While the real test won’t begin until players arrive in Dunedin, Fla., for spring training next year, the Toronto Blue Jays appear to have found the right person for the job by hiring David Popkins as their newest hitting coach.
Popkins, officially hired by the franchise on Monday, comes over from the Minnesota Twins following three seasons with their club serving in the same role. The most recent one was, by far, the most disappointing of his tenure, as a second-half collapse saw them fall out of the American League wild-card race — a crushing result that led to the organization dismissing four coaches, including Popkins.
OFFICIAL: We’re excited to announce the hiring of David Popkins as our Hitting Coach. Welcome to the #BlueJays! pic.twitter.com/dkK6l374uA
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) October 21, 2024
By all accounts, though, that outcome isn’t indicative of Popkins’ coaching skills — and that’s part of what the Blue Jays are banking on. But they’re betting on his reputation, too, which comes highly regarded throughout the industry.
Popkins’ new job will be to reignite a Blue Jays offence that has underperformed over the last two seasons, finishing tied for 14th in runs scored per game in 2023 (4.6) and 23rd (4.14) this year. He, of course, replaces Guillermo Martinez — whose contract wasn’t renewed after this past season — and will team up with assistant hitting coaches Matt Hague and Hunter Mense.
So, who is this 34-year-old, who turns 35 next month, joining Toronto’s coaching staff?
The San Diego, Calf., native played two seasons at UC Davis before signing as an undrafted free agent with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012. From there, he spent three seasons in the minors and enjoyed his fair share of success at the lower levels. But after posting a sub-.700 OPS across 90 games at double-A in ’14, that was it for the minor leagues.
During the following season, Popkins switched to independent ball and, to his credit, he started tapping into some power, clubbing 35 home runs while slugging north of .500 over his first two seasons. However, he only appeared in seven games during his final campaign in 2017, marking the end of his playing career.
Two years later, the Los Angeles Dodgers came calling. It wasn’t for an opportunity as a player (technically, at least) but as a hitting coach with their Arizona Complex League affiliate. Officially, he signed a minor-league contract, but he spent the ’19 season as a player-coach, specializing in swing mechanics and performance science with rookie league hitters. If COVID-19 hadn’t cancelled the ’20 minor-league campaign, that would’ve remained his role.
Once ’21 rolled around, Popkins intended to return to Arizona for another season in rookie ball. He truly enjoyed helping young hitters improve their swings, and the Dodgers organization took notice. So, they offered him a promotion to join the high-A Great Lakes Loons as their new hitting coach, and after mulling it over, he decided to accept.
It was a perfect match, albeit despite a few speed bumps out of the gate.
The Great Lakes’ offence was among the most explosive units in professional baseball that season. They hit 187 home runs, blasting more than all but two of the 90 minor-league teams at the single-A and double-A levels, with only Greensboro (188) and Bowling Green (197) finishing with more.
But things didn’t start as positively as you might think. The Loons struggled immensely early on and were dealt a massive blow during a six-game series against the Dayton Dragons — the Cincinnati Reds’ high-A affiliate. In that matchup, they averaged 2.7 runs scored per game while striking out 64 times, a byproduct of relying on 2019 scouting reports.
“That was a very big wake-up call,” Popkins told The Athletic’s Dan Hayes in 2022. “We were using a lot of the stuff from 2019, a lot of the pitch characteristics and shapes. … With the ride and how much off-speed they were using that whole series, it was just time to make an adjustment. We had a certain swing plane the Dodgers believe in and it’s great. There’s a lot of things it helps and it still was used. But there needed to be some calibrations to cover the new style of pitching.”
Once adjustments were made, the Loons took off and didn’t look back from that point — and the rest was history, as they say.
Following a historic 2021 season with high-A Great Lakes, the Dodgers had planned to promote Popkins to minor-league hitting coordinator, knowing his name wouldn’t be a secret for long, as Hayes wrote. They had just watched his predecessor Justin Viele — the Loons’ hitting coach in ’19 — lead the San Francisco Giants to an NL West Division title in his second season with the club and feared they were about to lose another bright, young coaching star.
And they were right.
Later that off-season, Popkins was hired as the Twins’ big-league hitting coach, with president Derek Falvey believing in the former player’s ability to jump from high-A to the majors despite only having two seasons of coaching experience. But his previous manager, whom he spent just one season working with, knew he was ready for that challenge.
“He’s the total package, a guy that can teach the swing, understands movement and the way the body works along with the ability to game plan, break down pitchers and then the ability to connect with players,” Loons manager Austin Chubb said.
“I don’t see it being a big jump. … The game is about building relationships and if you can do that, you’re going to get buy-in.”
