Who I am

Hi, I’m Coach Dave.

I love coaching young players. When I started coaching my nephew in Little League years ago, I figured I’d better see if we had learned anything about hitting since I played in college in the 2000s. Turns out, we had.

We have gotten much clearer about something that had always nagged at me: the best hitters, the Hall of Famers, were not just doing what the rest of us were doing, only better. They were trying to do something else. They were moving their bodies differently. Not just the same thing faster or stronger or more accurately; literally their body parts were moving in different ways.

When I learned hitting in the ’90s and 2000s, and in many cases still today, hitting “instruction” was almost entirely results-based. There were about ten cues, and depending on where your last hit went, they would tell you one of them: swing down; knob to ball; get extension; catch it out front; stay level; turn on it; stay back, but also get your foot down; throw your hands at the ball; don’t drop your back shoulder.

If I caught a barrel, they would say, “Good job.” If I hit a grounder, they would say, “You have to get a line drive there.” If I flew out, they would say, “Stop getting under it.” No one actually told you how each part of your body should move, or what to do differently to change it.

But things are different now. We know much more clearly how high-level hitters move their bodies, and it is very different from what most of us do naturally. To reach your potential, you have to learn the high-level swing, just as a sprinter learns running mechanics or a figure skater learns technique.

The baseball swing is no longer a unique mystery, explained after the fact by color commentators who already know whether the ball was hit well and reach for the same ten clichés to explain why. We now know precisely what great hitters are doing. We can teach it. And players can learn it through clear instruction, purposeful drills, and enough time practicing the right movement.

That is why I started a hitting academy. I love working with kids, and once I understood this swing, I knew I could do something every day that would genuinely help them. Having that certainty, and getting to see its impact over time, is a blessing.

It takes a few lessons to cover the basics and a few months before things really start to sink in. That is just how the human body works: it takes time to learn new movement patterns. But with consistent work, a player’s swing can change dramatically over a year or two.

I look forward to doing it with you.

Here’s to a great journey together,

Coach Dave