{"id":87975,"date":"2024-10-21T23:00:19","date_gmt":"2024-10-22T03:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=87975"},"modified":"2024-10-21T23:00:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T03:00:19","slug":"david-popkins-hired-new-blue-jays-hitting-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/21\/david-popkins-hired-new-blue-jays-hitting-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Hire Former Twins Hitting Coach for Same Position"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Blue Jays have hired David Popkins as their new hitting coach. He will replace Guillermo Martinez, who the team <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/09\/30\/blue-jays-part-ways-hitting-coach-guillermo-martinez\/\" target=\"_self\">fired<\/a> on September 30th. Popkins is a former hitting coach for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/21\/twins-new-hitting-coach-matt-borgschulte\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Minnesota Twins<\/a>, spending three seasons with the team before they parted ways on October 1st. Before his time with the Twins, Popkins served as a hitting coach in the minors with the Los Angeles Dodgers and played in the minors with the St. Louis Cardinals organization\u00a0for three seasons.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">OFFICIAL: We&#8217;re excited to announce the hiring of David Popkins as our Hitting Coach. Welcome to the <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BlueJays?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BlueJays<\/a>! <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dkK6l374uA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/dkK6l374uA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BlueJays\/status\/1848461774741258698?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 21, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Blue Jays Hire Former Twins Hitting Coach David Popkins for Same Position<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">MIN&#8217;s process results under David Popkins from 2022-24 (MLB rank):<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; 20.5% LD% (T-3rd)<br \/>\n&#8211; 39.2% FB% (6th)<br \/>\n&#8211; 27.4% Pulled FB% (T-7th)<br \/>\n&#8211; 40.1% HH% (7th)<br \/>\n&#8211; 8.9% Barrel% (T-4th)<br \/>\n&#8211; 8.6% BB% (T-9th)<\/p>\n<p>Certainly encouraging. <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BlueJays?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BlueJays<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Thomas Hall (@Hall_Thomas_) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Hall_Thomas_\/status\/1848469655301611938?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 21, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The 34-year-old Popkins retired from his playing career in 2017, which was spent entirely in the minors. Popkins has come in to help a struggling Blue Jays team that finished 23rd in MLB in runs this season. Aside from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/guerrvl02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-21_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vladimir Guerrero Jr.<\/a>, Toronto&#8217;s offense was a major disappointment in 2024. During Popkins&#8217; time with the Twins, he was successful in helping the team&#8217;s offense rank in promising numbers. The Twins led MLB in home runs in 2023, followed by ranking in the top five in home runs, on-base percentage, slugging, extra-base hits, and hard-hit rate in 2024. Hopefully, Popkins can help carry that success over to the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n<p>Twins shortstop <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/correca01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-21_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Correa<\/a> commented on Popkins as his hitting coach with the Twins. \u201cThis man literally saved my career and my life. I have never been in the room with someone so sophisticated yet so easy to relate to. He\u2019s probably the best hitting coach I\u2019ve ever worked with and I owe my life to him.\u201d This would indicate that Popkins has a strong ability to connect with hitters.<\/p>\n<p>As a player for the Washington Wild Things of the Frontier League, Popkins hit 35 home runs and was an All-Star in 2016.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 USA TODAY NETWORK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Blue Jays have hired David Popkins as their new hitting coach. He will replace Guillermo Martinez, who the team fired on September 30th. Popkins is a former hitting coach for the Minnesota Twins, spending three seasons with the team before they parted ways on October 1st. Before his time with the Twins, Popkins [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4831,"featured_media":88026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1071,35],"tags":[716,174,168,640],"class_list":["post-87975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bluejays","category-mlb","category-news","tag-carlos-correa","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-vladimir-guerrero-jr"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}