The Washington Nationals new regime is continuing their youth movement. While no hitting coach has been named yet, the Nats have hired an assistant hitting coach. That would be Andrew Aydt, formerly of Driveline Baseball. He is not even 30 years old yet, but he is already well known as a bright hitting mind.
Like a lot of the Nats new coaches, they played baseball in college, but not at the highest level. Aydt played D2 baseball before joining Driveline. He started as an intern before working his way up to Assistant Hitting Director. In that role, he has worked with a lot of big leaguers and has helped improve their games.
Despite never being in an MLB, or even a professional dugout, Aydt knows what it is like to work with MLB talent. He has been doing it constantly for years now. Aydt made a super cool video on how he helped Ivan Herrera of the Cardinals take his game to the next level. It is worth a watch and really made me optimistic about what he can do with our hitters.
As he mentioned in the video, Herrera was already a good hitter, but he helped him get to the next level. Now, the Cardinals slugger is one of the most underrated hitters in the game. He hit 19 homers and posted an .837 OPS last season. Aydt helped Herrera improve his bat speed and angles to unlock that slug. Herrera always had a feel to hit, but Driveline helped unlock his power.
With that in mind, I am excited to see what he can do with the Nats hitters. CJ Abrams and Daylen Lile are two guys I think Aydt could really help. Both have a natural feel to hit, but could get to another level if they could add more bat speed. Lile does not have the quickest bat, but his feel for hitting is so good that he succeeds anyway. If he can add some power, he can become one of the better hitters in the sport. The emphasis on bat speed is likely a big reason why Riley Adams was tendered a contract as well.
We have talked a lot about Driveline in passing, but I wanted to give a better explanation of what it really is. Driveline is the top performance lab in the sport. Hitters and pitchers go there to improve their games from a biomechanics stand point. Driveline uses analytics and implements data driven instruction to unlock guys potential. A lot of former Driveline employees have gone on to have success in pro organizations.
I really love the Nats linking up with Driveline guys. Simon Mathews has ties to Driveline, but they are not as strong as Aydt. Everything Andrew Aydt knows about coaching comes from his time at Driveline. I like that he is being made an assistant as well. Having Aydt with a guy with more experience in professional baseball would create a dynamic duo.
A lot of people in the analytics space that I trust now see the Nationals as an organization on the rise. Lance Brozdowski is one of my favorite baseball commentators due to his great analytical mind. He actually put out a tweet saying the Nats have the biggest up arrow as an organization in the sport.
He runs in the same circles as a lot of the guys the Nats hired, so he has some bias, but I am still impressed. For so long, the Nationals were behind the curve analytically. Now, for the first time in years, the Nats are innovators. That makes me so excited.
Sure, there is risk in these moves. A lot of these guys are quite green, but they are sharp. It may take a couple years for these moves to pay dividends at the MLB level, but I think they will pay off if the organization supports these guys with the right tools. This is a new era of Nationals baseball, and the Andrew Aydt hire is another example of how different this regime will be.
