Matt Ruppenthal is a six-foot-four, 225 lb. right-handed relief pitcher from Bloomfield Hills, MI. Born on October 21, 1995, he was a 17th round choice of the Astros in the 2017 draft. Taken 511th overall out of Vanderbilt, he shares the distinction with seven then-later major leaguers, including Ryne Sandberg, Russell Martin, and Bo Jackson.
From 2017 through 2021, Ruppenthal moved his way up the string of Houston’s minor league affiliates, with stops for the Tri-City ValleyCats, the Gulf Coast Astros, the Quad Cities River Bandits, the Asheville Tourists, and the Corpus Christi Hooks.