COMSTOCK PARK — Hours before a game, Luke Gold jogged to second base for some infield work, and Alan Trammell took a position where he could stand close and watch him intently — and that tells me everything.
Practicing plays at the plate, Gold took a grounder and threw home to the catcher.
“There you go!” Trammell said.
Trammell was giving Gold some pointers — a Hall of Famer working intently with the Detroit Tigers’ 18th ranked prospect (according to MLB Pipeline).
Trammell told Gold what he wanted with words, but he also taught by example, fielding imaginary grounders, showing Gold the right footwork, the right body movements.
And then Gold tried to mimic him.
“Feet! Feet!” Trammell instructed.
Trammell, I’m certain, would work with anybody who came in front of him — he is incredibly committed to sharing his knowledge, working tirelessly behind the scenes. But that Trammell was working specifically with Gold, just a few days after Gold was moved up to High-A West Michigan in late July, reveals what the organization believes about Gold.
He has true potential.
“Having Trammell here my first week in West Michigan is really like a dream come true,” Gold told me in late July.
Gold is the first to admit he is not the greatest athlete and doesn’t have the quickest feet — not even in his own family — and certainly he has room to improve his defense.
But he can do the one thing this organization needs more than anything: He can hit.
In his first nine games in West Michigan, Gold hit .300 with an .883 OPS, driving in five runs.
Last week, he was sizzling hot in a three-game stretch from Wednesday-Friday, going 6-for-10 with a homer and double, striking out just once.
Yes, he can hit.
Crazy story about that.
His hitting ability was created in a laboratory.
In a basement.
The ‘Hit Lab’
“We called it the ‘Hit Lab’ down there,” Eric Gold, Luke’s father, told me in a phone conversation. “We had these drill stations set up to reinforce how we wanted to move, to align the bat and body. Not like a cage or anything, but just drill stations. Hitting into a wall. Hitting into a net. Using bands and pads and different constraints to feel the body swinging the bat versus the hands or the arms.”
Luke comes from an extremely athletic family.
Eric played baseball at Tusculum College in Tennessee. Luke’s mother, Julie, played basketball at Maria College in New York. His sister, Ana, is a softball player at Duke, and his brother, Joey, is a pitcher at Boston College.
Eric, a physician assistant, took a scientific approach to teach his children how to hit.
And he based it on the philosophy of Steve Englishbey, who describes himself as “a performance and analytics hitting instructor” on his website.
“It’s a very cerebral, deliberative approach to learning how to efficiently swing a baseball bat,” Eric said. “(Englishbey) is a very unique individual; he’s a big believer in deliberative practice, trying to master the lead arm, and then the back arm and how to rotate properly, getting great rotational acceleration that transfers into the bat and everything that goes into that.”
Englishbey stresses a “mechanically efficient way to swing the bat,” focusing on optimal swing quickness, efficient swing path, and maximum bat speed.
Luke, who like his father, takes a cerebral, scientific approach to things, saw tremendous results at Boston College. As a junior, he hit .308 while slugging .557, tied for the team-high with 62 hits, added nine home runs, 38 runs scored and 37 RBIs.
And while his athletic traits may not jump off the page, he has an elite approach and mentality.
“Luke is a very even-keeled individual,” Eric said of his son. “He never gets too high, he never gets too low, he’s never going to bat flip. He’s never going to punch the cooler in the dugout. When you’re playing every day, I think that is an asset. To be very even keel, a hard worker.”
Luke has a humble nature. He is the first to admit he’s not the best athlete, or even the best player, in the family. His sister, Ana, is a certifiable star at Duke — she hit 19 homers this year, setting the school’s single-season record. She was named one of the top 100 players in the country by D1Softball (ranked No. 51).
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“She’s a pure five-tool player,” Luke said, breaking into a smile and pure admiration for his sister.
And while Eric credits Englishbey, Luke credits his father for his swing.
“He’s taught me everything I know,” Luke said. “I talked to him on the way here. To this day, he is still my hitting coach. He knows my swing better than I do.”
If ya hit, you won’t sit
Gold, 22, was taken in the fifth round of the 2022 draft. He agreed to a $386,900 bonus — right at slot value.
After the draft, he went to Lakeland and had a slow start, hitting .200 in 22 games, going from rookie ball to the Florida State League.
“It was really just a time of adjustments,” he said. “Kind of figuring out what works best for me, figuring the routine that I want to have in terms of how many swings I want to take, when and how much I want to work out. So I was really thankful for that abbreviated, 20-something game schedule I got to play last year to kind of get my feet under me, going into my first offseason as a pro player.”
He again started this season slowly in Lakeland, hitting .188 in April and .208 in May.
But in June?
The Tigers got to see his true potential, as he hit .354, including seven doubles with a 1.025 OPS.
What was the difference?
Nothing but confidence.
“I had a little talk with myself, took some pressure off, eased some of the tension and it allowed me to just play free and not worry about those all those external factors that might have been holding me down,” he said. “I knew I could do this and I took a step back and realized that I’m here for a reason. The Tigers picked me for a reason. The Tigers believe in me, they want me to succeed.”
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In July, he returned to Earth, hitting .270 but he had done enough to earn the promotion to West Michigan.
“I think I just started to believe in myself a little bit more,” he said. “Just trying to be aggressive in counts and trying to take my best swing and just not really worrying about things that I can’t control.”
At Lakeland, he split time between second and third, continuing the organizational philosophy of developing versatility.
And that has continued at West Michigan.
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Positional flexibility is important because the Tigers just picked up another infield prospect, getting 20-year-old Hao-Yu Lee from the Phillies in the Michael Lorenzen deal. Lee is now the Tigers’ No. 6 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, and he started at second base on Saturday in West Michigan (while picking up a hit), and Gold had the day off.
I’d expect Gold and Lee to move around the infield, playing different positions — and if they hit, they’ll move up through the system.
But there’s something more.
Gold is 6 feet tall but has massive shoulders and weighs 220 pounds.
One could envision him becoming more of a power threat in the future, as he gets older and learns how to do damage with the right pitches.
If the Tigers can unlock that? If they can keep developing him at different positions, keep him hitting?
It’ll be nothing but pure Gold.
Contact Jeff Seidel at jseidel@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @seideljeff.