It’s been over a month since Nico Wagner had the moment that every kid who grows up playing baseball wants to experience—his name being called in the Major League Baseball Draft.
On July 14, the Atlanta Braves selected Wagner in the 16th round (no. 487 overall), making the 19-year-old the first player selected directly out of West Valley College since 2009. Surrounded by family members, teammates and friends at his parents’ Lake Tahoe home, Wagner won’t soon forget when his name was announced.
“I got to watch it live so it was a pretty surreal moment,” Wagner said in a phone interview with the Los Gatan. “One of the best moments of my life. My mom was bawling her eyes out, and same with my aunt and a few of my friends, too. They were all crying and everyone was so excited. Just an amazing moment and very emotional.”
Wagner is currently in North Port, Fla., home of the Braves’ Florida Complex League (FCL) rookie-level affiliate team. After getting drafted, Wagner signed a contract with the Braves on July 23 and was assigned to FCL the very next day. He was activated on Aug. 4 and has been training in North Port for the last couple of weeks.
“It has been a crazy few weeks, pretty unreal,” he said. “It’s amazing out here, I love it. The facility is amazing, so many resources, and a lot of very knowledgeable coaches and trainers. It’s got all the cool bells and whistles.”
A 6-foot-5, 225-pound right-hander, Wagner attracted pro scouts with his size and a mid-to-upper 90 mph fastball that has tremendous movement. Additionally, Wagner’s three-fourths quarter low arm slot delivery makes it difficult for batters to see the ball coming out of his hand.
“My pitches move a lot left and right,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of horizontal movement on my fastball and sinker. And then I have a lot of sweep action going glove side on my slider, so that’s something that stands out for me. The low arm slot and the east-west movement with the velocity all helped me.”
Technological advances such as Trackman—which utilizes 3D Doppler radar to track the location and movement of pitches and batted balls—has been a game-changer for prospects and scouts alike.
“It’s a new game, a new age,” Wagner said. “With Trackman and all the other data they’ve come out with, you’re getting everything tracked from mechanics to spin rate to velocity to how much a pitch moves. And the coaches and scouts see everything.”
Wagner is a South Lake Tahoe High School graduate who spent one season at the University of Nevada-Reno in 2024 before transferring to West Valley for the 2025 season. In his lone season with the Vikings, Wagner was flat-out dominant, going 9-2 with a 2.17 ERA in 18 games, including 15 starts.
He averaged nearly a strikeout per inning, finishing with 94 strikeouts in 95.1 innings for a team that advanced to the State Final Four for the second consecutive year. It was a 180-degree turnaround from his freshman year at Nevada, which saw Wagner struggle with a 0-2 record and 9.61 ERA.
“I think the main issue was (a lack of) confidence in my game,” he said. “In high school I was really confident, and then freshman year at Nevada was kind of a wake-up call, an eye-opener. It was like, ‘OK, I’m not as good as I thought.’ So, from there it was having a constant self-belief of working hard on my craft which gave me confidence in my game.”
That didn’t happen overnight. In the first week of the 2024 fall ball season at West Valley, Wagner had the velocity but didn’t have the command on his pitches. Moreover, Wagner dealt with health issues and other setbacks, Vikings coach Bobby Hill said.
It wasn’t until Wagner had a lengthy conversation with Vikings’ pitching coach Darold Brown in December when things started to crystallize.
“He’s a very old school coach and I was big on new school baseball, but we had a heart to heart about what works for both of us,” Wagner said. “What we want to keep in my routine, what I want to substitute in, what he thinks I can improve on. We came up with a really great program and routine of what I could keep throughout the year, and it really improved my game.”
Said Hill: “Nico came back in January a completely different person. His health issues were behind him, and he was getting back at it in the weight room, constantly working with coach D, and he just took off.”
Not surprisingly, Hill was ecstatic when Wagner got drafted.
“I’m excited for Nco,” Hill said. “It’s a great opportunity for him and I’m looking forward to seeing how he matures even more now as a professional athlete.”
Once Wagner decided to enter the transfer portal after his freshman year at Nevada, he decided he would go the community college route rather than transfer to another four-year school. Players who are at a four-year program must be 21 years of age or in their junior year to be draft-eligible.
“I bet on myself that I could get drafted (if things fell into place),” he said.
Wagner’s journey from Reno to Saratoga was a byproduct of the social media era. After Wagner announced on a couple of social media platforms that he had entered the transfer portal, Hill and associate head coach Kai Haake reached out to Wagner.
Wagner was already in talks with other community colleges when he made a visit to the West Valley campus.
“I met all the coaching staff, saw the facilities, and liked the place right off the bat,” Wagner said. “Just pure energy from the coaching staff, and kind of everything about it felt so right and stood out to me. It was definitely one of the best decisions of my life, going to West Valley.”
Hill was effusive in his praise for Wagner, who most likely would’ve wound up playing for Loyola Marymount University on scholarship had he not gotten drafted.
“Nico was a breath of fresh air,” Hill said. “The maturity he brought to us, especially with how young of a staff we had, was invaluable. I think all the younger guys look up to him now. They’re saying, ‘We want the Nico plan. We’re in.’ Not that they weren’t in before, but they want that Nico plan.”
