During the 2023 Major League Baseball draft held in Seattle Sunday, the Pittsburgh Pirates selected Paul Skenes with the first overall pick.
The 21-year-old right-hander, who is 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 247 pounds, just completed his junior season at Louisiana State University whose baseball team finished the season with a national championship at the College World Series in Omaha, NE, earlier this year.
Skenes led the Tigers’ rotation all year and into the postseason, amassing a 13-2 win-loss record, 1.69 earned run average and 335 strikeouts through 235 innings pitched.
However, before Skenes first took the mound in Baton Rouge — or the U.S. Air Force Academy where he began his collegiate career — the California native worked at 108 Performance, a baseball and research training center, starting in 2017.
“With Paul, I saw sometime during the first or second year that he was just different,” said Eugene Bleecker, a Williston Park and Roslyn Heights native and owner of 108 Performance, now in Knoxville, TN. “He just did everything he was supposed to do to get the best of his ability.”
Skenes was joined by Tommy Troy, a 21-year-old shortstop from Stanford University who also trained with Bleecker. Troy was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks with the 12th overall pick.
Bleecker fell in love with baseball at a young age playing at all levels on Long Island through college, starting in the Williston Park Little League. A Wheatley School graduate, Bleecker spent a decade at the New York Institute of Technology’s baseball academy on top of multiple travel teams before playing in college.
“I had a very good background growing up here in baseball,” Bleecker, who moved to Roslyn Heights when he was a teenager, said. “I learned to love it at New York Tech.”
Bleecker got his start in coaching when he was splitting his time between training players in California and pursuing a professional contract as a free agent after college.
It’s an endeavor that has crossed Bleecker’s path with Major league players, teams and opening his third facility, two previous ones in California and his current one in Knoxville. Bleecker also hosts a yearly event in the winter called “Bridge the Gap” that includes workouts in front of Major-League coaching and a forum among baseball minds to discuss the latest advancements in the game.
“The game told me where I was going to end up and I’m very thankful,” Bleecker said.
America’s pastime was born on the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ, on Oct. 6, 1845. Almost exactly 177 years later Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run of the season in Toronto, breaking Roger Maris’ single-season American League home run record.
Between then and now, the game has been played through every level with many schools of thought, including a more modern emphasis on analytics. Bleecker, who sports an old-school handlebar mustache that would give Rollie Fingers -– he last pitched 38 years ago -– a run for his money, said he believes the right approach to coaching and player development comes from an appropriate balance between old and new and teaching with a purpose.
“As coaches use data and technology to use collect information, their eyes should also be a part of it,” Bleecker said. “You can’t just blindly trust what the data says.”
Training can look like breaking down film or properly learning how to transfer force in pitching mechanics using water-based products that help emulate a whip-like motion, Bleecker said.
When asked if there are any stars he tells his players to emulate, Bleecker said development is not about looking strictly at the end result but understanding the process it took to get there and solidifying a strong foundation with those tools.
“The reality is all the best players have certain movements and certain things that their body does which is what we focus on the most,” Bleecker said. “If what you’re teaching doesn’t allow a Hall of Famer to be himself, then what you’re teaching needs to change.”
During much of the summer, Bleecker often travels throughout the country to help prepare his players before circuit showcases and conventions. Next week Bleecker will be in San Diego for the Area Code games, which includes over 200 high schoolers looking to get drafted in 2024 and 2025.
It’s a busy schedule, but one Bleecker feels is worth it as more players he’s trained with since middle school look to join both Skenes, Troy and others who have gone through 108 Performance to the professional level.
“It’s about making the adjustments we need to help these guys rise in their class,” Bleecker said. “It’s definitely a lot of travel, but I also feel very blessed to be able to do it.”
More information on 108 Performance can be found on their website.
