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Big Leagues, Big Dreams, T1D: Six MLB Players Thriving with Type 1 Diabetes

21 hours ago
5 min read

What does it take to play Major League Baseball with Type 1 diabetes? A 105-mph fastball helps. So does a World Series ring. But mostly it takes what these six players have in common: the refusal to let a diagnosis write their story for them.


At DirectDiabetes.com, we love celebrating people who don't just live with diabetes — they thrive with it. Here are six big leaguers doing exactly that, and how each of them got his diagnosis.


Garrett Mitchell — Center Field, Milwaukee Brewers

Diagnosed at age 9.

Garrett Mitchell has been managing Type 1 diabetes longer than he's been a professional baseball player — most of his life, in fact. As he grew into a first-round talent, he started hearing the question every young diabetic athlete dreads: would his condition keep him from handling the grind of a long season?


He didn't love the question. "In my mind I took it more as kind of a sign of disrespect," Mitchell said. "If you know the person, if you know the player, if you watch me play, that's not the thing I think you worry about, because I've dealt with it for as long as I have."


Growing up, Mitchell watched highlights of outfielder Sam Fuld, who played in the majors from 2007–15 with Type 1 diabetes — proof it could be done. Now Mitchell is the proof for the next kid: he works at setting an example for young athletes managing the same condition.



Spencer Bivens — Pitcher, Kansas City Royals

Diagnosed at age 14.

Spencer Bivens took the longest road to the majors of anyone on this list — through baseball in France and the independent leagues before signing with the Giants as an undrafted free agent and finally debuting just shy of his 30th birthday. He did all of it while managing Type 1 diabetes, which he's had since he was 14.


He still remembers how overwhelming the diagnosis felt. "It was tough," Bivens said. "I was looking at it more like cancer, devastating. Obviously, it's not that bad. But it's an extreme change. Once you kind of get used to that change, it becomes way easier. But it's scarier at first than it actually is going forward."


That's a message worth sitting with: the scariest part is the beginning. It gets easier.



Mason Miller — Closer, San Diego Padres

Diagnosed at age 20.

Mason Miller's diagnosis story sounds like a movie plot. During his sophomore year at Division III Waynesburg University, he was struggling — he'd lost about 25 pounds and his fastball velocity had cratered. He needed a mandatory drug test for a hospital finance internship. The lab flagged his urine sample as diluted. It wasn't diluted. His blood sugar was off the charts.


He went to the emergency room and came out with a Type 1 diabetes diagnosis. "I was exhausted all the time," Miller said, "but never imagined it could be diabetes." His doctors told him he may have been weeks from a coma.


What happened next is the whole point of this article: Miller learned to manage the condition, put the weight and velocity back on, transferred to Gardner-Webb, got drafted in the third round, and became one of the most dominant closers in baseball — an All-Star throwing triple digits. He manages it all with his Dexcom continuous glucose monitor, tracking his levels through diet, training, and sleep, and he now mentors kids facing the same diagnosis as a Dexcom Warrior.



Adam Duvall — Veteran Outfielder

Diagnosed at age 23, in 2012.

Adam Duvall was three years into his minor-league climb when his body started sending signals: weight loss, constant urination, exhaustion, a mouth that never stopped feeling dry. He did what a lot of us do — he looked up his symptoms. When the bloodwork came back, the 23-year-old wasn't surprised: Type 1 diabetes.


His response set the tone for everything after: "From there it was just attacking this thing by trying to learn as much as I could about it, how to cope with it, how to deal with it and how to play a baseball season with it."


He figured it out. Duvall became a 2016 All-Star, slugging 33 home runs with 103 RBI for the Reds — then won the 2021 World Series with the Braves, homering twice on the game's biggest stage while monitoring his blood sugar to stay safe. He plays with an insulin pump and a glucose sensor, and he's teamed up with Lilly and the American Diabetes Association on insulin affordability, because he knows the burden isn't just medical.



Jordan Hicks — Pitcher

Diagnosed at age 17, during his junior year of high school.

Jordan Hicks told his mom he wasn't feeling well. He'd lost 30 pounds in three months, couldn't shake a dry mouth, and was running to the bathroom constantly. His doctor suspected diabetes and sent him to the emergency room, where he spent five days getting his glucose stabilized.


Today, Hicks throws one of the fastest pitches on the planet — 105 mph — and he calls himself the "diabetic phenom." It's the gamer tag he picked for himself, and it's become something bigger: a brand he's building to spread awareness and fire up others living with diabetes. His mentality is pure Hicks: "Whatever I want to do, I'm going to get it done."



Scott Alexander — Relief Pitcher

Diagnosed at age 16.

Scott Alexander has been pitching through Type 1 diabetes since he was 16 years old — through the Dodgers bullpen, where he became a trusted late-inning arm, and everywhere his left arm has taken him since. He's the quiet veteran of this list: no dramatic diagnosis story splashed across headlines, just year after year of showing up, keeping his glucose in range, and getting big-league hitters out.


Sometimes thriving doesn't look like a movie montage. It looks like a decade-plus of reliability.



The Takeaway

Six players. Six diagnoses — at 9, 14, 16, 17, 20, 23. Six different paths through the same storm, all ending in the same place: the major leagues.


If you or someone you love is newly diagnosed, borrow a line from Spencer Bivens: it's scarier at first than it actually is going forward. And borrow the mindset from the rest of them: learn everything you can, use the tools (pumps, sensors, CGMs), and don't let anyone — including the doubters at a draft table — decide what you're capable of.


Know someone thriving with diabetes? We'd love to celebrate their story. Share this article and tag them — or tag us @DirectDiabetes.

 
 
 

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