Baseball Players, and athletes of all sports really, take pride in where they’re from. Whether it’s the state, city or area code – you always notice players wanting to rep their home area.
Fans tend to do the same thing. It’s always more fun to pull for a player when they’re from your home state (or even your hometown), especially when that player also happens to be playing on your favorite team.
With all that in mind, we went through MLB.com and pulled the home states (or countries) of every player on the 40-man rosters for each team.
We found 19 players from the state of Ohio on major league rosters. A very respectable number that ties Ohio for 10th overall with Arizona and North Carolina.
As far as individual cities, Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo are all tied with 3 players each representing their hometown. They’re also the only cities with more than one.
Here are the 19 guys representing the state of Ohio on MLB Rosters at the start of the 2023 season including what town he’s from and what team he plays for.
| Name | City | Team |
|---|---|---|
| Adam Engel | Cincinnati | Padres |
| Alex Young | Westlake | Reds |
| Andrew Benintendi | Cincinnati | White Sox |
| Andrew Chafin | Kettering | Diamondbacks |
| Caleb Ferguson | Columbus | Dodgers |
| Chris Bassitt | Toledo | Blue Jays |
| Evan White | Columbus | Mariners |
| Joey Wiemer | Sylvania | Brewers |
| Josh Harrison | Cincinnati | Phillies |
| Josh Winckowski | Toledo | Red Sox |
| JT Brubaker | Springfield | Pirates |
| Kyle Schwarber | Middletown | Phillies |
| Luke Raley | Hinckley | Rays |
| Peyton Burdick | Batavia | Marlins |
| Scott Effross | Twinsburg | Yankees |
| Spencer Strider | Columbus | Braves |
| Tanner Scott | Warren | Marlins |
| Taylor Ward | Dayton | Angels |
| Zach McKinstry | Toledo | Tigers |
Hall of Fame Players from Ohio
In addition to the current players from Ohio, we compiled a list of all players that have gone on to make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame:
| Name | City | Induction Year |
|---|---|---|
| Barry Larkin | Cincinnati | 2012 |
| Sol White | Bellaire | 2006 |
| Ray Brown | Alger | 2006 |
| Phil Niekro | Blaine | 1997 |
| Mike Schmidt | Dayton | 1995 |
| Rollie Fingers | Steubenville | 1992 |
| Walter Alston | Walter Alston | 1983 |
| Rube Marquard | Cleveland | 1971 |
| Jesse Haines | Clayton | 1970 |
| Branch Rickey | Portsmouth | 1967 |
| Miller Huggins | Cincinnati | 1964 |
| Elmer Flick | Bedford | 1963 |
| Ed Delahanty | Cleveland | 1945 |
| Roger Bresnahan | Toledo | 1945 |
| Kenesaw Landis | Millville | 1944 |
| George Sisler | Manchester | 1939 |
| Buck Ewing | Hoagland | 1939 |
| Cy Young | Gilmore | 1937 |
| Ban Johnson | Norwalk | 1937 |
Baseball Hometown Fun Facts
California, by far, has the most current MLB players of any state with 189.
The second most was the state of Florida with 89, followed by Texas (78), Georgia (40) and New York (38).
The Dominican Republic has 120 players currently in major league baseball which is incredibly impressive considering the country has a total population of only 11 million people. By comparison, the state of California has a population of 39 million and the state of Florida has a population of almost 22 million.
Other States
We are slowly but surely getting all the states published from the data we collected. Here are a few of the other states we currently have available.
Current MLB Players from North Dakota