KENT, Wash. — Kyle Boddy owns his reputation.
The Driveline Baseball founder admits he’s one of those analytics-driven, data-compiling intellectuals who are infiltrating front offices across all professional sports leagues.
“I’m part of the nerd group,” said Boddy, a senior advisor to Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. “I’m not trying to exclude myself.”
So the 42-year-old was disappointed when a rumor spread that it was “a Driveline guy” who intervened during Red Sox 2025 spring training camp when a young player asked 72-year-old Hall of Famer Jim Rice for advice about hitting. Boddy confirmed the staffer — who felt Rice’s advice strayed from the Red Sox’ approach — was never employed by Driveline or associated with his company.
“It does bother me,” Boddy said, adding Rice “is one of the best players to ever play the game.”
Boddy said he would never discourage a player from seeking advice from a Hall of Famer because it might differ from what Driveline or the Red Sox teach. In fact, he said the Red Sox’ offensive approach aligns with what Ted Williams preached – pulling the ball in the air — and he added, “a lot of this stuff is not new.”
Much of what the Red Sox practice, both hitting and pitching, has been adopted from Driveline Baseball, a data-driven baseball player development company. The Sox employ several former Driveline employees, including new assistant hitting coach John Soteropulos, who Boston promoted to the big league staff in October after he served as the organization’s hitting coordinator for approximately 23 months. Soteropulos was a Driveline employee from April 2019-January 2023.
Boston’s increased analytical approach began under former chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and has increased under Breslow, who brought Boddy on board. Boddy has helped in several areas, including creating a baseball sciences department, now headed by David Besky, another former Driveline employee.
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Boddy is adamant that many hitting principles have remained the same from Williams’ era through Rice’s generation to now. During the MLB postseason, he spent time highlighting the importance of bat speed on X, noting that scouts have always loved bat speed and “it is not a new age belief.”
Bat speed was discussed at length on MLB Network throughout October because Blue Jays first-year hitting coach David Popkins, who trained at Driveline as a player, significantly increased the bat speed of several players. George Springer’s bat speed, for instance, increased 1.8 mph from 2024 to 2025.
“What’s old is new again,” Boddy said at his state-of-the-art facility in Kent, Washington back in June. “It all starts with Ted Williams. He still wrote the best book (The Science of Hitting) on hitting. I don’t think anyone will write a better one.”
As the Reds organization director of pitching from October 2019 to September 2021, Boddy learned that tradition is important, especially for historic organizations. Boddy thinks it’s important to keep a connection between an organization’s past and present players.
“The players change the game,” Boddy said.
An American League scout who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Driveline’s “methods are successful,” helping clients increase velocity, improve pitch shape/spin/movement and swing the bat faster. As a result, MLB teams want to learn “the secret sauce” and have hired more than 75 former Driveline employees.
“The other question is legit as far as is it good for the game?” the scout added. “I think it kind of trains hitters to be good at producing data. It’s kind of laboratory baseball. And I think you see that play out on the field. Hitters train to produce better exit velocities and to hit the ball at more optimal angles in a batting cage and they get that feedback from the Trackman or the iPad right there. … When you see it play out in games over the course of the season — a runner on third and less than two outs — hitters have a hard time coming through in that situation. That’s not what they practice.”
Driveline and analytics departments put a heavy focus on batted ball quality but Boddy said he understands the value of simply putting the ball in play.
“The best teams make a lot of contact,” Boddy said.
That played out in 2025. The American League champion Blue Jays produced the lowest strikeout (17.8%) and whiff (21.6%) percentages among the 30 major league teams. They put more balls in play (4,488) than any other team, 291 more balls in play than the Red Sox hit.
“It’s really convenient for radio hosts or whoever to knock him,” an NL GM said about Boddy, “Anyone that has actually gotten to know him and understood what he’s actually about, they don’t think that.”
The GM added that Boddy talks about the game in person differently than he does on X: “I think he’s got a job to do as part of his company. I think he’s kind of developed a presence on social media that probably isn’t who he is as a person.”
Breslow agreed.
“People get typecast and there’s the perception of folks and then there’s the reality,” he said. “Driveline, I think the greatest attribute that they have brought to the game was just kind of an evidence-based, data-driven methodology to develop it.”
Who is Kyle Boddy?
Boddy grew up in Cleveland and then in Parma, Ohio, approximately 10 miles outside of Cleveland.
As a youngster, he looked up to Dr. Donald Yamashiro, his great uncle and an influential biologist. Boddy had a passion for science, sports and video games (his big hobby nowadays is chess). He grew up playing four different sports and always believed he would work in a science-adjacent field.
“You probably can’t tell looking at me, but tennis was probably my No. 1 game for a while,” Boddy said, poking fun at how he’s built.
