How Doyle's dramatic turnaround took shape

This story was excerpted from Thomas Harding’s Rockies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Rockies center fielder Brenton Doyle is best described as toolsy -- with size, speed, power and average potential. This season, Doyle is showing off an underrated but necessary attribute: coachability.

Doyle batted .203 in 126 Major League games last season. He won a Gold Glove Award, but needed to be better to ensure that his glove stays in the lineup.

The improvement this year has been dramatic -- Doyle has a .323/.368/.505 slash line through Sunday’s 8-2 loss to the Astros in Mexico City. After batting ninth most of last year and at the start of this year, he has produced enough to move to the No. 2 spot in manager Bud Black’s transitioning order.

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Even while struggling last season, Doyle was using his ears as much as his hands and feet.

“You made it to the big leagues for a reason, but sometimes it doesn’t work out right at the beginning,” said Doyle, who has three home runs, leads the team with 18 runs scored and has four stolen bases -- a figure he hopes to increase. “You need to make some adjustments to better yourself. You’ve got to be coachable; listen to your coaches. That’s what I did, and it worked out.”

Coachability is preached from the moment a child’s head is dwarfed by his batting helmet. But with growth and accomplishment can come stubbornness. Some of it is necessary to guard against a player being coached out of what works, but they have to recognize when the game tells them change is needed.

Before debuting in the Majors last April 24, Doyle batted .306 with five home runs in 12 games for Triple-A Albuquerque. But mechanics that caused him to lower his hands during his start-up lengthened his swing. High strikeouts (151 in 399 MLB at-bats) were a result.

“I don’t think he knew it until he got here and realized the difference in the pitching, and where his swing was in relation to the quality of Major League pitching,” Black said. “Kudos to him that he realized that and, in conjunction with the hitting coaches, went to work. He was determined to make changes.”

The method of Doyle’s fix was starting practice swings with a fitness ball trapped between his hands and right shoulder, with the moment at which the ball dropped being the determining factor in whether his start-up was correct. But it’s good to appreciate how much time this took.

For much of the year, Doyle and the Rockies’ hitting coaches were working at it. Doyle, himself, knew he needed adjustments, but trying to do it while facing Major League pitching was going to take time. It wasn’t until September that results started showing in games.

A true test came during the Rockies’ first homestand this season, when for a few at-bats the old, long swing reappeared. But it’s hard to tell exactly when by looking at his game log, since corrections were immediate and performance has been steady. His April 13 home run at Toronto, into the second deck at Rogers Center, came right after he made swing corrections.

“He started rotating a little too quickly with the shoulders, but he nipped that in the bud right away,” Rockies hitting coach Hensley Meulens said. “The lab stuff, the Reboot system that we use for kinematics, what we were seeing was true. But he corrected it.”

Doyle’s willingness to adjust comes from his confidence that he had the athletic ability to change. Hitting well enough to move to No. 2 in the current lineup has increased his belief.

Doyle went 2-for-8 with a walk and two runs scored against the Astros. The new lineup could be a signal of a transition. Charlie Blackmon and Ezequiel Tovar batted leadoff for much of the first month. However, the last three games have seen the Tovar-Doyle combo at 1 and 2, with the struggling Blackmon (.226) sitting twice and batting fifth once.

“I know the lineup can benefit from me being there and I know I can get on base, use my speed and get a lot of RBIs for guys,” Doyle said. “It’s a confidence boost to go from No. 9 to No. 2 the last couple of days. I love hitting behind Ezequiel Tovar and watching his at-bats on deck, and I have a lot of protection behind me with Ryan McMahon.”