Sometimes, people are born into their professions. This year’s Palm Beach Snowbirds Head Coach, Alex Jones, was born on the baseball diamond and raised in a clubhouse.
Alex Jones, son of All-Star relief pitcher Todd Jones, played baseball for his whole life. He played his collegiate baseball at University of Montevallo – just south of Birmingham, Alabama – for three seasons before moving to Florida Southern College for his final year. Now, Jones is ready for a new challenge; managing his own team in the CLPB.
This will be the 25-year-old’s first full head coaching position. Jones is currently an assistant coach at Florida Southern, a decision that seemed to be a natural one for him after finishing his playing days.
“The more I sat around watching a few games, talking with my dad,” Jones told me. “I was like ‘man, I really want to coach’. I jumped right into it.”
Luckily for Jones, he in a position where he could have confidence coaching. When he decided to commit to coaching in 2018, his father Todd was a roaming pitching coach for the Detroit Tigers. Jones was already familiar with Florida Southern Head Coach Lance Nierko, and proceeded to pick his mind from the moment he was welcomed back. The best piece of coaching advice Jones has received so far has come from Kansas City Royals bench coach, Vince Wilson.
“[Wilson] told me to tell me what my hitting philosophy was. I start laying it out, and, usually expect somebody to say ‘you know, alright, that’s okay’”, Jones said. “Well, he immediately goes, ‘no, no, no, you can’t do that… You have to open yourself, you cannot limit yourself as a head coach’. And we didn’t even get 10 minutes into our first phone call because he was just hammering me.”
Despite the hard knocks he took in that call, Jones has been appreciative of everyone he’s had the chance to talk to. Jones even said he has a lot of respect for Wilson because of that call. So far, Jones has spent two seasons working as an assistant coach at Florida Southern. He has been – as he likes to call himself – a “player-to-coach” assistant coach.
Jones enjoys the camaraderie that comes with the role, a big factor in his early success coaching. Being in the game of baseball for so long taught him the appreciation of players trying to make it big, even at smaller schools like Montevallo and Florida Southern. Seeing the developmental side of baseball, whether it came from his father’s eyes or his own has let the former infielder enjoy the game as a head coach.
“When I got a phone call [from the Collegiate League of the Palm Beaches] and they were talking about development, they want their players to develop… I was like ‘man, finally!’” Jones exclaimed. “I valued that, this is about the players. It’s almost shocking that has to be said… the way this league has been presented and what I’ve heard from it, everything I’ve read about it, we’re here to work.”
Jones joins the CLPB as a rookie head coach, and at a great age to do so. At just 25, Jones is roughly three years older than his roster’s average age. He is excited for the opportunity on a personal level as well. Personally, coaching helps Jones to learn about himself, what he does right, and what he does wrong. The age has presented both positives and negatives that Jones has already experienced coaching.
“The good thing about [being 25] is that I haven’t forgotten how hard and dark baseball is. Oftentimes that’s forgotten, that it can be lonely. If coaches understand that, it makes it easier on the player,” Jones said. “The bad side of it is me being young… I’ll lose the line. I had this one situation, I told one of my players, “let’s play video games”, and we’re running video games and I realize it’s 2:00 A.M. It’s 2:00 A.M. and I’m playing Fortnite with my closer.”
Video games aside, Jones has learned the responsibility of being a coach and is excited to work this summer. Above all else, Jones mentioned numerous times how excited he was to manage a pitching staff this summer, his first true opportunity at the professional level to do such.
This summer is a big opportunity for Jones to assess and improve where he is as a coach as he looks to move closer and closer to being a full-time head coach. It’s an opportunity that Jones has looking forward to for months, and no two-week delay of the season is going to curb his enthusiasm.