In multiple games around Little League-age, Boddy threw over 200 pitches. This was when nobody knew any better and his own arm injuries caused him to lose love for baseball for a period of time.
“I loved baseball when I was really young. I fell out of love with it,” he said. “Arm injuries. That’s kind of why this company exists.”
At 22, Boddy moved to the Seattle area “for a girl.” That girl is now his wife.
“Didn’t know anybody and I decided that I was going to coach baseball to fill the time,” he said.
Boddy began reading research journals, trying to find answers on how to help his young players avoid injuries. He didn’t find any real answers.
“That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I should develop something,’” Boddy said. “If I’m gonna coach kids, the first thing that I gotta do is make sure that we try to keep them healthy. … And that’s how Driveline was born.”
Driveline — which has a youth academy — initially had “nothing to do with performance enhancement and everything to do with trying to keep kids healthy and get them on a good program,” he said.
Former Red Sox pitcher Walker Buehler said Boddy’s early work with injured pitchers helped him gain the respect of many professional athletes. His biomechanics lab examines how each individual client’s body moves to learn how to get the best performance out of each player while also gathering data to try to lessen the risk of injury.
“Every player can relate to the guy that thinks his career’s over because he’s hurt, and then there’s this place that is continually giving those guys second chances,” Buehler said.
Boddy said the first time they met, Buehler said to him, “I read your book and you’re full of (expletive).”
Boddy wrote The Dynamic Pitcher: The Complete Guide to Protecting and Developing Youth Pitching Arms. Driveline Baseball is well known for its weighted balls, which help pitchers increase velocity over time and achieve other goals.
A Royals pitcher warms up with a weighted ball in the bullpen during a spring training game against the Mariners in 2024, in Surprise, Ariz. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)AP
Buehler was a pitcher at Vanderbilt when they first met. He doesn’t remember exactly what was said, but he thinks he might not have been as skeptical about Boddy’s book as he was likely upset that he wasn’t one of the Vanderbilt pitchers selected to participate in Boddy’s weighted-ball program.
Boddy said Buehler once told him he’d only listen to Hall of Famers, future Hall of Famers or someone who knew more than he did about pitching.
“I’m not going to the Hall of Fame, so I guess it’s got to be the other one,” Boddy said.
Buehler said Driveline’s initial focus on taking “broken players and making them playable again” helped it grow to what it is today because “every success story is huge.”
“There hadn’t been that much negative publicity about it until it became super mainstream enough where that didn’t matter,” Buehler said.
Boddy said he’s honored that Driveline has become so relevant that people talk about it.
“At the end of the day, man, that’s a pretty cool thing to be, to have,” Boddy said. “And the fact that people are going to use it in maybe not the most accurate way, OK.”
Boddy has tried to embrace the passion in big-market Boston where fans on social media and radio callers have been divided over whether the Red Sox using Driveline approaches is a positive or negative.
“I love it,” he said. “I’m from Cleveland and I worked for the Reds. … And so a larger media market is a new thing to me.”
Boddy said he doesn’t think anyone is maliciously making stuff up about Driveline.
“I think that they’re displeased with this, and they should say it,” Boddy said. “That’s just always been my opinion. But, as far as like factual stuff, I think there’s a misconception. I don’t think anyone is making stuff up.”
Boddy’s involvement with the Red Sox
After Breslow was hired by the Red Sox in October 2023, the new boss initially offered Boddy the director of pitching position. Boddy declined because of his commitment to his family, specifically his children, and Driveline Baseball.
Instead, Boddy was hired as a special advisor to Breslow in January 2024 and helped Breslow launch the Red Sox’ baseball sciences department, working as its interim director. He helped build the lab technology, recruit the staff and conduct a search for a full-time leader.
Boddy and the Red Sox promoted David Besky from assistant director of player development to director of baseball sciences in December 2024. Besky had worked for Driveline Baseball from September 2019 to January 2023 before Bloom, then Boston’s chief baseball officer, hired him as a player development coordinator.
During Boddy’s first year on the job, he also helped with Sportsology, an external company Breslow hired to audit the team’s baseball operations department. The audit led to a string of firings. The scouting departments had several jobs eliminated.
Boddy now works in a more traditional advisory role. He was involved with player development to a certain degree last season and he tries to be, as he put it, “a sounding board for all of our directors.”
“I try to have as many conversations (with Boddy) as I can because you’re always learning something from those,” Breslow said. “But also, I want to make sure he does a great job making himself available to coordinators, to coaches, to players.”
Boddy doesn’t only lean on analytics. He has learned a lot from the players he’s worked with at Driveline. Tim Lincecum taught him that people were undervaluing then-catcher Buster Posey’s value if they looked strictly at his statistics.
“Buster is an eight-win player and Tim is saying, ‘No, he’s much better than that,’” Boddy said.
