Greg Brown is a Co-Founder of the Florida Baseball Ranch and has 20+ years of experience in professional and college baseball combined. He has served as a MLB Hitting Coach, Special Assistant to the GM & President, Hitting Coordinator, Scout, and National Championship College Head Coach.  Along with his partner Eddy Rodriguez, “Brownie” developed the DuraHit+ Training System. He has since stepped away from professional baseball to focus on impacting young ballplayers lives through the game and beyond.  For more detailed breakdown of Greg Brown’s career, see below.

Greg Brown was hired as the MLB Hitting Coach of the Chicago Cubs in November 2021 after a two-years serving as the Minor League Hitting Coordinator with the Tampa Bay Rays.  He spent one year in the role for the 2022 season overseeing the entirety of the MLB oversee the development of the Major League roster and infrastructure in coordination with the Director of Hitting, which included the following:

• Gameplanning for Offensive Strategy

• Collaboration for Individual Gameplans for each player

• Advance Scouting Reports

• Development of Overall Hitting Philosophy

After one year in the big leagues, Brown took on the role of Special Assistant to the General Manager and President of Operations for the Cubs. Over the course of those two years he served in multiple capacities including:

• Serving as a Special Assignment Scout evaluating the top amateurs in the country and serving as advisor to the Amateur Scouting Director in the 2023 draft.

• Consulted the Director of Hitting and Director of Player Development in processes and of minor league position players

• Created and implemented Gampelanning strategy and benchmarks for coaches and players from the Dominican Summer League (DSL) through AAA

• Served as Hitting Coordinator for AAA and AA overseeing Coaches, Players, and implementation and execution of Player Plans

During the course of his time with the Rays, Brownie helped take their minor league system from 22nd in overall hitting performance to 3rd along with the development staff and analysts.  He helped oversee the development of the following implementing the infrastructure of hitting development that includes philosophy, approach, technology, development plans, and research.  In 2021, the organization has unprecedented success as their minor league organization won championships at 4 levels (AAA, A+, A-, R) and lost in the winner take all championship game in AA.  The offense exploded in 2021 with the organization going from 20th in Damage to 2nd in all of minor league baseball while scoring the most runs in all of the minor leagues.  In his first year in 2020, Brown was charged with leading helping lead the newly formed hitting department through a challenging pandemic year through staff development and player development in remote learning.  In 2020, the Tampa Bay Rays won the American League pennant and finished two games shy of winning the World Series.

Overseeing the lower levels of the top-rated minor league system in professional baseball, Brown was charged with:

• Creation of Organizational Hitting Philosophy

• Development of Player.Plans for each player in the system

• Oversight of Coaching Staff and Development

• Integration of data and processes throughout the Farm System

• Onboarding for each draft class

Team Accomplishments

2016 – National Champions
2016 – South Region Champions
2015 – Sunshine State Conference Champions
Regional Appearances in 2011, ’12, ’15, ’16, ’17, ’18, ’19

Coach of the Year Honors

2016 – ABCA Division II National Coach of the Year
2016 – Skip Bertman Award Finalist
2015 – Sunshine State Conference Coach of the Year
2015 – NCBWA South Region Coach of the Year

Greg Brown completed his nine season career as the head coach at Nova Southeastern in the November of 2019, producing a career record of 316-149 (.680), including a 147-80 (.648) mark in SSC play. Brown guided the Sharks to seven NCAA South Region Tournament appearances in his nine years, including the program’s first-ever berth back in 2011, as well as one of just two teams to reach the tournament in each of the last five seasons (’15-’19). Brown led the 2016 club to the program’s first-ever NCAA Division II South Region Championship with a win over Delta State in Tampa, followed by the first-ever NCAA Division II National Championship by defeating Millersville in Cary, N.C, finishing with a program-record 44 wins. In 2015, Brown coached NSU to its first-ever Sunshine State Conference Championship, with a record of 18-6. Since taking over at NSU in 2011, Brown averaged over 35 wins a year in his time with the Sharks.

Named the 2016 Division II National Coach of the Year by the ABCA, the Sharks opened up the 2017 campaign as the No. 1 team in the nation for the first time in the program’s existence, and have now been ranked in the top 10 at some point during the season throughout each of Brown’s nine years. The 2017 season also saw the NSU offense rack up 97 home runs – a new program single-season best and tops in all of Division II during the year.

Since 2011, Brown and NSU had 18 players drafted in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft and has seen a total 35 of his players sign professional contracts, including a program-record 10 following the 2017 season. On September 21, 2016, Carlos Asuaje became the first Major Leaguer coached by Brown at NSU, an honor very few NCAA Division II coaches have experienced, and in 2017, Asuaje became an everyday starter for the San Diego Padres. Since taking over the reins at NSU, Brown has coached nine All-Americans, three Rawlings Gold Glove recipients (Carlos Asuaje, 2B, 2012; Jake Anchia, C, 2018; and Garrett Wolforth, C, 2019), as well as four more regional Gold Glove honors (Asuaje, 2B, 2012; Javi Sujo, 1B, 2012; Asuaje, SS, 2013; and Brett Clements, C, 2013), the 2015 NCAA South Region Player of the Year (Justin Garcia), 23 All-South Region selections, the 2012 and 2015 SSC Players of the Year (Asuaje and Garcia), the 2016 SSC Pitcher of the Year (Alex Mateo), the 2011 and 2019 SSC Freshmen of the Year (Asuaje and Duncan Pastore) and 45 All-SSC selections.

During the summers of 2013 and 2014, Brown served as a Tournament of Stars staff member for the USA Baseball 18U world championship teams that won two world championships. In 2013, he served as assistant coach for the Stars team and in 2014, Brown was the manager of the Stripes team working under the leadership of 18U managers Rob Cooper (Penn State, University of Miami) and Andy Stankiewicz (Grand Canyon University, University of Southern California), respectively. Brown rejoined USA Baseball in 2019 as Field Coordinator for the 16U National Team Development Program.

While Brown has accomplished a great deal on the field at NSU, his vision is bigger than wins and losses. Brown’s off-the-field efforts are a testament to his core values of building a community and developing his players into the young men that are going to make a difference in the world through the values instilled in them during their time at NSU. The NSU baseball program has committed itself to building relationships within the community through volunteer events such as the Miracle League, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Toy Drive, youth and coaching clinics to local optimist clubs, canned food drives, Make-A-Wish, Career Day at local schools and players reading to children at the NSU Library.
 

Brown has committed to continuing to build the relationship between the baseball program and its alumni with the annual NSU Baseball Alumni Golf Tournament, just completing its eighth iteration, as well as launching the NSU Baseball Alumni Newsletter. In recent years, Brown has worked with the Pacific Institute and developed the Shark Leadership Academy within the team, giving opportunities to players to further develop their leadership skills. Brown has always encouraged his student-athletes to be involved, and there is no bigger example than 2015 graduate Roberto “Bubba” Baroniel, who was part of Brown’s second recruiting class. Bubba grew to become student-athlete representative of NSU Athletics, the Sunshine State Conference and NCAA Division II through his work with the Student Athlete Advisory Committee. Bubba was named the NSU and SSC SAAC President and as a junior and the chairman of the NCAA Division II SAAC Board his senior year.