In the seventh inning of their season opener at Cibola High School in Yuma last month, Trace McDonald got his pitch.
He was hunting an elevated fastball all afternoon, waiting and waiting for it, and the opposing pitcher finally obliged.
The junior Highland Hawks infielder fired off his A swing, a collision and metal ping resulted with the ball redirected on a perfect arc.
He floated around first base as the ball disappeared behind the left-field, chain-link wall, which was covered in a green windscreen. Perhaps the ball even bounded onto 18th Ave., beyond the field.
“I was trying not to smile,” McDonald said. “We were winning so I did not want to be too showy. … I knew I got it, so that’s like the best feeling in the world, right?”
McDonald, 17, had never felt that before. Well, at least not as a varsity player.
As a sophomore last season, he did not homer in limited playing time for Highland (Gilbert, Ariz). He played in 15 games for the varsity team and hit .185.
This spring? He’s already slugged three homers through the first nine games of the season, batting .519 through his first 27 at bats.
While many young players struggle to adjust to a higher level of play, like a first exposure to a varsity team, McDonald is also a different player this spring.
He’s beginning to enjoy accelerating growth, a byproduct of his hard work and embrace of modern tech and data — along with a little help from the tools and staff at Driveline. One of the youngest to ever walk in the gym doors, McDonald is beginning to enjoy the compounding effects of data- and process-driven paths to improvement.
His story is just in its early chapters, but his is also an instructive journey to this point – to arrive at this place where he was rounding third base trying to suppress an ear-to-ear smile in Yuma.
The journey started when the world shut down.
McDonald’s father, Brett, had always wanted to help his son become better at baseball. For instance, when the world stalled during peak COVID, they regularly hopped the fence for reps at Cox Sports Park ballpark field in Ladera Ranch, Calif. near their suburban Los Angeles home.
As the co-founder of a basketball analytics company, Vantage, Brett appreciated data-based processes. In exploring ways to help his son become a better ballplayer, he stumbled across Driveline Baseball during some online sleuthing.
They watched a number of the Driveline videos on YouTube to learn training drills and concepts. He improved.
They bought speed trainers to try and coax out some more bat speed.
But Trace wanted more.
Encouraged by the results, Trace asked for a visit to Driveline for his 14th birthday present. They had family in Seattle and they reasoned he could spend a month training there. The problem? When the family was available to travel to Seattle in the summer, Trace was still going to be a few months shy of his 14th birthday in the spring of 2022. Athletes had to be 14 to train at the Seattle facility.
With a little creativity surrounding his birth date – not a first in baseball history – Trace got in the door.
“My dad moved up my birthday,” Trace said with a laugh.
As with most athletes, Trace first had a biomechanical assessment. He had the markers attached to his shirtless body and took some hacks in the lab.