WAR doesn’t measure Posey’s clubhouse presence and how he helped lead the Giants when the team won three World Series titles (2010, ‘12, ’14), Boddy said.
“I don’t want to get on a soapbox, but I think it is really important and (manager Alex) Cora knows it better than me, for sure,” Boddy added.
In June, Boddy said veteran third baseman Alex Bregman’s value was unquantifiable, even making teammates more valuable by giving them suggestions to improve their games.
Boddy said that’s something that the “nerds … don’t think about” as much as they should.
Red Sox’ Driveline ties date back to Chaim Bloom
The Red Sox’ interest in Driveline dates back to the Bloom era, with then-vice president of amateur scouting and player development Paul Toboni and senior director of player development Brian Abraham heavily involved, Boddy said. The Nationals hired Toboni as their president of baseball operations in September.
Bloom incorporated many of Driveline’s hitting methods. He hired then-Driveline’s Jason Ochart as director of hitting development and program design in November 2022. Breslow is the one who incorporated many of Driveline’s pitching methods.
Other former Driveline employees now with the Red Sox include:
Devin Rose, major league coach of pitching strategyJohn Soteropulos, major league assistant hitting coachKyle Wasserberger, lead biomechanist JP Fasone, minor league hitting coordinatorJohnny Reina, Triple-A Worcester assistant hitting coachBrent Hokeness, assistant of baseball sciencesElijah Boyer, Double-A Portland assistant hitting coachCody Gracco, High-A Greenville assistant hitting coachIvan Quackenbush, Low-A Salem assistant hitting coach
Boston hired Hokeness, Quackenbush, Boyer and Gracco this offseason.
Toboni said he has visited Driveline Baseball “north of 10 times” mostly to see players work out.
“(Boddy is) not afraid to buck a trend or do what it takes to hopefully maximize players’ talent levels and performance,” Toboni said.
Boddy now has three facilities between the newer ones in Phoenix, Arizona, and Tampa, Florida, and the original outside of Seattle. He estimated he has between $1-2 million of equipment.
“It just started out like a little mom and pop shop and they’re trying to figure it out as they go,” Toboni said. “Now you go and look and it’s like this huge open space with all the cutting-edge technology.“
Driveline’s equipment includes a Trajekt pitching machine, which can simulate any major league pitcher’s windup and repertoire for hitters to prepare.
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Trajekt pitching machine
Boddy said the biomechanics lab known as The Launchpad is probably Driveline’s “single biggest selling point.” According to the Driveline website, it “is capable of collecting pitching biomechanics, hitting biomechanics, and even biomechanics from pitchers and hitters in live competition, all paired with any number of ball tracking technology and sensors.”
“It’s so advanced,” Boddy said. “It’s so much better than what anyone has. It’s better than anything in pro ball. … It’s just a great snapshot of biomechanics, everything like that, how fast it runs. Being able to make instant changes.”
‘Why can’t we just be happy that it’s a homer?’
Boddy said advanced stats such as exit velocities and launch angles on home runs are important.
“People get mad that there’s a number attached to it,” Boddy said. “It’s like, ‘Why can’t we just be happy that it’s a homer?’”
But Boddy said many players feel better about the process when they see the actual numbers. He called baseball a “brutal game” when a ball can leave a bat at 110 mph exit velocity but result in an out.
“We can show you that you’re making progress even though you’re hitting .200,” Boddy said. “And that’s something for the kid to hold onto for their sanity.”
It also works the other way, Boddy added. A coach can show a hitter batting .390 that he might be getting lucky and he still needs to continue to work hard.
“We need to stay focused on these things because if we focus on the process, the outcomes are going to be great,” Boddy said. “That’s not a nerd thing. Bill Belichick has said that. Nick Saban has said that. Bear Bryant. They’re just like, ‘All we can do is focus on our process now.’ All we’re doing is adding more context to it, putting numbers on it.”
Boddy said most kids are in tune with a leaderboard, numbers and analytics in some way because of the popularity of video games and Twitch, an interactive live streaming service.
“When they see that applied to their sport, they see HitTrax, they see Blast Motion, they see biomechanics, they’re like, ‘I get that. That makes sense,’” Boddy said.
Critics say a focus on advanced stats makes hitters feel penalized for flicking a single to the opposite field with a runner at third base and fewer than two outs because their batted ball quality numbers suffer.
“Baseball people will look at that and say, ‘That’s a great job of hitting right there,’” an AL scout said. “But on the data, that’s a below-average exit velocity and likely a less-than-ideal launch angle and not pulled. … So they’re dinged for that.”
The scout said a player is being valued heavily now by his own team and throughout the industry by batted ball quality numbers.
“That’s frustrating for people who have been around the game and you’re looking at it from sort of a competition standpoint and trying to help your team win,” the scout said.
