The Springfield Cardinals are one of the top offensive teams in the Texas League and a coach with local ties is helping the Baby Birds take flight with the bats.
Brock Hammit is a 2013 graduate of Nixa High School in his first season as a hitting coach in the Cardinals' organization after getting his professional coaching start with the Milwaukee Brewers. Working close to home is a dream job for the 29-year-old.
“It’s been awesome,” Hammit said before a recent game at Hammons Field. “To be able to do this in my hometown, to be a hitting coach here … it’s truly like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Lifelong ‘baseball geek' took a brief detour
After graduating from Nixa High School, Hammit played junior college baseball before stints with NCAA Division I schools High Point University in North Carolina and Southern Illinois-Edwardsville. A lifelong baseball geek, Hammit took a detour with a real estate job for a short time after college.
But coaching was a goal. It was something that he began unofficially dabbling in much earlier when he gave batting tips to his younger brother and their teammates in his spare time.
“We would always go to the cage together, work out and try out what I was learning at the time from my coaches or online,” Hammit said. “We would try out crazy stuff. So he was my first guinea pig and first intro to coaching.
“I was working in the real estate space my first year out of college here in town. As soon as I was done with that, I would go to our local facility where the Midwest Nationals train. I would donate my time with kids I knew and work with them. So that was kind of my first real experience coaching.”
Hammit always wanted to try new things, while integrating data and technology. That seemed a natural fit as a metric-driven approach became more and more popular in many professional baseball organizations.
“I first thought it would be a possibility in 2018, when there seemed to be an interest with people with a background in technology and statistics, to join the coaching force,” he said. “That’s when I thought a career as a coach might be possible.”
Sharing his thoughts online led to job opportunity
During a coaching conference that he attended that year, one of the speakers was Jeff Albert, then a rising hitting coach in the Cardinals’ organization. Hammit noted that Albert and other coaches encouraged aspiring coaches to publish their thoughts on internet forums and social media platforms.
Hammit also used the forum Medium to write about hitting in a long-form way, calling it “almost like a workshop for different debates and conversations on hitting.”
“After that conference, I had the confidence to publish some of the things I was doing here locally with hitters and break down what I thought about how we could use technology and look at hitters based on certain metrics or statistics,” Hammit said. “I had written a few blogs about that and it was passed around by some people in the Brewers organization. So they invited me to interview with them and fortunately, I got an opportunity.”
He spent three seasons in the Brewers organization, as a coach for the Arizona Complex League Brewers (Rookie League) from 2020-22.
Getting his shot with the Cardinals
Last offseason, Cardinals minor-league hitting coordinator Russ Steinhorn reached out to Hammit when the organization had an opening.
“He mentioned that they had a position open and that I could potentially be a good fit,” Hammit said. “I applied and went through the whole interview process and got to know him and (director of player development) Gary LaRocque and some other guys. We had some good conversations and I was fortunate to be offered the job here.”
The fact that Hammit went to high school a handful of miles away from Hammons Field is a nice side benefit. Most important, the fit seems to be working for both parties. Entering Tuesday night’s series opener at Tulsa, the Cardinals were second in the Texas League in batting average (.257) and on-base average (.355), fourth in home runs (101) and slugging percentage (.415), and third in walks (396).
Individually, Chandler Redmond’s 24 home runs lead the Texas League and he’s second with 71 RBIs. Three other Cardinals have at least 11 home runs — Jacob Buchberger (13), Padro Pages (12) and Mike Antico (11).
Hammit's age helps him connect with hitters
Buchberger, 23, said the players enjoy working with Hammit and noted that the narrow age difference helps with the connection.
“He’s been a lot of fun,” Buchberger said. “He has a lot of knowledge about the game. He gets along really well with all of us. He is maybe just a little older than we are. In that aspect, I don’t really see him as a coach but as a fellow teammate in regards to what he knows and how he helps us. It’s been really fun.”
One of the most successful pupils was Nick Dunn, who in his third season at Springfield finally was promoted to Triple-A Memphis. After hitting .259 and .271 with a combined 13 home runs in 2021-22, Dunn hit .332 with seven home runs, 40 RBIs and a team-best .420 on-base percentage in half a season in Springfield.
“Nick was awesome to work with and a really talented hitter,” Hammit said. “He has fantastic bat-to-ball skills. A good approach. He takes his walks. I think his walk-to-strikeout rate is the best of all the minor leaguers by quite a bit. I’m just happy to be a part of his journey to what is hopefully a successful big-league career.”
Learning what to say and when to say it
The use of technology and data to aid professional hitters is something that Hammit said can be tricky. The amount of information available these days is almost limitless. It would be easy to overwhelm a young player and part of a coach’s job is to sort out what’s most useful.
“The biggest thing in my job as a coach is to take in all that information and discern what small nugget is applicable for each guy,” Hammit said. “Maybe more importantly is the timing of when to share that information. Maybe that’s an off day, or maybe it’s right before an at-bat when a guy comes in from the ’pen.
“I would say it’s more important to know all the times not to say stuff. It’s way more important than constantly blurting out different stats or information. I try to be reserved with what I give and the timing of it.”
Cardinals home most of August
The Cardinals return to Hammons Field to open a six-game series against Northwest Arkansas at 6:35 p.m. next Tuesday, Aug. 1. Springfield has 18 of its first 24 August games at home, with series against San Antonio (Aug. 8-13) and Corpus Christi (Aug. 22-27).
For ticket info, visit the Hammons Field box office or the team’s website.
