From D-III to major leagues: Correa’s unusually quick journey to Giants bench
Six years after Kai Correa made the leap from Division III Puget Sound for an assistant coaching role with Division I Northern Colorado, the Hawaii native is making another jump that would make the distance from Oahu to Oracle Park look tiny.
Correa, 31, left a position as a low-level infield instructor with the Cleveland Indians to become the youngest bench coach in the majors with the San Francisco Giants.
Correa ascended to his position on manager Gabe Kapler’s first Giants staff by developing a reputation as a well-regarded infield instructor for his clear, innovative coaching methods, fantastic organizational skills and natural relationship-building abilities. His rapid rise through the coaching ranks is due in large part to how he delivers his coaching points, but not everyone in Correa’s life would agree his work has been easy to comprehend.
“I’d always have dirt on the binder paper when I would turn in my homework assignments because I would be doing them in the dugout,” Correa said of his childhood years.
Correa’s teachers might have docked him the occasional point or two, but when it came to learning the family business, he was a natural. The grandson of legendary Hawaii high school coach Jimmy Correa and the son of another one of the state’s most influential coaches, Tom Correa, Kai’s earliest memories are guided by baseball, on and off the diamond.
“When I grew up, I understood the social wealth that comes from being a coach,” Correa said. “I’d go to the grocery stores and run errands with my grandfather and people we’d see still referred to him as “Coach.”
No Dodgers player was able to reach base against Yankees pitcher Don Larsen when he threw the only perfect game in World Series history in 1956, but in a barnstorming game played against Hawaiian All-Stars that offseason, Jimmy Correa did record a hit against Larsen.
Jimmy, who died at the age of 96 in 2016, regaled his children and grandchildren with stories of catching in exhibition games against Yogi Berra, playing for manager Bill Veeck while serving in the military and catching major league pitchers who also served.
Jimmy’s son Tom went into coaching and from 1996-2006, aided MLB franchises who didn’t have scouts in Hawaii by serving as a “birddog,” by passing along information about the state’s top prospects.
“Every year, there were professional scouts coming to the house for dinner, hanging out, going to see guys with my dad,” Kai said. “I would listen to them talk the game and hear their observations on players.”
Correa’s talents allowed him to play beyond high school, but he jokes his mistakes in the infield contributed to the low fielding percentages posted by his teams at Division III Puget Sound. If not for the errors he made in college, it’s possible the defensive turnaround Correa orchestrated as a coach with the Loggers would have gone unnoticed.
Shortly after his playing career ended in 2011, Correa accepted a role on Puget Sound’s staff for the 2012 season where he transformed one of Division III’s worst defenses into one of its best over a three-year period. Other coaches took notice and began inviting Correa to speak at clinics, where he impressed his peers with eloquent explanations of his approach to modern infield instruction.
He eventually landed at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, where a rough infield surface and unpredictable weather patterns made for a unique challenge. Once again, Correa oversaw a quick resurgence.
“It can be snowing on Friday and it can be sunny on Sunday,” Correa said. “And historically again, not a great defensive team. We were able to flip that just like at Puget Sound. The head coach was forwardthinking enough to allow me to be somewhat experimental and it changed the way we practiced.”
As Correa and Northern Colorado’s staff took to social media to raise awareness for fielding camps that would help cover the baseball program’s expenses, the industry paid close attention.
“Way back with the Dodgers organization, I had begun following Kai through his social media profiles and learning about his ability to express himself and get to his content,” Kapler said. “I think one of the things about coaching that’s very difficult is after you have good content, you have to be able to market it and deliver it in digestible pieces.”
Correa’s “Friday Fielders” camps, his easy-to-apply videos and his enlightening discussions at coaching conventions left such an impression on major league player development coordinators that he soon had teams vying for his services.
“As I’m reading through his résumé, watching what he’s done online with Friday Fielders, the videos and the things that I could actually see, you could see somebody that had a skillset that was going to blow past being an AZL bench coach working with infielders,” John McDonald said.
McDonald, a 16-year MLB veteran and the defensive coordinator in the Cleveland Indians minor league system, worked closely with Correa after the former college assistant joined the Indians as a minor league instructor in November, 2017.
Correa never spent a day playing professional baseball, but McDonald noted that he and five-time AllStar Travis Fryman, a special assistant in the Indians organization, were in awe of the way Correa found common ground with Cleveland’s prospects.
“He started picking up Spanish, he started communicating with players much quicker than I have,” McDonald said. “I thought his relatability to every single high school, college, doesn’t matter what background, it was about the work, getting better and connecting with the player.”
During his time with the Indians, Correa coordinated practices and drills for up to 200 players and 50 coaches at a time at the team’s spring complex and in McDonald’s eyes, he made every aspect of training more efficient. His work continued to make an impression on Kapler, who interviewed him for an infield coaching job with the Phillies major league staff last January.
Correa was a finalist for a job that ultimately went to a more experienced coach in Bobby Dickerson, but when Kapler was fired in Philadelphia and hired in San Francisco, Correa was one of the first people he targeted to join the new staff.
“Not only has he held down great leadership roles in the Indians organization coordinating and having one-on-one instruction opportunities with infielders, but he’s done it for a long time over many different levels,” Kapler said.
Correa said he shares many of the same beliefs as Kapler when it comes to player development, game management and leadership, making it easier for him to leave a role he enjoyed with the Indians. He wasn’t initially certain what type of job he would pursue, but the Giants steered Correa toward the bench coach position.
“I had people say, ‘Bench coach, how the heck is he going to do a bench coach job?’” McDonald said. “Well, Kai, that’s his sweet spot. You give him a whole bunch of stuff, then you throw some more on his plate. He’s going to figure it out.”
Correa believes he’s ready for the challenge, but insists it’s only because of the mentors who have prepared him for this type of an opportunity. Outside of his father and grandfather, Correa’s philosophies have been shaped by the likes of twotime World Series champion Terry Francona and former Giants bench coach Hensley Meulens, who he has coached alongside in international clinics.
“Those are really important factors in my ability to combine old and new and learn from previous experiences and listen, those are the reasons I have this job today,” Correa said. “Those people mean so much to me, especially Bam Bam (Meulens).”
As the Giants usher in a new, more analyticallydriven era, it’s somewhat ironic Correa has emerged as Kapler’s right-hand man. The industry as a whole views fielding percentage as an inefficient measure of true defensive success, but it was improved fielding percentages at a pair of colleges that helped jumpstart a career that’s led him to the Giants bench.
“As inappropriate as it may be, a lot of infield coaches are judged by (fielding percentage),” Correa said.
Correa was one of them, but as a modern major league coach, he’s eager to allow new metrics and data to help guide his teaching methods. The information the Giants provide him with, however, won’t drastically alter Correa’s techniques, because for the last decade, he’s practiced a style that builds on what the best fielders have demonstrated through history.
“My style is forwardthinking in regard to how it’s scheduled and the action of what’s going on on the field, but when you break down the individual activities and the acts and the cues and the movement solutions, they’re things that infielders have been doing from the beginning of professional baseball,” Correa said.