Boddy cautioned against too much focus on the numbers during a game.
“When the old-school people get pissed off, is when these numbers dominate the discourse rather than what happens on the field. And I agree with that,” Boddy said. “Between the lines, we should not talk about any of that stuff. Outside the lines is where it matters.”
“It’s a power-on-power game’
On offense, the Red Sox have put a heavy emphasis on three things Driveline Baseball focuses on: bat speed, swing decisions and batted ball quality. The Sox added swing characteristics for a core four.
The Red Sox have worked with minor leaguers on their swings to hit the ball in the air more frequently. Kristian Campbell is an example. He had an incredible contact rate at Georgia Tech but he fell to the fourth round of the 2023 draft because of concerns about his impact. Boston made adjustments to allow him to hit for more power, knowing the adjustments also would lead to an increased strikeout percentage.
“Nothing’s free,” Boddy said. “You’ve got to give something to get something.”
The Red Sox have struck out 2,989 times over the past two seasons, fourth most in Major League Baseball. Boston decreased its strikeout percentage during the final two months of the 2025 season, including in situational spots. The Sox had an 18.7% strikeout percentage with a runner at third base and fewer than two outs during the final two months, down from 21.3% in the first four months.
But Breslow said he wants to get even better at putting the ball in play in those situations.
“If people are concerned about hitters swinging and missing and that being a problem, which it is, then it stands to reason that they should understand that creating swing and miss is very important on the pitching side,” Boddy said.
Boston added pitchers with significant velocity to its bullpen in 2025 to create more swings and misses. The Sox’ average relief pitcher fastball velocity, including both two-seamers and four-seamers, ranked tied for third best (95.4 mph) among MLB teams, an increase from Boston’s 94.2 mph average in 2024.
Fastball velocity matters. Fastballs in MLB thrown 98 mph or harder in 2025 induced a 29.8% strikeout percentage while fastballs thrown 97 mph or below produced a much lower 17.2% strikeout percentage.
“It’s a power-on-power game these days and maybe I actually agree with talk radio hosts that I don’t think that leads to a very entertaining product, in my opinion,” Boddy said.
Research shows fans want to see balls in play and more players involved, Boddy pointed out.
“From an entertainment product perspective, we do need to do a better job,” Boddy said. “But that’s not the club’s job. That’s the league’s job. The club’s job is to win. And so we’re going to make decisions that we feel lead to the most winning.”
Boddy noted that there’s a lot of experimenting with rule changes in the minor leagues. Those have already led to some rule changes in the majors, which have led to an increase in stolen bases to make the product more entertaining. He pointed to the pitch clock as another way the league has helped the product. MLB also has restricted certain defensive shifts that have turned some balls hit with a high expected batting average into routine outs.
“Baseball has the longest tradition of any of the sports, so it can be hard to make rule changes,” he said, adding the NFL did a nice job with rule changes to increase scoring for more entertainment.
Boddy called basketball “probably more analytical than baseball in so many ways.” The NBA’s increased heavy reliance on the 3-point shot is something that many have argued has made their sport less entertaining.
‘There needs to be a balance’
Boddy said it makes sense for Breslow and other former players-turned-GMs like Chris Young (Rangers), Jerry Dipoto (Mariners) and Buster Posey (Giants) to lead baseball operations departments.
“There needs to be a balance, and I think we’re getting it,” Boddy said. “You see it in the choices that the owners choose to run the teams is that they have really smart people that also played in the big leagues.”
He thinks there are several great major league coaches who haven’t played pro ball or played minimal pro ball. But he feels he’d never be able to connect with major leaguers as well as ex-major leaguers. He said former big leaguers “have that instant connection” and it’s something they “deserve.” He feels what’s most important for those in uniform is “connecting on every axis possible.”
“Some people think that if you never played in the big leagues, it doesn’t matter — that you can eventually be on the same level,” Boddy said. “I don’t agree. I don’t think I can do (Red Sox pitching coach) Andrew Bailey’s job … I just don’t personally feel comfortable. I would never want to be the big league pitching coach.”
For now, Boddy will continue to carve out his spot in baseball using data to help improve performance.
“I think probably one of the biggest pieces that sticks out is just how clearly he can see where things are going,” Besky said.
Besky said Boddy has had a clear vision of where the game is heading in terms of biomechanics being impactful and leveraging data as more technology becomes available.
“Then I think he has a really good feel for understanding where that fits in as well and being able to kind of combine that,” Besky added. “I think a critical piece of leveraging the data is understanding what it measures and what it doesn’t.”
While Boddy understands a balance, he also understands winning is the priority and whatever leads to wins is most important, especially for those working for teams.
“Nerds have taken over baseball,” Boddy said. “But nerds have taken over all the sports.”