing that has not changed is his confidence in making his team and teammates better

“One of the biggest things for me is to try and impact the people around you,” Glasser explained. “It comes full circle and they can also help you. I just want to impact people’s lives.”

The drive now is to keep getting better while, hopefully, moving up the ladder in the Nationals’ organization.

“I’m just going to continue doing what I’ve been doing and at the end of this fall season see where I need to be next year,” Glasser said. “I want to have a good offseason which will really help me.

“The goal for everybody is to be a player in the MLB. The only way to make it happen is to take it one day at a time.”

That has proven to be the perfect recipe for Glasser from his days at Tallmadge, to Youngstown State, to Indiana, to now.

“One good thing about going to Youngstown is I started right away,” Glasser concluded. “Getting all that time, the experience and lessons that all was big. Having the right people in your corner, all those things really helped out.

“I’m super excited about this and as prepared as I can be. Where you get confidence is in being prepared.”