MESA, Ariz. — In many ways, Ryan Pressly looked at Tommy Hottovy as a role model.

Pressly was a 19-year-old kid freshly drafted out of high school and at the Red Sox facility in Fort Myers, Fla. when a 27-year-old Hottovy with 4 years of professional experience rolled up to the complex, ready to rehab from Tommy John surgery.

There, Pressly was just trying to blend in.

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“I mean being 19, you’re trying to keep a straight path,” the new Cubs reliever said on Tuesday at Cubs camp. “You’re not trying to goof off.”

Hottovy was quite the opposite. Yeah, you read that right — the stoic, pitching coach for the Cubs was sticking out like a sore thumb in that group.

“I just remember going through stretch and this guy is acting like an absolute clown,” Pressly said. “But when you see a 27-year-old just rehabbing with all the UCL guys, it’s like, ‘OK, this is awesome.’”

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Pressly looked at Hottovy as someone whose example he could follow.

“Watching him, how he carried himself in the clubhouse and on the field, it’s something that I always wanted to mimic as well,” Pressly said. “And just a great person off the field as well.”

OK, so what was Pressly like as a teenager?

“He was always an uber competitor,” Hottovy said. “Whether it was a sprint, or we were doing something in work out, weight room, he always had that competitiveness in him. But now to see the ability to control it all and to harness it when he needs to instead of being like the wild stallion, that’s the fun part I’ve been able to see is the growth.”

That fire has led Pressly to a pretty successful big-league career. Across 12 seasons in the majors, Pressly has racked up 112 saves, been named to a pair of All-Star games and picked up the final out in the 2022 World Series.

“It’s amazing to see him, where he is in his career now and what he’s been able to do and just kind of look at this kid who [was] this 19-year-old high school kid that just could throw and do some amazing things, and now to be this veteran pitcher who’s had a ton of success,” Hottovy said. “It’s really fun to see the career that he’s had and the path he’s had.”

Now, they’re working together in Chicago — hoping to both replicate the individual success and the team triumphs that he had in Houston. Pressly struggled a bit in 2024 as he was relegated from closer to setup man after the Astros had acquired Josh Hader — his strikeout rate and velocity dropped from 2023.

But Pressly hopes a change in scenery — and being able to compete to be a closer again, can help him recapture his form. And he has a former teammate helping him in that pursuit.

On Monday, Pressly threw a bullpen session under Hottovy’s watch and on the final pitch of it, the duo were excited.

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“I think he guessed the mile per hour right on the button and that’s why we were celebrating,” Pressly said. “We may as well walk it off right there.”

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They’ll hope that’s the first of many celebrations between the two of them, too. After all, Pressly might not be a teenager anymore, but he’s still that “uber competitor” that Hottovy first met in Florida.

“I don’t know about a stallion or anything like that,” Pressly said. “I love to win. And when you win, it’s fun; you lose, it’s not very fun. I know it sounds pretty simple and stuff like that, but it really does mean a lot to us when you go out there and you and you start putting in the work, and you start seeing the results, and you start stringing wins together.

“And then when you look up and you’re pitching in the World Series, it’s dreams that you never thought that you would ever be there.”