TAMPA, Fla. — Rachel Balkovec is glad to have some time to get ready.
The 34-year-old who will become the first woman to manage an affiliated baseball team when she guides the low Class-A Tampa Tarpons this summer, has had 10 years in baseball to learn and cultivate her leadership style. She’s had three years in the Yankees organization to develop relationships with the players.
But there are some things this spring she is just getting used to that come with the new job, like players calling her “Skip,” the nickname for managers.
“It’s been awesome to have so much support from the players and definitely our staff and our coaches. That was a given but you know, the players calling me ‘Skip’ and everything kind of razzing me a little bit,” Balkovec said after workouts at the Yankees’ minor league mini camp on Wednesday. “But it’s been extremely well received and it feels really natural, to be honest with you.”
Balkovec has made the climb from strength and conditioning coach, to hitting coach to manager in what she has detailed on social media as a long and at times lonely journey. It’s a path she hopes to continue up through the ranks into the major leagues as a manager or possibly a general manager.
But this spring, she’s diving into the challenge of managing.
“I’m grateful for this time to practice. Like these guys are here to prepare and I’m also here, studying every morning, watching video and going through my day and learning aspects of defense and learning our philosophies inside and out on defense that I haven’t been really paying close attention to as a hitting coach,” Balkovec said. “I think that I’m grateful for this time right now and I’m not worried about the beginning of the season right now.”
She joined the Yankees organization in November of 2019 as a minor league hitting coach, becoming the first woman to be named to that role in the history of professional baseball. She was followed a few days later by Rachel Folden of the Chicago Cubs organization and there will be 19 women in uniform this season in baseball.
Prior to joining the Yankees, Balkovec spent three seasons with the Houston Astros organization, serving as the strength and conditioning coach for Double-A Corpus Christi in 2018 and the Rookie-level GCL Astros in 2017. She also worked as the Latin American strength and conditioning coordinator from 2016-17. Prior to that, she was the minor league strength and conditioning coordinator for the St. Louis Cardinals from 2014-15.
Balkovec was also the first woman to be hired as a full-time strength and conditioning coach in affiliated baseball.
So she’s not only used to the interest in her career, she expects it.
“If I am going to get to where I want to go, I am going to have to be able to handle it,” Balkovec said of the attention she has received for breaking glass ceilings in baseball. “It’s part of the job.”
Most Class-A managers have minimal media obligations, but when Balkovec’s season officially begins April 8 at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, it will surely be packed with reporters to mark the history.
Balkovec, however, is focused not on getting herself to that starting point of the season, but getting her charges there.
She’s been at the mini camp featuring the top Yankees minor league players who are not on the 40-man roster (and therefore not locked out by owners in the current labor dispute) working closely with players like Jasson Dominguez and catcher Austin Wells.
“I’m looking forward to spring training with her and I’m excited for the feedback that she’s able to provide,” Wells said.
