If there’s been one clear message sent by the Red Sox in the last few months, it’s been that the organization’s pitching pipeline needed a makeover that would erase almost two decades of shortcomings. That started with the hiring of new CBO Craig Breslow, who was the face of the Cubs overhaul in pitching development over the last few seasons. Since being brought aboard, he has wasted no time beefing up the pitching infrastructure, with the likes of Andrew Bailey, Justin Willard, and now the founder of Driveline, Kyle Boddy, joining the mix.
Boddy, who will be serving as a Special Advisor to Breslow for the upcoming season, will be assisting in Research & Development on the pitching side of things. He’s become a titan in that space since Driveline was founded in 2007, bringing a data-driven approach to every aspect of training pitchers and hitters. Over 1,000 professional baseball players have put their faith in Boddy’s work, ranging from the likes of Clayton Kershaw, to Tyler Glasnow, and even some current Red Sox players like Nick Pivetta, Kenley Jansen, and John Schreiber.
For many baseball traditionalists, there was some serious hesitation to Boddy’s voice and methods gaining traction in the sport, since he lacked the classic player or coaching background. His first couple of careers weren’t even in sports, as he worked as a professional gambler and then at Microsoft as a software developer. There was no history of a blogger creating his own biomechanics lab and trying to reinvent the way pitchers evolved.
On Driveline’s website, they explain that their training comes through “state-of-the-art motion capture assessments, physical therapy evaluations, and specialized assessment-retest based pitching, hitting and high performance coaching. We also provide software, hardware and physical good solutions for both in-person and remote training as well as deploy a variety of certifications and educational materials distilling proprietary internal research to the general industry.”