Popkins endured plenty of struggles himself as a hitter. Plus, given his minor in psychology from his time at UC Davis, relating to other players now as a coach is considered among his strongest qualities. But he has several other distinguishable attributes, too.
Among them is his devotion to studying film. After joining the Twins’ staff, he spent countless hours watching clips of the club’s hitters, learning their tendencies, strengths and weaknesses at the plate — practices he’ll now surely do with Blue Jays players. With the owner-imposed lockout eliminating all contact between coaches and players, he increased screen time even further ahead of the 2022 campaign.
Information is only one piece of the puzzle, though, and determining how much each player can digest is crucial for Popkins, who sought answers from several hitting specialists during his playing career, including a trip to Driveline in 2017 prior to his final season in Indy ball.
Those experiences taught him not every hitter follows the same path. Something that works for one player may not for someone else, and that understanding helped Twins hitters buy into his methods. Whether it was providing analytical metrics, correcting a swing path, introducing new hitting drills or merging old-school with new-school methods — he had a plan for everyone.
Minnesota’s offence wasn’t far from where it needed to be before Popkins arrived. They ranked top five in home runs in 2021 and had a top-10 run-producing lineup per wRC+. The results were there, although how they were created appears to be where his presence had the biggest impact.
| HR (MLB Rank) | OBP | SLG | wRC+ | |
| 2021 | 228 (5th) | .314 (18th) | .423 (9th) | 102 (T-9th) |
| 2022-24 | 594 (7th) | .319 (14th) | .413 (T-8th) | 107 (T-6th) |
Generating hard contact was already a strength for the Twins’ offence, which led the majors in barrel rate three years ago. Where those batted balls were being distributed, however, required a few tweaks.
Over the last three seasons, they increased their fly-ball output and started pulling those balls at a slightly higher clip, achieving that feat without negatively impacting their line-drive output. Even more impressive, they completed these adjustments while maintaining their past plate discipline levels.
That saw Minnesota’s hitters peak under Popkins in 2023, with the offence ranking third in home runs (233), fifth in isolated power (.184), seventh in SLG (.428) and finishing tied for sixth in wRC+ (108) amidst the franchise’s fourth playoff berth since ’17.
| LD% (MLB Rank) | FB% | Pulled FB% | Hard Hit% | Barrel% | BB% | |
| 2021 | 20.8% (T-13th) | 37% (13th) | 26.4% (4th) | 41.3% (4th) | 10.2% (1st) | 8.6% (17th) |
| 2022-24 | 20.5% (T-3rd) | 39.2% (6th) | 27.4% (T-7th) | 40.1% (7th) | 8.9% (T-4th) | 8.6% (T-9th) |
Understandably, the Twins’ offensive production took a step back this past season with core hitters like Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis missing significant time due to injury. In saying that, while their absences were detrimental, they shouldn’t detract from the impressive stretches shown by under-the-radar pieces such as Matt Wallner, Trevor Larnach, Jose Miranda, Willi Castro and Ryan Jeffers.
The results behind Popkins’ work with Minnesota’s lineup speaks for itself. But something more powerful is how many players have publicly raved about working with him. That list includes several hitters from his former team, including Correa, who said Popkins helped him better understand himself, Buxton, Max Kepler and Jake Cave, who played his final season with the Twins in 2022.
You can also follow the trail back to his days inside the Dodgers’ system, with outfielder Ryan Ward praising his “adjustability” and how approachable he was with each individual player during his lone season with the Loons in 2021, where the left-handed slugger enjoyed a breakout campaign that included 27 home runs and a .524 SLG — both career-highs at the time.
Popkins also knows how to keep the atmosphere light, especially when a change is needed. He inspired the idea behind Minnesota’s “Rally Sausage” this past season following a rough early-season offensive stretch, and he fully supported the Land of 10,000 Rakes vest that the team wore as its home-run celebration in ’23.
“Baseball is a very mental game,” he said last April while speaking to The Minnesota Star Tribune’s Bobby Nightengale. “There are technical aspects. There are things you have to work on, of course. But the mental side, especially in-season, is so important.
“Something as small as [a sausage] can shift everything. Nothing changed about our process or anything like that. Just a little something different to have fun and laugh about, and all of a sudden, things open up.”
These are all the things that the Blue Jays have to look forward to with Popkins next season. And with any luck, he’ll make a strong first impression during his initial interactions, just as he did with the Twins in 2022.
Coaching changes, of course, can only do so much. Maximizing the most out of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, George Springer, Daulton Varsho, and Alejandro Kirk will be up to Popkins and his staff. But with the hitting department now finalized, more or less at least, next up is the much-needed roster improvements.